ERRA Women's 6-Stage Road Relay, Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield

Belles well satisfied with top twenty placing

With the nationals being pulled ahead of the marathon for the first time ever the team was looking forward to racing the course on considerably fresher legs than usual.

With the exception of young Catherine Bryson it was very much a case of the 'old' girls doing their bit. The average age of the Belles (at 33) is considerably higher than the boys managed, but with age comes experience and this team used that experience to deliver a top 20 position as predicted.

Stage 1

Team captain, Juliette Clark, took the first leg challenge on knowing that it would be a competitive battle over a blustery course. In good shape in the lead up to London. Jules clocked the Belles fastest leg of the day bringing the team home in the top 30 as planned. Up front Hattie Dean clocked the fastest overall leg of the day on 16.16.

Stage 2

Helen Smethurst took over leg 2 and having run well on the roads of late was expecting another strong performance. Unfortunately something wasn't quite right and Helen came back still in 28th spot but hugely disappointed with her performance. Checking her pulse rate the following morning saw a huge leap in bpm suggesting that an underlying cold or bug had been to blame for the unusually slow run.

Stage 3

Catherine Bryson is making a steady return to full fitness having being out of action throughout most of 2005 with stress fracture injuries. Despite her youthful appearance Catherine is a steely determined runner and shows a mature approach to race tactics. Clocking the Belles second fastest leg of the day Catherine also managed to pull the Belles up an extra 4 places into 24th spot.

Stage 4

Based in the Midlands means we don’t get to see much of Victoria Edwards over the winter season, however, she’s still putting in the hard training and competing regularly at triathlons. Worried about her speed over a short course Vicky took over on leg 4 with some trepidation. There was no need to worry though as Vicky maintained the Belles position and posted a solid sub-20 min performance in her first 6-stage outing.

Stage 5

This is the first time Louise Cooper had tackled the 6-stage without a marathon in her legs and despite her own concern that her time would be no quicker with fresh legs, Louise set off on leg 5 to bring the Belles home another 2 places further up and close to the coveted top 20 position. Her time was also her quickest to date showing the damage the marathon does to tired legs.

Stage 6

Another marathoner, Tilly Heaton took over the glory leg for the Belles. The top 3 positions had looked settled after the 5th leg but Chester-le-Street played a blinder putting Dixon on the last leg and with a 16.31 leg she pulled back a 45 second deficit to win by 30 seconds from Winchester’s Jo Kelsey. Bristol and West, missing many of their usual squad, just missed silver but were clear bronze medal winners. Although times were slower due to the windy conditions, the leaders still finished almost 10 minutes ahead of the Belles. However, Tilly had more than achieved our objective for this year and brought the Belles home in 17th spot with our 3rd fastest leg of the day.

1 Chester-Le-Street 1:44:12; 2 Winchester &D 1:44:42; 3 Bristol &W 1:44:49; 4 Shaftesbury B 1:45:41; 5 Telford 1:46:30; 6 Liverpool 1:47:20; 17 Belgrave 1:53:59 (J Clark (28) 18:03, H Smethurst (28) 19:28, C Bryson (24) 18:27, V Edwards (24) 19:57, L Cooper (22) 19:09, M Heaton (17) 18:55; 63 teams started, 45 teams finished.

Fastest. 1 H Dean (Hallamshire) 16:16; =2 M McDonnell (Chester Le Street) and L Elliott (Winchester) 16:18; 4 J Clague (Liverpool) 16:19; 5 S Abel (Highgate) 16:29; 6 A Dixon (Chester Le Street) 16:31.

Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.