Virtual National Road Relay Championships

4-9 April 2020

 

What started up as a small idea to replace the National Road Relay 5k Championships became a national sensation with over 5000 athletes of all abilities entering. As always, LBAC, not wanting to miss out on these things and mix the big clubs, got involved!

 

Firstly, we had 32 individuals from the club entering a time. Two of these ran their first ever run for the club, albeit a slightly strange one all alone! Well done and welcome to Nicola Mellor and Michael Lovell.

 

A second thing to note before we look in more detail at the final results, is how may people posted some fast times, with some even posting PBs. Particularly impressive when these runs were done alone with nobody to race against. For these people, we definitely need to see you entering a proper 5k race when this is all over!

 

Lastly, thank you to Pete Mackrell and Amy Inchley and whoever else had a part in the idea for suggesting that the club would donate our refunded entry fee for the cancelled Southern Road Relay 5k Championships to the NHS. This was picked up by the organisers of these virtual relays and other clubs have definitely shared. Thank you too to all of you who took part in posting the NHS info on your own runs.

 

 

Now, down to the results.

Most impressive perhaps based on the history of the club is how well the ladies team performed. In previous years to even have a team of 6 would have been a struggle, but instead we actually managed a squad of 12! The team of 6 however finished in the top half in 48^th position out of 98. Bearing in mind that other local clubs such as Milton Keynes did not even manage a team of 6, this is really good going. If we’re able to recreate this form and turnout into the next Cross Country season it looks like it could be one of the best yet!

The men’s team of 12 (from a squad of 20) managed to finish 66^th out of 110 so a little bit of work to be done to replicate the ladies position! However, the men’s vet team of 40+ carried on the great form from last season’s Chiltern League and finished in 28^th position out of 76. This really shows again what a great squad of old boys the club has!

The age graded team competition took a team of 12 from each club based on their age graded performance including both men and women. The club finished 82^nd out of 143 teams in this category. Considering some of the best in the country competed in this virtual relay, LBAC has done itself proud yet again.

 

Individually, there were a number of good performances to mention, particularly those who finished well in their age groups.

 

Nick Clay led the way finishing in 32^nd in the M55 category, Ian Grimshaw finished in 51^st in the M45 category and Liz Peters finished in 65^th position in the W40 category.

Others that finished in the top 100 in their category and deserve a mention were, Rob Elmore (82^nd, M35), Mandy Clay (88^th, W50), Katie Haylock (95^th, W35) and Amy Inchley (97^th, W35).

 

The LBAC times can be seen below with the full team results here.