CLC Striders race report for Midland Autumn 4 & 6 Stage Road Relays
Widely regarded as the best team competition on the racing calendar, a squad of 20 Striders travelled to the Sutton Park, in Sutton Coldfield to compete in the Midland 4 & 6 Stage Road Relays on Saturday. Despite the torrential downpours on Friday and the threat of further poor weather conditions on race day, the Striders were delighted to see the sun shining on their arrival in Sutton Park.
With many of the members who regularly compete at this fixture unavailable on the day, it was great to see some of our newer recruits stepping up to represent the club. Some last minute changes to runner availability gave the newly appointed team captains a challenge on their first official duty but two women’s teams and two men’s teams were assembled to compete over the gruelling course of 4.33km and 5.88km relays respectively .
In the mass start for leg 1 of the men’s race Jamie Hartnoll got the race underway for the A team and Jack Wilde led the B team off in his road relays debut, Hartnoll battled well after flying out of the traps to come home in 23:28, handing over to John Comer who ran his fastest ever time around the challenging course to tick off leg 2 in 21:12. Wilde also ran a strong first leg in 26:21 and handed over to Joel Freeland on leg 2, making his 5th appearance at the event and clocking 23:56.
Adam Greenwood and Tim Brock took on leg 3, running 23:05 and 25:07 respectively before two more excellent relay debuts were made on leg 4 by Gavin Woods (22:55) and Andy Richardson (23:49) Leg 5 saw Jon Howes have his 6th crack at the course, clocking a solid 23:23 having only been slotted into the A team at short notice. Rob Hyams on his first race back after a serious injury ran 24:51 to take nearly a minute off of his time in last year’s event.
Rounding off the relay on leg 6 were another two Striders making their road relays debut, setting off in a mass start gave James Endicott and Liam Richardson plenty of runners to work with and hunt down, Endicott ran smartly to clock 22:10 and Richardson ran the fastest leg of the day for the Striders B team in 23:33. The combined time for the A team was 2:16:13 for 63rd position out of 98, the B team locked in a finishing time of 2:27:37 for 80th place.
In the women’s competition Ladies Co-Captain Helen Knight got things underway on leg 1 for the Masters team with a fantastic time of 16:59 which was just one second shy of her fastest time over the course in six attempts. Morwenna Suleiman, took over on leg 2 and ran an excellent 19:19 in her first relays outing before passing on to Steph Parker who ran 19:50 on leg 4. The team was brought to the finish line by seasoned road relay veteran Liza Bradshaw, running 18:03 to see the masters team, who were back to back silver medal winners in 2022 and 2023, finish in 9th place with a time of 1:14:11.
The ladies team of Laura Elsworthy (21:03), Hifsa O’Kelly (22:31), Heather Ip (24:21) and Laura Leaver (20:48) combined for a 61st place finish with a time of 1:28:43. The ladies on legs 1 to 3 were all making their first appearance in this prestigious event, and were supported by the experienced Leaver on the final leg who ran almost a minute faster than in 2023.
All in all it was a fantastic team day out and huge credit goes to all involved who gave a considerable chunk of their day to represent the club at this famous event. We look forward to returning to Sutton Park to compete at the 6 & 12 Stage relays in March.