Relay Special

The Under-15 Boys combo of James Fraser, Max Harrison and Theo Creed (above) secured the gold medals at the Southern (SEAA) Road Relay Championships at Aldershot on 20 September, taking the title by 11 seconds. On the opening leg of the 3km course James clocked 9:39 to hand over in seventh to Max Harrison, who brought the team up to fifth on leg two in 9:50. Then it was up to the U13 UK Inter-Counties Cross-Country champion, Theo Creed, to make up over 40 seconds and bring the team home for the win in 9:17, the fourth fastest of the U15 anchor legs.

Max’s big sister Isabella sent the U17 Women’s team on their way to bronze medals, running a storming 15:55 on the 4.6km course to give an early lead, with Leah Paulson and Rose Evans posting times of 17:30 and 17:39 respectively.

In the Senior men’s six stage race over legs of 6km, Fred Slemeck led off the team, and despite being fresh off the plane from working in India clocked 18:51 to hand over in 28th position to Andrew Penney. Andrew surged through the field in 18:01, the third fastest second leg, which brought the team up into the top ten. Archie Walton, recovering from illness, ran 19:40 to hand over to Alex Milne, who delivered the quickest team performance and and third fastest fourth leg with a searing 17:52. Now the team were back in tenth, with Toby Cooke (18:54) coming in in 11th, before Jonny Cornish clocked 18:24 to secure ninth place .

There were also some notable performances amongst the B team which finished in 29th overall and fifth of the B teams. U20 Pancho Panchev led off in 18:56. followed by Freddie Hessian (18:49). U20 Thomas Homes (19:41), Rhys Boorman (18:36), U20 Sebastian Cockerell (20:58) and Sam Peters (20:08).

The U15 Girls team of Jessica Wood, Freya McAndie and Anna Wait finished in seventh over the course of the three legs of 3km. Anna’s time of 10:51 was the fourth fastest of the final legs, while the U13 Girls and Boys were 11th and 12th respectively.

For the Senior Women’s A team Chelsea Spanoudakis, on leg one, clocked 23:28 over the 6km course, handing over in 39th to Kelly Thorneycroft, who gained eight places, running 22:52. U20 Dillan Quinn clocked 24:00, snatching another two places, with Ruby Carter notching up the fastest leg of the quartet (21:00), and the fifth fastest anchor leg, to bring the team home in 17th. In the incomplete B team, Georgie Bridgman ran 52:47 and Sarah Twaite 25:28.

The M50 team of Andrew Davies (24:00), James Hamilton (25:52), M55 Peter Lee (24:41) and fellow M55 Stewart Bond (26:10) were 18th, with the incomplete team of M55 Ben Revill (26.41), M60 Pete Clarke (32:40) manfully running despite a bad back, and Mark Cahill (28:37) finishing in 23rd, after M60 Tim Temmink took a tumble.