12 and 6 stage road relays - SIGN UP CLOSES THIS WEEK

The South of England SEAA 12 stage (men) and 6 stage (women) road relays will be held at Gravesend Cycle Park on Saturday 25th March 2017, followed by the ERRA National 12 & 6 stage relays at Sutton Coldfield on Saturday 8th April. Registration for both of these events closes this week. 

The South of England SEAA 12 stage (men) and 6 stage (women) road relays will be held at Gravesend Cycle Park on Saturday 25th March 2017, followed by the ERRA National 12 & 6 stage relays at Sutton Coldfield on Saturday 8th April. These events traditionally mark the changeover from the winter cross-country season to the summer track season and are a great opportunity to experience top level road racing against the best club runners in the country.

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN AND WILL CLOSE ON 10TH MARCH - SIGN UP HERE

Gravesend Cycle Park was a new venue for the Southerns in 2016 and the 2017 event will again be held there. In the women's race, there will two stages of 7.2km and four stages of 4.8km and in the men's race, there will be six stages of 7.2km and six stages of 4.8km. 

To qualify you need to:
  1. Be a FIRST CLAIM member of Serpentine.
  2. Be registered with England Athletics (you can do this in Serpiebase
  3. Be available for the majority of the day (9am to 6pm) to run as well as to support your team mates (although we can be flexible on this if you have other important pre-arranged commitments)

Teams will be selected based on ability and we strongly encourage the faster runners amongst you to step forward to represent your club. With our "strength in depth" we historically do extremely well in this event. If you can run a 5k in 24 mins (women) or 20 mins (men), then you'd be comfortable running in the field. However, please don’t let this be a limitation! If you want to race, no matter your standard then please do register using the link above.

In the men's race, the top 25 clubs (out of ~60) will be going to the National ERRA 12 stage road relays. In the past five years, Serpentine men have qualified two teams for the Nationals (best results ever in 2014 with A team in 5th position and B team in 19th) and it would be great to repeat this in 2017. The women qualify automatically for the National ERRA 6 stage road relays, held at the same location and date as the men's nationals. We would like you to sign up for both Southerns and Nationals, but YOU CAN STILL DO THE SOUTHERNS EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR THE NATIONALS AND VICE-VERSA.

So if you want to participate please SIGN UP now. In the comments box please write:
  1. Your expected 5km time on the day (so NOT your PB - the standard you expect to be on the day taking into account fitness, training, previous illnesses. etc
  2. Any comments, e.g. injuries which might cause a problem, if you have a preference for a short or long leg, or if you would be unwilling to run in an incomplete team.
Please remove your name from the list as soon as you realise you cannot run so we can keep track of the state of the teams.

Remember if you are training for a marathon you can easily do a lap warm-up, followed by your race, followed by a few laps warm down and, hey presto, you've done a long run with a quality 20mins section! There may even be Serpie baking to re-fuel!

We will travel together to Gravesend, paid for by the club. Travel details will be confirmed in due course.

We're looking forward to seeing the sign-up sheet fill up fast!

If you have any questions regarding the men's team please contact Peter Holmes and for the women's team please contact Sarah Pemberton

Submitted: 15 February 2017

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