English National Road Relays

We said we\’d meet at 08:20 in Euston for the train to Sutton Coldfield. Arriving at 08:15 I was a little worried when our train, the 08:37, was suspiciously missing from the departures board. \”I\’ll worry about that when the team turns up, I thought to myself.\” By 08:25, Emma, Catherine and Grainne had arrived, but where was Helen? A brief phone call later confirmed the worst: she was still in bed! Leaving Helen in a panic, rushing to try to get to Euston, we checked the train. Sure enough, our reserved seats were on a train which no longer existed. Thanks very much Virgin Trains 🙁
Luckily, other trains were quite soon and not over booked so Emma, Grainne and Catherine headed off to Birmingham on the 09:03 while I waited for Helen. Amazingly, we caught the 09:10 and we all met up in Birmingham. The day can only get better I thought. It did.
The National Road Relays are held every spring and Autumn, being 12/6 stage (men/women) in spring and 6/4 stage in the autumn. Our team today had to run 4x 4.314km.
Catherine Wilding took the first stage and found herself lining up against international runner Helen Clitheroe, amongst others. The standard is high! Placing 39th from 98 starters, we were very pleased. Emma Calderbank, running stage 2 also finished in 39th so we didn\’t gain anything, but we didn\’t lose anything either! Handing over to Grainne O\’Donnell, we started moving forward in the placings as she finished in 37th. Then it was over to Helen, our anchor from the southern championships. Storming home in the fastest Serpie time of the day, she moved up 7 places to finish 30th overall. With two B teams ahead, that made us 28th fastest female club in England 🙂
The final times for the team were as follows:
Catherine 15:57
Emma 16:55
Grainne 16:51
Helen 15:49
Follow the link for full results.
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