Sunday report: Senior men’s teams

The senior men’s team have had several top 5 finishes in the 6 stage relays in the last few years, including two lots of silver medals. This year, however, the team knew that they would be hard pressed to even finish in the top 25 (the position needed to qualify for the national road relays) given injuries and other racing commitments for key runners. It was a chance though to blood some newcomers and team spirit was good throughout. The course was over a two lap course of 6km in distance with one short hill and one longer hill each lap.

Jack Bancroft opened proceedings, running maturely on a competitive first leg to run the team’s quickest leg with a time of 19.43 and 31^st place. Eliot Haimes, despite not having raced recently, then ran well to gain 6 places with a time of 19.46. Third leg was run by Alistair Lindsay, suffering from the after effects of a cold, but nevertheless performing solidly in running 20.35 and just losing 2 places. Ed Knudsen has recently joined the club and he will prove a useful acquisition, running 19.57 and gaining 5 places on leg4. Alex Wiltshire, at 17, is now old enough to run in the men’s team, but found this a tough debut slipping to 31^st place with a time of 21.30. Jon Gilling solidly brought the team to the finish in 31st place with a time of 21.16.

Matthew Lewis ran a solid 21.25 first leg (70^th) for the B team and Pete Darton then followed this up on leg 2 with a 22.47 clocking (76^th position). The remaining 4 legs were run by runners who had already run once, or twice in the case of Dickie Wythe! Times and team positions were: Simon Prior, 24.28 (79^th); Jack Bancroft, 21.34 (73^rd); Dickie Wythe, 23.14 (71^st); Matthew Lewis, 23.06 (71^st).

Veteran team reports to follow

(3 teams across V40 & V50 age groups competed)