Yesterday was my first race in the South of England Athletic Association Stage 12 Relays. The event was held at Gravesend Cyclopark and consisted of six stages of, supposedly, 4.8k and six stages of 7.2k although everyone I spoke to had different distances on their Garmins. Everyone was given a leg to run and it alternated between long and short. I had a short leg.
Which thankfully was just right for me, both in terms of my pace, I am the slowest in the team and the week leading up to the event the whole family was ill, including myself the night before. That said, I was very pleased with my time and effort on the day, all things considered.
The cyclopark is a nice place to run, some hills and being open, it was quite windy but enough room to over take, or get lapped as it was in my case. and after the cross country season nice to not be running in spikes.
A lot of friends run both in my team and others teams and it was a great boost to have a member of a rival team giving me encouragement on my leg.
There were some great runs from my team, including, Tewelde, Simon, Allen, Cameron, Neill, Mark, Gareth, Tom, who, when handling over to me scared the daylights out of me he was going a fast! Also Alun who had a brilliant run, someone who I’ve had a great cross country season battling with ran nearly half a minute faster.
But the best news of all, by coming 24th, the team qualified for the national championships in Birmingham. A great achievement, considering half the team are veterans.
Well done all.