4&6 stage SEAA Relays - Results and race report

Men's A team 18th, qualifying for the Nationals, and the Ladies A team were 6th at the Southern Road Relays in Aldershot.

Picture from 4&6 stage SEAA Relays - Results and race report

Last weekend the glorious sunshine came out to support out Ladies and Men's Southern Road Relay teams at Aldershot.

Serpentine took 4 Ladies teams on Saturday afternoon to Rushmore Arena and arrived in the midst of cheering parents, coaches and team mates as the Juniors races were already underway. After finding out usual spot, having the team photo done, familiarising ourselves with the course and team orders and applying suncream it was nearly time to go. There was the usual fight to be on the start line and then we were off. Helen Palmer stormed the first leg for the A team clocking 13:22, the fastest Serpie time of the afternoon and the 12th fastest time of the day! Strong consistent performances from the remaining A team (Sarah Pemberton, Lauren Roe, Marta Bagnati) brought them home in a time of 56:36 in 6th place, our best placing since 2010 - well done ladies! 

The B and C teams started their tussle, with Liz (who stepped in to fill a gap on Friday afternoon) bringing the C team home just ahead of the B team after the first leg. The teams remained close to each other for the remainder of the race with the B team coming home in 1:01:52 and the C team in 1:02:42 to take 30th place and 34th place, respectively. Our D team had a battle of their own against many other clubs A teams and ran a strong race closing on 1:07:41, 57th place out of 64 complete senior ladies teams.

Our men teams raced on Sunday: first to kick off the day at noon were our Vets (Alex Elferink, Tom Poynton, Rich Bartlett and new member Adrian Kerr), who batlled against some very strong teams and finished in 38th place overall and 26th in the M40 category.

At 14:30, the senior men race started with three Serpies teams lined up. The A team moved up through the field for the entire race and finished in 18th place with a time of 1:58:44: it was nearly impossible to repeat the 2nd place of last year due to some of our fastest runners been out for injuries, but this result is in line with our previous performances and will allow our club to be represented in the Nationals once again. Well done to Jon Poole for the fastest time of the day (18:37) and the rest of the team for some solid and consistent runs (Jon Bradford, Hugh Torry, Ben Tolprutt, Martin O'Connell and Andy Greenleaf). Our B team closed in 41st position with a time of 2:06:34 well ahead of many A and B teams of other clubs, while our C team battled for a final 62nd (2:16:43) out of 69 full teams which completed the race. 

Thanks to all the ladies and men who came and ran their hearts out in both days! It was fanstastic to see many new faces alongside our regulars and we are sure everybody had great fun.

Full results available at this link: three ladies teams and one men's team will be competing at the National Road Relays on 3rd October at Sutton Coldfield. Good luck to our runners!!

Jo&Nick

Submitted: 21 September 2015

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