Thames Hare & Hounds' Parkland 4 x 5km relay, Richmond Park
Will Cockerell reports.
A perfect early June night in glorious Richmond Park witnessed two auld enemies locking horns again; cementing their 120+ year friendship and rivalry the only way they know how: by trying to rip out each other’s kidneys.
Belgrave sent a vintage quartet along for the joust. They may only have one head of hair between them, and are so long in the tooth in running terms that they’re practically growing tusks; but some quarter-of-a-million miles worth of running has to count for something, a gnarly, never-say-die spirit for one. And with over 40 years of club service between them, this was a band of brothers with the claret and gold flowing through their veins, albeit woven together from several different pockets of the world – such is Belgrave’s global reach.
Anyway, on to the race, and what a race it was. Five minutes before the gun and no Mal Byansi – due to open the batting – still stuck at work. The team manager for the night, Will Cockerell, performed surgery on the running order and switched his role as anchor man with Mal. Will dove into his flats whilst a couple of flunkeys re-pinned a new race number to his vest. Dash to the start and bang went the gun.
With a mind and body that was expecting to run in 45 minutes not 45 seconds, Will took a while to find his stride and was outside the top 5 for the first kilometre or so. Eventually things started to click and his Thames ‘oppo’ Toby Pearson was caught and passed, but every second counted and it was hang on to the leader time [a fine run from Chris Peach] for Will.
At the change Peach had 28 seconds on Will who had a further 30 on Toby. Enter Paskar Owor, licking his wounds from a disastrous Inter-counties when he failed to progress from the heats, “PO” is also in BAL action on Saturday, so it was felt appropriate to give him the easiest leg here, and cruise round [whilst also doing as much damage to Thames’ Neil Chisholm as possible]. This he did (with the day’s fastest) and we were in the lead, and a further 61 seconds to the good, 91 in all over Thames.
Stage three and the battle of the 13:42 and 14:40 5k men... the former belonging to our man the Trondheim Stallion, but the bad news is that it was 20 years ago. So it was damage limitation time for Knut as it was a question of how much the gap would come down by at the expense of James McMullan. James finally caught sight of Knut’s silhouette against the setting sun at the top of the long drag at 3k, and thereafter set upon his prey ferociously. With half a mile to go it seemed as though Knut would be caught, but he dug in and handed over to the now arrived Mal with seven precious seconds to play with.
Simon Molden is not the sort of man you want chasing you after a 9-hour shift on your feet all day at work and a ‘jumpy’ knee. They came together after half a mile and then proceeded to stay that way for the next 2¼ miles, with both men constantly trying to break the other. It was riveting stuff, and up the ascent 600 yards from home, some daylight finally appeared at Mal’s expense. Could Mal hang on and unleash that famous Byansi kick? Alas no, the gap grew inch by inch till it became unmanageable and instead of kicking, Mal trotted in, totally spent, after one of his bravest ever Belgrave runs.
So there it is, the bitter sting of defeat, and yet... when it’s handed to you with that suave, Thames oily charm, in such an idyllic setting, the pain is somewhat numbed. Congrats and thanks to our hosts for putting on a great show; occasions like this are what grassroots, club athletics is all about, as I’m sure the 64 teams, men/women/young and old that partook would agree.
1 Thames Hare and Hounds 65:07; 2 Belgrave 65:18 (W Cockerell 16:06; P Owor 15:33; K Hegvold 17:05; M Byansi 16:34); 3 Nottingham Old Boys 66:07.
Fastest: 1 P Owor (Belgrave H) 15:33; 2 C Peach (Nottingham Old Boys) 15:38; 3 J McMullan (Thames H and H) 15:41.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.