Serpentine had 5 teams racing in the Green Belt Relay this year; 55 runners plus 3 non-running helpers, although everyone taking part helped in some way: either driving, navigating, marshalling or doing water stations.

At the start line in Hampton Court it wasn’t very clear who the competition might be this year but as the day went by it became very clear that London Frontrunners had entered a very strong team and by the end of the day our men’s team were trailing by 16 minutes and wondering whether they could catch up. Unfortunately this was not to be the case and Frontrunners pulled ahead even further on Sunday. In the end, we came second, trailing by 40 minutes. Well done to Frontrunners for putting together such a strong team!

For our ladies team, it was a different story altogether as they won the first stage and stayed in first place throughout the entire weekend, although Clapham Chasers and Ranelagh gave us some good racing on many stages. Indeed Clapham women managed two outright stage wins!

By the end of the weekend, our men had won 7 stages and our women 8 stages (from 22). Karine Pradier, Jeff Cunningham, Andrew Mercer and Andrew Reeves each broke the stage record on one of their stages. Our women’s team broke the overall course record for a women’s team, finishing in 26:34:33.

Meanwhile, our three mixed teams, which I’d tried to balance out as much as possible, had their own private race to see who could finish highest up the finishing order at the end, and on some occasions one or the other of them finished ahead of our A team runners!

Final results:

2. Serpie men 22:36:17
9. Serpie women 26:34:33 (1st ladies)
17. Serpie mixed A 28:35:08
18. Serpie mixed C 29:25:03
22. Serpie mixed B 31:15:33