12 Wells Harrier Teams in Southern Road Relays at
Great turn out by combined Wells & Yeovil
athletes
Saturday & Sunday Sept 28th & 29th
There were 12 Harrier teams
taking part in the South of England Road Relay Championships spanning all the
age groups from u13s to Veteran 50+ at
The relays took part at the
Rushmoor arena in
Wells City Harriers,
combined with athletes from Yeovil Olympiads, had teams entered in 12 different
age groups, and finished complete teams in 9 of them. Completed team positions:
Senior Men 12th (A team) & 61st (B team)
V40 Men 17th
V50 Men 9th
U13 girls 14th
U13 boys 12th
U15 girls 36th (A team) & 46th
(B team)
U15 boys 20th
This is an excellent set of
results and all individuals that ran performed to the best of their ability.
The Harriers have a great tradition in these races –with the senior men winning
silver in 2 of the past 3 years and junior teams finishing in the top ten on a
number of occasions. Many thanks to team managers and all parents that
supported.
Saturday report:
Although missing a couple of
their top runners, through injury and other racing commitments, the Wells
senior men’s team performed well to finish 12th and qualify for the
national championships in 3 weeks time. What was particularly pleasing was the
commitment shown by four of the team in travelling to the event from far flung
places in the country:
Ben Tickner
may not have been racing much recently, but he showed his class by running the
quickest time for leg 3, 18.14, and in the process pulled the team up 12
places. Jon James moved the team up
a further 2 places in 18.56, a time that would have placed him second quickest
of the day in the veterans competition.
Andrew Hennessey’s competitive nature meant that the team finished leg 5 in the top 10 as
he pulled up 3 more places in running 18.16. The glory leg fell to Alan Jones and although he could not
hold the places that Andrew had gained, he did not let anyone down by running a
solid 20.20. The B team finished 61st – well done on runs from Matthew Lewis (21.03), Tim Hawkins (20.29), Dave Wythe (24.15), Pete Grist (20.29), Dave Stanfield (26.08|) and Another (21.21).
For the veteran men, the
best team performance was by the V50 team who despite age are really ultra
competitive. Dickie Wythe set the
ball rolling on leg one and came home in 3rd place with his excellent
21.52, and this indicates he is right back on form. Clive Harwood took over with his great 22.33, 5th place,
before handing on to two of the club’s stalwarts who had only the week before
competed for the Club at the South of England Fell Running Championships consisting of 3 races in 2 days. Pete Wright and Paul Chadwick ran solid 25.14 and 25.02 and finished the team in 9th
place.
The V40 team was a little
short of athletes but nevertheless it was great to see Team manager Dave Stanfield run a 24.25 leg before
handing on to Jason Tuck, making his
debut for the team, with a 23.13 before legs 3 and 4 were covered
Sunday report
Following on the success of
the senior and veteran men on the Saturday it was the turn of the Club’s
juniors and senior women on the Sunday. They ran well and helped to ensure that
the Team ended the weekend as the most successful club in
For the u13 boys the quartet
of Matthew Cole, James Todd, Charlie Martin
and Oliver Fox had a great balance of experience, in the form of the first
two runners, and newcomers, the last two leg runners. The mix paid off as they
finished a great 12th place overall. Matthew ran a strong first leg
of 11.13 over the 3km circuit, and then handed on in 18th place to James
with11.56, and on to Charlie, a newcomer to the Harriers, with 12.30, and then
on to Oliver who has been getting stronger with every race this summer. Oliver managed
to overhaul 6 other teams on the circuit to bring the team home in 12th
and clocked one of the fastest times of the day with his 10.52. Matthew had
been competing the day before in the multi events and despite that still
clocked a time that was 47 seconds faster than last year, and James was also
much quicker than a year ago
The u’15 girl’s race saw two
Harrier teams out competing over 3km each leg. This was great to see as there
was good spirit amongst the youngsters as they warmed up for the event. Kayley Kennedy for the A team and Roxanna Colebatch for the B team set
the teams away, recording 12.15 and 14.00 respectively. Siobhan Stewart with 12.29 and Jessica
Potter, 12.39, were the second leg runners. Then Jessica Wood, 12.31, and Lauren
Willows, 11.50 finished off proceedings bringing the teams home in 36th
and 46th places. Particularly for those making their debuts at this
event, these were some good times and level headed performances. Kayley, Lauren
and Jess all ran last year.
In the u’17 age group teams
there were withdrawals from the teams before the day but it was decided to
encourage those able to run to compete so as to record a time against their
counterparts from across the region. Lizzie
Hart ran an excellent 12.12 before handing on to Leighanna Chappell who ran 12.17 to leave the team in 21st
place before proceedings came to a halt. Alex Wiltshire in the u17 race ran a
good 13.03 over 3.8km despite being the only Harrier that could make the event
due to a number in this age group now working on a Sunday.
For the senior women late
withdrawals left the team incomplete but Nicola
Morgan with 13.56 and Anna Lewis
with 14.05 for the 3.8km course ran well judged races to leave the team in 9th
place at the end of the 2nd leg. Both Nicola and Anna have recently
been thriving on Triathlons – both having competed well at the previous
weekend’s Langport Tri.
Next Team competition will be the Gwent XC League match at Bridgend on
Sunday Oct 12th. Contact Paul if you can run. chair@wellscityharriers.org.uk