Rugby 6 Mile Race – Wednesday 23rd May

 Rugby & Northampton AC turned out 45 runners in their home fixture of the East Midlands Grand Prix Series. The Rugby 6 mile road race was the third event in the series and the host club had a clean sweep of all four team categories.

 The most notable performance came from Tori Green with a massive personal best of 36 mins 52 secs to take her first ever victory in the Ladies race and make it 6 wins out of the last 7 for an R&N lady in the Rugby 6.

Amy Sarkies made it a 1-2 for the club for the first time in an EMGP race by winning the F40 competition in 37:37 and clinching top spot in the F50 race was Sally Baker in 7^th position on 40:14 for a resounding ladies team victory.

The R&N Veteran Women won by an even bigger margin when Tamara Hardman joined Sarkies and Baker in the team to clinch 2^nd F50 and 13^th overall in 43:02.

The domination of the over 50 race continued when Elaine Morris finished 3^rd (14^th overall) in 43:10 and Alison Cobb in 4^th (24^th in 44:26 ), who was just one place and four seconds behind Judith Rose ( 3^rd in the F45 category).    

Valerie Cross took her first win in the F65 event in 64:26.

Alistair McDonnell improved by over two minutes from last years race when he led home the R&N men in 3^rd place with 31:51 and took home the Tony Hetherington memorial trophy now in its 10^th year. He had back up from M40 athlete Stephen Marks whose 6^th position in 33:54 gave him 2^nd  spot in the age group.

Daniel Williams became the 40^th R&N man to make the top 10  in a Grand Prix race since the clubs merger in 2002 and his time of 34:22 gave him 10^th place. Completing the winning Mens team for the club was U20 athlete Joe Childs when his 12^th position clinched the age category in a pb of 34:24.

Dave Ball was the next man home in a respectable 14^th spot in 34:42 with Dean Oldfield following in 35:50 ( 27^th and M40 6^th ) to join Marks in the victorious Veteran team. Making up that quartet were Richard Stevens ( M40 13^th  in 38:16 ) and Max Chippington ( M50 8^th in 39:33 ).

Other Senior Men to break 40 mins were Matthew Gee (35^th in 36:28 ), Jonathan Burke (48^th in 37:58 ), Dan Hartwell ( 62^nd in 38:55 ) along with veteran Richard Thomas ( M40 18^th in 39:57 ).