Serpie men's and women's teams win Green Belt Relay
Our men's team won the race by over 9 minutes ahead of London Frontrunners and were the only team to complete the course in under 24 hours. Our women's team were 8th overall and won the women's trophy.
From early on Saturday morning until well into Sunday evening it was almost non-stop Serpie action in the Green Belt Relay for our 4 Serpie teams, with only a short overnight break in 'Bas Vegas' for refuelling and sleep.
From Hampton Court to Ham the long way round in 22 stages, we picked up a fair number of stage-winner t-shirts despite having more than our average numbers of navigational errors which lost us time on quite a few stages. Those little off-route excursions turned it into a close race with Frontrunners who led the way for most of day 1 but we managed to keep on track slightly better on day 2 and finished ahead, although it was pretty much down to the last stage to decide it!
Our men's team were the overall winners and the only team to go under 24 hours for the event. Our women's team were category winners, 8th overall and took the Queens of the Mountains prize. There was some healthy rivalry between Serpentine 3 & 4, with Serpentine 4 just coming in front of Serpentine 3, finishing in 21st and 22nd places respectively and only 10 minutes apart. The finishing team times were Serpentine 1: 23:53:10; Serpentine 2: 27:20:36; Serpentine 4: 30:09:19; Serpentine 3: 30:18:51.
We had 21 stage wins including 5 double stage winners: Andy Reeves (stage 2), Liz Wynn (stages 4 & 12), Sarah Pemberton (stage 5), Hugh Torry (stages 6 & 16), Helen Palmer (stages 7 & 14), Richard Taylor (stages 8 & 22), Jen Bradley (stage 8), Sarah Kiriluk (stages 10 & 19), David Evans (stage 10), Bartosz Porzuczek (stage 13), Katie Williams (stage 15), Simon Barrett (stage 17), Rachael Thompson (stage 17), Karen Gregory (stage 18), James Edgard (stage 20), and Marta Bagnati (stage 20). Special thanks also go to Jen Bradley who stepped in to run stage 22 at the last minute, as well as running the long and very hilly stage 16, to ensure that the Serpie women's team finished when one runner fell ill.
Thanks a lot to all our drivers: Liz Wynn, Jen Bradley, Sally Hodge, Rob Whitmarsh, Nick Fairclough, Gavin Edmonds and Adrian Champman, without whom who we could take part - it's a lot of work on top of the racing - and to everyone who ran, marshalled, handed out water, cheered, took photos and baked.
Full results are on www.greenbeltrelay.org.uk
Ian Hodge
Submitted: 18 May 2015