MIDLAND COUNTIES ROAD RELAYS
Saturday saw the annual curtain raiser of the Autumn season with the Midland road relays held over the traffic free course in Sutton Park, Birmingham. Rugby and Northampton took part in all age groups entering multiple teams in most races.
The event started with the U13 boys and Arthur Tilt raced to second place after the first leg and in so, posted the second quickest time overall in the age group. Lewis Robson and Nicholas Marsh also raced strongly to finish in a creditable 8th position overall. R and N fielded two more teams with Ollie Buchan being the stand out performer. Next to go were the U13 girls and they finished just outside the medals in 5th position with the fastest R and N time of the day going to Alice Bennet, closely followed by Madelaine Jacks and Jessica Kempton. R and N again fielded two further teams with Zineb Zbirou being the quickest of the other runners.
The U15 girls team of Claudia Searle, Olivia Williams and Alice Bates finished in 7th girls with the quickest R and N time actually going to Elspeth Unit in the B team. The U17 girls team of Molly Williams, Amelia Mcmurtrie and Lucy Stevens ran consistently good times but again finished agonisingly short of a medal in 4th place. The U17 men also raced well and finished in 13th position – the team consisted of Myles Martin, James Fletcher and Cian Hutton. The stellar performance, however, came from the U15 boys. The team was always in contention from the start as Tom Tyler posted the third quickest time of the event on first leg. Finbar Myers and Noah Bennett then completed the team, bringing them home in bronze medal position only 30 seconds behind the eventual winners. The strength in depth of the R and N athletes was clear as the B and C teams finished in 10th and 21st respectively.
The ladies senior team saw Emma Bond, returning from University, produce the 12th fastest overall time of the day on the first leg and she was followed on the second leg by marathon specialist, Tori Green who brought the team back in to 5th position. The team was concluded by Rhea Cooper and Tamara Hardman.
The senior men fielded a youthful team full of promise. Alistair McDonnell leg the team off and produced one of the fastest times ever by a R and N senior to bring the team home in 10th position after the first leg. Ben Musgrove and Rhys James ran well on second and third leg only for disaster to strike on the fourth leg as Abedom Beyene was held back at the start of his leg and was faced with waiting for several minutes before being allowed to start. Despite this, he raced around in a super quick time to pull back many places. The team was completed by MussAb Hassan, in his first senior appearance for the club and another U20 athlete in Haydn Arnall. The team finished in 35th position.
The Masters team knew that a medal was definitely a possibility and so it proved to be – although it was close. Stephen Marks led the team off in 3rd position – a position all the remaining athletes, Daniel Williams, Matt Carroll, Simon Douglas, Vince Carrol and Dave Ball held to the end – yet another regional medal for this outstanding team.
The club will now compete in the National road relays to be held at Sutton Park on October 6th.
