Saturday 10th September 2016
We headed to Delamere Forest for the North West Road Relays with three strong teams. The event is complicated by the fact that your team has to be not only all from your club, but also all county qualifiers. So, for example, Rob Downs, Barry Archbold or Janine Ellis cannot run as they are classed as residents of Greater Manchester (who knew Bramhall wasn’t Cheshire?). Thus, we could also field Greater Manchester teams but clearly this leaves our options limited and so we concentrated on Cheshire teams.
The beautiful venue in Delamere Forest was a tricky two lap undulating course through the forest with some uneven surfaces but also very smooth in places. The afternoon was almost perfect conditions as the woods cooled the temperature and most of the puddles dried up!
The quality was clear on arrival as we did battle with the best in the North West. Relays are a wonderful concept as its brings us together more than any other type of race with the total cumulative time being our score.
The girls race went first. Diane Mc, Diane B and Louisa took the team to an excellent 15th overall out of 65 teams, plus, I think 4th Cheshire team (this has for some reason not yet been confirmed in the results). Di Mcvey who is rapidly gaining fitness after the arrival of Rex also ran the ninth fastest leg of the day.
The boys got two teams together which is down to the great enthusiasm for relays from our Group 1 squad.
Team A – Peter, Andrew, Graham and Damian, finished 18th overall and 4th Cheshire team, with both Peter and Damian running in the top ten Cheshire runners. Thanks to Peter and Damian who both ran despite a lack of sharpness – it’s not easy for the elite to put themselves out in the open when not fully fit!!
Team B – Alan, Nick J, Trevor M and Brian packed really well time-wise and finished a very creditable 38th out of 76 teams, with Macclesfield A only two places ahead. Special thanks to Brian who accepted a very late invite to join the team.
Full results are available at – http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2016/nwcrr16r.php
Pictures at – http://www.racephotos.org.uk/
Thanks to Nick B, Roy P, Jez B, lady captain Janine and Bill Yale for the great support. Great to see Trevor and Graham racing again.
Andrew Whittingham
Well done all. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and reminds us all that relays are great fun. Nick.
Great effort one and all .