Nonsuch 4 x 2.2 miles Relay, Nonsuch Park

Local heroes

It was a slightly subdued group of runners, gathering in the Cheam corner of Nonsuch Park after the day’s terrorist activity in London. A moment of silence preceded the race and then came the best possible reaction to such atrocities – carrying on with normal daily life, which in our case means – running.

Injury had taken our team down below the necessary four a couple of days earlier. The Skipper stepped into the breach, only to find that due to the transport shut-down he was not able to get to the start. An unfit Don Anderson promised to get round somehow but a tentative call was made to the Ward household to see if Richard was back from University – and if he was, had he done any running recently? The call came up trumps. Coincidentally he was in this neck of the woods, because the following day he was setting off for his brother’s stag “do” in Budapest. With only three hours warning it was Richard Ward to the rescue. The quest for our ninth consecutive win was on again.

Very light rain started falling as Junior Galley set out on leg one. Epsom & Ewell led the field home with Guildford close up in second and the Bels in third, 28 seconds off the pace. The leading two teams switched places on the second circuit while Steve Zealey kept the Bels just about in striking distance, now 50 seconds behind. Stage three and it was Epsom's turn to go ahead again, while some way behind, “Wardy” skated the circuit perhaps a minute slower than he would if fit, but nevertheless closing on the leaders. The gap was still 38 seconds and a win seemed a lot to ask of Phil Wicks, only just recovering from illness. Organiser Dave Denton raised a quizzical eyebrow in the direction of our Team Manager – maybe the win streak was over.

But Phil's not keen on coming anything but first. In spite of a 24 second advantage, the Guildford man was caught after a little over half a mile of running and although taking the right-angle bends wide to avoid slipping on the greasy surface, the Belgrave man began pulling the Epsom runner back as well. A mile out, on the grassy stretch, a Belgrave vest went ahead for the first time of the evening. It was all over, and from the look of young Phil at the race end, he was well over his illness and could no doubt have gone close to ten minutes in dry conditions.

1 Belgrave 44:37 (J Galley M40 11:25, S Zealey 11:43, R Ward 11:08, P Wicks 10:21); 2 Epsom & Ewell 45:03; 3 Guildford & Godalming 45:04; 50 teams finished.

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