Southern clubs take senior titles at Sutton Park on a day that also sees a teenage titles up for grabs
Autumnal sunshine and mild weather greeted the clubs from the three areas to the home of English road relay running on Saturday (Oct 8).
The senior titles at these English Road Running Association (ERRA) Autumn Relays went to Aldershot (men) and Tonbridge (women) as the South of England also provided the fastest laps in both races.
Jack Rowe posted the equal sixth best time on the course and Amelia Quirk’s effort for the women has been beaten only by Paula Radcliffe.
Among the young athletes’ races there were six different clubs taking home the gold medals.
AFD take men’s six-stage title
Aldershot’s winning time was nearly a minute slower than their record-breaking effort from last year but they were so confident of victory that they had prepared celebratory t-shirts that they proudly displayed at the presentation.
Nevertheless, their time is still the third best ever and they were never out of the top three and led after the second leg as Will Barnicoat threw in a 15:50 split that stood up as the second-best time of the day. He said: “I had a pretty good leg and did the job.”
This followed Josh Grace’s third spot on the opener behind stage winner Jonathan Escalante-Phillips for Cambridge & Coleridge. Sandwiched between them was Tonbridge’s Ben Cole.
A third best of the day of 16:53 from Phil Sesemann took Leeds ahead of Aldershot’s Ricky Harvie mid-race and he then pronounced himself happy with his run after his 2:12:10 in the London Marathon six days earlier.
The eventual winners lost further ground on leg four as Ben Bradley could not match the pace of Cambridge’s James Teagle and Leeds City’s Ed Bovingdon.
Cambridge then extended their advantage as Callum Elson took Leeds City’s Richard Allen further away from Aldershot’s Sam Eglen on the penultimate lap. Of taking the lead just before the turn on the dog-leg: Elson said: “I was hoping I would get my speed back after the turn,” which he did to lead by 20 seconds.
It was then down to Rowe on the final 5847m trip to secure victory. The cognoscenti were saying that if Rowe went off too fast he would not make up the 53-second deficit but a steadier first effort should see him home and so it proved.
He said: “I felt I had it but had to go off steady. My Garmin said I ran the first mile in 4:47 but the third mile was 4:23. It’s good to get back-to-back wins and fastest…
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