National 12 Stage Road Relay 2008, Sutton Park

A strong Wells City Harriers team lined up for the premier event in the Road Relay calendar, hoping to improve on their previous best finish of 17^th in 2005.

The race consists of 1 long (5.3 miles) and 1 short leg ( 3miles) repeated 6 times.

The event is stacked with history, with all of Britain’s great middle distance stars from the past 30years, such as Brendan Foster, Dave Bedford, Dave Moorcroft, Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe, having competed at one time or another over this tough, undulating course

Eliot Haimes got the team off to a steady start moving through the field after being back in 40^th place, after the initial rush up the big hill, at the start of the course. He eventually moved through to finish 24^th with his time of 27min50sec.Street’s Jack Bancroft ran strongly on the first of the short legs recording 16 min 25sec to more or less hold the teams position in the first third of the race, coming home in 27^th.

British International Ben Tickner, still on his comeback after a long time out through injury, ran cautiously for the first half of his stage before putting the burners on and passing 9 teams to bring Wells up into 18^th place ( 26min 47sec). Interesting to note that one of the teams passed by Ben, was Altrincham, represented by former harrier Tom Bush (now living in Manchester running 29min 43sec).

Ben’s younger brother Frank was next away, looking to improve on his outstanding run of last year when he ran the second fastest time of the day. He looked majestic as he scythed through the field to bring Wells up into 11^th place, running even faster than last year with 13min 55sec. This was the fastest time on leg 4 and again the second fastest time overall for the 6 short legs, only beaten by Olympian Andy Baddeley.

The teams running doctor Andrew Hennessy continued the forward progress on stage 5, running 27 min38 sec to bring the team up to 9^th just over 3minutes behind the race leader Birchfield’s J Ndayesenga( Kenya). On stage 6, Jon Gilling, still recovering from his exploits in the London Marathon, ran a solid 16min 23sec to slip just a few places back to 14^th.

The race was very competitive at this stage with 10 clubs all still within 1minute of each other. Cardiff University student Pete Grist was next away and raced well to hold onto 14^th spot, but was a little disappointed with his time of 28min59sec. Street’s Rob Parfitt did well to stay in contention, (15^th) with his 16min47sec effort considering this was a return to racing after a long lay off due to illness.

Allan Jones, who was also still recovering from his excellent performance in the London Marathon, unfortunately found Long leg 9 just a little bit too much for his already stretched reserves and struggled over the final few miles but still managed to hold onto 15^th spot( 30min 05). Club stalwart Eddie Richards seems to have finally sorted out his injury problems and, although not having raced for several months, he managed to produce a sub 16min performance(!5min 59sec) to keep the club in 15^th spot and their hopes of a best ever performance alive.

British International marathon runner Adrian Marriot was out on leg 11 and looked ‘economy in motion’ as he cruised round the 5.3 mile course in 27min 01sec to overtake two teams and hand over to Jon James running the last short leg in 13^th place. Although Jon has not been able to train much at all over the last few months, he still retains that special something which all class athletes need to possess. He ran 15min 45sec to pass one more team and bring Wells home to their highest ever finish in this classic event in 12^th place behind race winners Leeds City.

Well done boys!