Only our second ever appearance at these 6-stage National Road Relays in Birmingham, writes Team Manager Jamie Taylor-Caldwell. We didn’t quite manage our 46th place finish from 2007, but 53rd was still a good result.
Ben Waterman got us off to an excellent start, with ESM’s fastest run on this course by 16 seconds. It was Oliver Way’s first experience of the tough, undulating Sutton Park course, and he had an excellent finish when he was caught by the women’s leaders and he made sure to stay ahead of them! Chris Hepworth maintained our 53rd place with another sub 20 minute time just a few seconds down on his clocking from 2017. Mukhtar Farah had a tough day, but bounced back very well at the Met League the following week. Nick Steel was suffering from food poisoning all week so did a good job to overcome that. Jamie Taylor-Caldwell was very pleased to be within 30 seconds of his 2017 time, having had an injury plagued last 2 years.
An enjoyable team outing, stopping on the way home to watch the World Champs Men’s 1500m final! Hopefully this will be the start of consistent visits to this fixture, to test ESM against the best clubs in the country.
ESM results summary:
50 Ben Waterman 18:45, 53 Oliver Way 19:28, 53 Chris Hepworth 19:52, 56 Mukhtar Farah 21:24, 56 Nick Steel 21:07, 53 Jamie Taylor-Caldwell 19:34
Full results on runbritain