Individual win for Michelle Pearson in Wimbledon, but car trouble denies Belles a team win
From left to right: Liv Papaioannou, Jess Saunders, Michelle Pearson, Laura Goodson, Katie-Ellen French
A brilliant debut in the claret and gold for Laura
Michelle Pearson led home a very strong Belgrave team with easily the fastest leg of the day, but a distraught Samantha Amend was stuck with a flat tyre in a layby in Bracknell unable to get to the race. This was after getting up at 6.00am to make childcare arrangements, which she hoped would leave plenty of time to drive to Wimbledon. So, the Belles were left one short in the six to score team race which, with Sam, would have certainly won.
Liv made a brilliant return to ‘real’ racing
The race was a repeat of the one held last Autumn and although not a true road relay as such, it was nevertheless good to have a team competition after missing the whole of the winter's cross-country and road relays. The course is a true 5km starting and finishing on the Wimbledon Park track, but the hill up past the All-England Tennis Club makes for a very demanding circuit with informed opinion putting times between 20 and 30 seconds slower than on a flat 5km.
Michelle flies into the home stretch on her lonesome
It was a brilliant run from Michelle finishing three quarters on a minute ahead of the promising Suzie Monk of G & G and AFD International Emily Wicks. She had improved her PB over the distance to 16:23 in Ardingly just 5 days prior, making her sub-17min solo performance even more impressive on this course. The other four members of the team all posted times in the top half of the results table, with Jess Saunders placing 7th fastest just ahead of Olivia Papaioannou, both in the mid 18's. Jess had also run in Ardingly and had gone under 18mins for the first time. Katie-Ellen French ran almost two minutes quicker than when she ran the same course in October, and new member Laura Goodson, a very late replacement, who has been training hard with Katie, also ran only just over 19 minutes - an excellent debut.
This was a great team performance on a very cold blustery day. Thanks to Belles captain Mhairi Hall (on crutches) and Will Cockerell for their support, and also Sam Gebreselassie who gave encouragement to the team whilst on his Sunday run.
RESULTS:
M Pearson (Belgrave H) 16:59, 2. S. Monk (G&G) 17:44, 3. E. Wicks (AFD) 17:46, 7. J. Saunders 18:21, 12. O. Papaioannou 18:35, 21. K-E Frech 19:08, 24. L. Goodson 19:10.