South of
Wells City Harriers senior men’s squad were in action on the
Sunday and were considerably bolstered by the return to form of the Tickner
brothers, both of whom have had considerable injury problems in the past year
or so. Jack Bancroft got the A team
underway running 20.24 for the two lap 6 km course and coming in 56th
of the near 90 teams that started the event. Many teams put their best runners
on first leg so this was a solid run from Jack.
Frank Tickner
then tore through the field, overtaking 41 people and recording a time of
17.59. In the blustery conditions this was an outstanding run, one of only two
times under 18 minutes for the day. Eliot
Haimes has also been out of action for a while and so made a promising
return in running 20.21 for the third leg. Although he lost a few places the
team was still in 23rd position, inside the top 25 position needed
for qualification for the national road relays.
Not to be outdone, Ben
Tickner then moved the team back up 12 places to 11th position
with a fine run of 18.13, good enough for equal 12th fastest of the
day. Alex Wiltshire is still new to
this level of competition but kept the team in the frame by running 21.09 on
fifth leg. It was now down to Andrew Hennessy
on the last leg to make sure the team kept this 19th position and
despite having run very little recently he did just that with a 20.31 clocking.
Qualification achieved and now a tilt at the national relays in 3 weeks time.
The B team only had one “first time” runner in Pete Darton and was then made up of
athletes who had already run once. Pete wasn’t daunted by the pace of the field
and ran steadily for 22.30 on the first leg.
More to follow….
& SEE
JUNIOR & WOMENS REPORT ON Sept 25th Results tab