Middlesex Road Relay Champs – Minet Park – Sun 11 Sept 2016

The Middlesex Road Relay Championships have long been a regular autumn fixture for our young athletes, but this year the seniors got to take part too. The course follows the cycle track at Minet Park and – for the seniors – an off-road section of the country park. With many roadrunners focused on training for the Ealing Half, attendance from the seniors was a little patchy, but the weather was glorious, and those who went had an enjoyable afternoon.

Twenty-nine juniors and sixteen seniors competed for the club, and it was on occasion difficult to work out team positions during the race, as the event also incorporated the Herts championship. However, we came home with one individual County title, a team silver and four third-placed teams.

The Under 11s ran a straight 1500m race, and new member Nicole Bartlett was first female overall in an impressive time of 5:34. Otto Lawrence, Tyler Offah and Jeremiah Hartford finished 7th, 8th and 9th in the boys’ race.

Our female squad was slightly more successful overall, with the club’s Under 15, Under 17 and senior teams all finishing third.

The U15 team of Lucy O’Brien, Fiona Coutts and Estelle Belgrave did well to claim medals given Fiona and Estelle are still only 13. While the first two teams were well ahead, they had only a five second lead over Thames Valley Harriers B team.

The U17 squad of Nicola Ravenhill, Roisin Lynch and Laura Stewart (pictured right) also had to work hard to claim third, with only six seconds separating them from both Shaftesbury Barnet and Thames Valley Harriers B. Cameron Thomas also had a good run despite not being part of a full team.

Sarah Richardson led off the senior A team (pictured below), but newcomer Lucy Ellis made an impressive debut in the B team, trading places with Sarah the whole way round. Both were given the same time, but Lucy just outsprinted her to the line. Shona Cowper and Sarah Harris took over from Sarah on legs two and three respectively, maintaining third place throughout. Louise Prince and Carol Jones completed the B team, which finished sixth, while Fiona Kennedy tested out her legs after a long injury lay-off.

 

For the U17 men, John Fielding, Jack Whittaker and George Kerry took silver. John finished leg one in third, and Jack maintained this, while the pressure was taken off George somewhat by Highgate’s failure to close their team when placed second at the end of leg two. Luke Adar (pictured below right with Nicola and John) and Davide Lamagna took part in the same race but lacked a third team member.

The U13 boys’ team of Finn Combe, Najiib Hersi and older brother Mahiis placed third, with each leg run progressively quicker. Finn was in fifth at the end of leg one, but Najiib was within sight of the three teams immediately ahead and managed to reel in both Harrow and Highgate. Mahiis had to work hard to hold off Highgate as they closed the gap on the final leg. Marco Lamagna put in a solid run on leg one but had no-one to hand over to.

The U15 boys were the biggest squad, with three full teams. As so often happens when picking relay teams, the three fastest runners weren’t all in the same team! Luckily, it didn’t deprive anyone of a medal, though we could have finished one place higher. In the event, our first team placed sixth, thanks to Ilyes Iman, Louis Rodericks and Sudeys Hersi. The B team of Kane Foster, Matteo Lamagna and Arun Manget finished in seventh, three-quarters of a minute behind. Jamal Muse, Felix Mountford and Mikey Kouwiloyan were some way adrift in 14th.

The three teams of senior men finished eighth, ninth and tenth. Tom Yates ran the fastest leg for the club when leading off the A team, handing over to Kirill Kondrasin and Jav Sondh. It was left to the club’s veterans to fill the remaining places, Angelo John producing the fastest time.