SEAA Women's 6-Stage Road Relay, Milton Keynes
Belles in the thick of it
How nice, writes Will Cockerell, to see nearly two teams of Belles locking horns with the best clubs in the south of England again after a quiet last three years at this event. The TM announced 14 bodies to toe the line the week before – and then cowered in dread to watch the inevitable withdrawals. Well... only four did, not bad, and crucially only one from the 'A's. Catherine Bryson alas, so often our talisman, but this time having to bow to locked calves. But it was still a mini dream team that we could be well proud of.
Sarah Gailey’s brief was top 10 and get the ball rolling. Despite being on very little running due to calf, knee and blister problems of her own, SG was good as gold with her 7th, in a time that got better as the day progressed – nice one. Right, what damage could Felicity do, with clubs still having plenty of aces up their sleeves? In a stage of real turbulence our cycling dynamo (with another 100k in her legs from Saturday), held us firm, with the important development that Shaftesbury up ahead ended their race after two stages in stone bonkers first.
So Zoë Vail was in reality going off in 6th, but it was crucial to keep moving through the pack. Somewhat startled at being caught up in the tawdry crossfire of an Eightlane thread entitled, “Who are the hottest British female runners,” this yummy mummy had more serious business on hand. She ran a calm, clinical leg to take out a couple but had to make way to a rampant Natasha Doel who fired AFD from 11th to 4th. Uh oh!
In a stage 4 of exceptional quality, our resident au pair Lenka grimly clawed back 6 seconds on the leaders Arena 80, and nine ticks on AFD, to ping fastest time on the stage and rip us into bronze. Excellent running and we were now just 44 seconds down on gold, and 14 on silver. The race had turned into a cracker.
Samantha Amend is an inspirational athlete in many ways but her workload on this day was simply frightening: 4.5 hours of driving, and a gnarly 1:37 in the Kingston 16m Breakfast run for her warm-up. Sam set off with tight legs, the feelings of an onsetting cold, and Norwich’s Jane Clarke covering her every move. Sam was in trouble right from the off with a stitch, but her exhausted frame still carried us to our 4th fastest. Clarke managed to get by and the bronze medal position was now 10 seconds down the road.
Welcome to Belgrave Mary Spalton! What a grisly baptism of fire for this ultra-marathoner who was a straight swap for Catherine. You want a safe pair of hands to guard against a blow-up and Mary with her recent 86 for the Half, was going to give us just that. Norwich had a final ace up their sleeve and were in turned dragged around by Arena 80, but there was no way that last year’s winners Bedford were going to catch Mary.
So fourth it was in a time that would have secured silver last year with two and a half minutes to spare. The winners AFD had three internationals in their team – we caught them on a very good day – last year they only mustered a single bod.
A line about the Baby B’s: great to see Tilly starting to go well again, and 32 seconds back we had yet another debutante Jo Linfield who showed she’s a name for the future. Rieko and Jenny gallantly kept us going before we finally had to call it quits. A memorable day then, disappointing to miss the podium, yes, but those days will come.
1 Aldershot Farnham and District 1:58:11; 2 Arena 80 2:01:45; 3 Norwich AC 2:01:59; 4 Belgrave H 2:03:15; 5 Bedford and County 2:05:04. 28 teams started, 20 finished.
Belgrave 'A': S Gailey (7) 20:01; F Cole (7, 9) 20:55; Z Vail (5, 4) 20:44; L Vseteckova (3, 1) 19:29; S Amend (4, 5) 20:50; M Spalton (4, 7) 21:16.
Belgrave 'B': T Heaton (23) 22:12; J Linfield (22, 20) 22:44; R Trees (21, 20) 24:57; J Beecroft (21, 21) 25:41.
Fastest: L Small (Aldershot F&D) 18:20; 2 B Potter (Shaftesbury BH) 18:42; 3 H Rowland (CoNAC) 18:49; ... 8 L Vseteckova 19:29.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.