SEAA Women's 6-Stage Road Relay, Stantonbury Stadium, Milton Keynes

A Great Warrior Returns

Will Cockerell writes:- It was gently pointed out to the TM during the race that no-one from 2011's mini dream-team returned to the fray, and indeed four of them have missed the entire season! The absences are just a reflection of what a tough sport this is and how fickle the running gods can be. All of the 2011 six remain valuable Belgravians, but two are out with long-term injury, two more ran cracking 10k's elsewhere, Miss Cole was on classy duathlon duty and Lenka writes from Prague to say she loved racing for us and hopes to again in the coming years.

So... all change, and in a race of sound standard, we were given a good start by Fee whose time, perhaps surprisingly, stood up to be our fastest of the day. Nelle travelled for many hours to be there, and ground out a net return of plus 1. There's more to come in her tank and it'll arrive soon enough.

The Queen is back, long live the Queen. Our National cross-country champion from 2004 hasn't raced since the Birmingham half-marathon of October 2008. Birhan has had another child and knee surgery since then, and it was great to see her back in the claret and gold. She really wanted to pull out in the days leading up to the race as she fought a bad tooth infection, but realized that to get back racing, you've gotta' get back racing. It was painful and her time had her wincing as much as her tooth, but the stride is still unmistakably classy and at just 33 there's still time for Birhan to return to a high standard.

Anne ran well and looked good with some big triathlons all over the world to anticipate in the coming months; and Vicki was a revelation, with her best run of the season, and a tempo 21-miler in her legs from the day before. Rieko arrived a full 27 minutes before her leg which is about five times earlier than normal, to anchor us home yet again, and only leak a single position.

So 12th it is, missing several fantastic runners, nearly all of whom are sharpening their talons with SP in mind. And with a marathon squad sent straight from the angels, our season could yet end with a couple of big bangs.

1 Aldershot F&D 1:44:17; 2 Aldershot F&D 'B' 1:50:23; 3 Dulwich R 1:53:02; 4 Windsor SEH 1:54:08; 5 Woodford Green wEL 1:54:10... 12 Belgrave H 2:00:31. 33 teams started, 27 finished.
Belgrave 'A': F Maycock (12) 18:48; N Quispel (11) 19:11; B Dagne (13) 20:16; A Hegvold (12) 20:04; V Goodwin (11) 20:36; R Trees (12) 21:36.

Fastest: E Gorecka (Aldershot F&D) 16:24; 2 E Pallant (Aldershot F&D) 16:41; 3 E Tallen (Milton Keynes) 17:15; ... 36 F Maycock 18:48.

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