Mixing with the Big Boys and Girls

The SEAA 12 and 6 Stage Road relays.

24th March 2019

 

 

The SEAA Men’s 12-stage and the Women’s 6-stage Road Relays returned to Stantonbury in Milton Keynes  on Sunday 24 March and it was great to see two teams from LBAC mixing it up with the best in the south of England.

Both the men’s and women’s races are a mix of short and long legs, with the short being just a few metres more than 5k and the long being approximately 7.7k.

 

After a lot of chopping and changing with people unable to run due to injuries, it was an achievement in itself that we managed to have the full compliment of 18 runners.

 

The men’s race starts at 12noon with the ladies at 1.00pm and Billy Mead was first up for the club. With his usual tactics of starting fast and seeing if he could hold on, he sped out of Stantonbury and returned from the long leg in a decent position to hand on to Adam Haylock who stepped it up on the day compared to recent form and will be hoping that this can kick start his year.

 

Next up was Tom Inchley who is on the comeback from injury whilst feeling not-so-fresh from new born baby duties, but as usual for the Inchley clan he performed on the day with another solid long leg to pass on to Sam Dear. By this point the field was extremely stretched and so Sam only saw two people on the course, but managed to catch both and finished with a Season’s best 5k time. Again, like Adam, something to build on.

Meanwhile the ladies had started their race and Kas was the first to head out from Stantonbury track in purple and gold, also still recovering from injury, but she got through for the team to pass on to Jo Sharples. Jo flew round the long leg and was the 28th fastest on the day out of 65 with a time of 29:53.

At this point both teams were a third of the way through with the men in 45th place out of 50 and women 31st out of 34.

Taking over from Jo was Amy Farnfield who ran a strong short leg followed by Liz Peters who was at this point battling it out with the team from St Albans.

Will Eastman took the baton for the men next with his first proper outing for the club and showed he definitely has the potential for some good times in the rest of 2019. Ben Corfield ran the fastest short leg for LBAC on the day in 17:58 as he popped down on the train from Sheffield to do some fast running in purple and gold.

Rob Elmore blitzed round the long leg in 26:40 to gain the team a few places followed by Matthew Brooks who held the position nicely.

Two thirds of the way through the races and the men were now in 41st place out of 47 and the women in 27th out of 31. A few teams were starting to drop out but thanks to the dedication of some of the LBAC members we were able to continue with full squads.

Matthew handed on the baton to Pete Mackrell who had an excellent run and much like the battle they had in the Cross Country season, Pete and Rob were only a second apart on the day for the fastest LBAC long leg in 26:39. Tim Inchley hadn’t run for a month but was drafted in to make sure we had a full team and will be pleased to have run a decent 5k time from no training. Fingers crossed he will be back soon.

Fiona McLeish ran the penultimate leg for the ladies and held her position nicely before passing on to Jane Sauer for the glory leg to finish 26th out of 27.

The men’s final duo of Ian Grimshaw and Warren Rose closed off a good team performance and finished in a final position of 37 out of 43.

 

Although the finishing positions aren’t near the top of the table at all, they should still be praised as this is a very strong competition with all the big boys and girls across the whole south of England. LBAC are one of the smallest clubs to even consider taking part and so for that we should all be proud of the showing we put on that afternoon.

 

Well done to everybody and hopefully we can have a full pool of people to choose from. It’s certainly worth mixing with the fast runners and big clubs at these events.

 

Full results can be found here. With the LBAC runners below:

 

37 32 Leighton Buzzard AC 4:41:49
1 132 A32 Billy Mead 27:07 45 27:07
2 232 B32 Adam Haylock 19:08 46 0:46:15
3 332 C32 Thomas Inchley 29:28 47 1:15:43
4 432 D32 Sam Dear 18:23 45 1:34:06
5 532 G32 William Eastman 29:41 46 2:03:47
6 632 H32 Benjamin Corfield 17:58 44 2:21:45
7 732 J32 Robert Elmore 26:40 41 2:48:25
8 832 K32 Matthew Brooks 20:21 41 3:08:46
9 932 M32 Peter Mackrell 26:39 39 3:35:25
10 1032 P32 Timothy Inchley 19:26 39 3:54:51
11 1132 S32 Ian Grimshaw 27:15 38 4:22:06
12 1232 T32 Warren Rose 19:43 38 4:41:49

43 teams finished.

 

26 84 Leighton Buzzard AC 2:37:58
1 184 A84 Kassia Gardner 25:44 34 0:25:44
2 284 B84 Johanna Sharples 29:53 31 0:55:37
3 384 C84 Amy Farnfield 21:02 28 1:16:39
4 484 D84 Elizabeth Peters 34:38 27 1:51:17
5 584 G84 Fiona McLeish 23:54 27 2:15:11
6 684 H84 Jane Sauer 22:47 26 2:37:58

27 teams finished