UK, AAA, SEAA & CAU Intercounties 10km Championships, Chichester

Oooh! Them Beagles

What a shambles was the start of this race. A change in the starting arrangements meant that the elite runners (UK, AAA and Inter-county men and women) started out on the road, with the masses starting in the car park. Barriers were erected to initially keep the two fields apart. But the two streams met after only fifty metres, by which time elite athletes were running into the barriers while those starting conservatively found themselves having to thread through a wall of club runners who had gone out hard. In the melee Winchester's Louise Damen crashed into the barriers and was out of the race with a damaged wrist before the event was 10 seconds old!

There was much confusion also as club runners were commandeered by County team managers for the Inter-county event resulting in them being given alternative race numbers which didn't necessarily reflect the fact that they were entered under their old numbers in the various club championships.

But it was a great race for all that, with 10 men going sub-30 including our own Simon Jones and Stephen Sharp. It was a huge advance for Simon who'd been threatening to do this for months. It was Stephen's best clocking since 2003. Jonathan Blackledge closed in our scoring three with a time 1 second better than he achieved at the beginning of the year, and James Kelly took over a minute off his best to give us a great scoring four in the SEAA race.

But Oooh! Them Beagles did it on us, reversing the result of the SEAA 6-Stage Relay and setting the scene nicely for a Road Running showdown in Sutton Coldfield where the National 6-Stage Relay takes place in two weeks time.

Birhan Dagne ran a sprightly 33:24 to get into the prizes and with Sarah Murphy and Catherine Eastham making it three, the Belles were not far away from the team medals.

Men. 1 W Chinhanhu (Poole R) 29:18; 2 J Mays (Kent AC) 29:26; 3 G Thompson (Crawley AC) 29:29; ... 7 S Jones 29:46; 10 S Sharp 29:51; 17 J Blackledge 30:15; 34 J Kelly 30:53; 113 L Greatorex 34:42; D Mason 35:02; 277 P Cross M50 41:04.

Teams: UK & AAA 1 Newham & Essex Beagles (29:32, 29:45, 29:45) 1:29:02; 2 Belgrave H (29:46, 29:51, 30:15) 1:29:52; 3 Bedford & County AC (29:48, 30:32, 31:21) 1:31:41.

SEAA 1 Newham & Essex Beagles (as above + 30:42) 1:59:44; 2 Belgrave H (as above + 30:53) 2:00:45; 3 City of Norwich AC (30:28, 31:10, 32:36, 33:28) 2:07:42.

Women. 1 K Reed (Bristol & West) 32:07; 2 H Yelling (Windsor SE&H) 33:19; 4 B Dagne (Belgrave) 33:24; 39 S Murphy 38:20; 68 C Eastham 45:16.

Teams: UK & AAA 1 Winchester & Dist (33:59, 35:16, 36:44) 1:45:59; 2 Bristol & West (32:07, 36:13, 38:33) 1:46:53; 3 Aldershot F&D AC (34:43, 35:03, 37:48) 1:47:34; 4 Belgrave H (33:24, 38:20, 45:16) 1:57:00.

SEAA as above but 5 Belgrave H.

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