Belgravians enjoyed a good day out albeit with mixed results on an unusual day for club racing in the south of England.

The men finished 14th A-team at Aldershot to leave themselves with a good chance of an invite to the nationals in a fortnight. The women finished 2nd at the official SEAA relays at Crystal Palace and then endured terrible luck when an injury to Orna McGinley on the final leg meant a team DNF.

Why two races?

The South of England Athletic Association [SEAA] failed to organise this event at all in 2021, and had left it very late to communicate details of an event this year. Their record of organising southern relays and southern cross country championships in recent years has been poor, including but not limited to slow and erroneous results, unpopular courses and inadequate marshalling. To get ahead of this, a majority of Team Managers in the south supported Aldershot’s offer to organise 6/4-stage relays at Rushmoor Arena, a popular venue with a record of successful competitions. Our understanding is that this offer was not supported by the SEAA who then proceeded to announce a relay at Crystal Palace on the same day.

Belgrave team managers Charlie Dickinson (women) and Steve Gardner (men) wish to express their dissatisfaction with the SEAA’s recent competition provision and to record their support for the excellent Aldershot competition. It is our hope that next year the SEAA will collaborate with Aldershot and support a 6/4-stage competition at Rushmoor Arena.

Bels

Scroll down for women’s report

A-team

TM Steve Gardner made his leg 1 debut and rolled the dice with an ambitious first lap tracking the back of the lead pack, resulting in a painful second lap but still recording the team’s second quickest leg of the day (6k in 19:10). Home in 29th, he left Sam Gebreselassie - who’d specifically requested this berth - plenty of targets to work through, and that he did, eating through 13 positions in a time of 18:21 that was fourth fastest of leg 2.

Brave Henry Hart was in clear discomfort for the whole of his run and it’s an impressive show of character that he competed at all just a few days after a nasty bike accident and so close to next weekend’s London Marathon. His 19:24 leg 3 was probably around 40 seconds off what he’s capable of but still bled only one place. We’re all hoping he recovers well in the coming week.

Keeping us in 17th, Nick Buckle ran a gutsy leg 4 in 19:20 - an improvement on his performance at the Surrey relays a week earlier and a good sign going into cross country season, Nick’s specialism.

Conall McNally’s 19:11 on leg 5 was probably our performance of the day, putting 37 seconds into Guildford’s leg 5 and pulling us into 16th ahead of our green-singleted rivals going into the final stage.

Flying Jonny Neville took his first ever anchor leg but stood no chance against Guildford’s classy Andy Maud, whose 17:54 lifted them above us and seven more teams. Jonny’s 19:29 was still dependably strong and finished in 18th overall; 12th excluding B teams. That should be good enough for an invite to nationals, albeit at least 15 places away from where we want to be as a club. This time around four A-team dropouts in the last 10 days made that goal impossible but our depth beyond our superstars is a pleasing consolation: outside of Sam Geb’s leg, the five other A-stringers were separated by just 19 seconds.

A-team: Gardner 19:10, Gebreselassie 18:21, Hart 19:24, Buckle 19:20, McNally 19:11, Neville 19:29

B-team

Middle distance specialist Ewan Somerville lead out the Bs in a solid 20:10, three seconds faster than second legger Rob Kelly who is mid-taper for the marathon in a week’s time. Next up, new boy George Loxton made his mark with our quickest B leg of the day in 19:59, handing over to the dependable Ross Christie who ran 20:47. The improving Luke Pratt recorded a 21:29 fifth leg before Ben Hurley was cheered home by the whole assembled squad at the finish line; his 21:09 was a full 30 seconds quicker than when he last ran this course in 2015. The Bs finished 36th overall and 8th second string.

*Note: 82 senior men’s teams ran at Aldershot, 14 teams ran at Crystal Palace

Belles

The Belles had three complete teams: two at Crystal Palace where a total of 14 teams took part, and one at Aldershot with 55 teams.

CRYSTAL PALACE

The A team got off to a fine start with a very strong run from Lea Adamson leading the team home in first place. New signing Anna Sharp was just a second slower than Lea, building a long lead. Lea and Anna ran the 4th and 5th fastest legs of the day.

Anna Price, building strongly after a summer of injuries, maintained the lead, but Cambridge Harriers, who had convincingly won the 6-stage back in March, had their big guns on the final two legs and began to eat into the Belles lead. Olivia Papaioannou has been gaining fitness slowly after her horrible accident in the early summer; she ran her hardest but was unfortunately caught in the final run in to lose out by just 11 seconds.

The four 'B' team runners all ran fairly similar times. Stand-in team manager Mhairi Hall lead the B team off with a good run. Sarah Riceman, more at home racing longer distances, ran the quickest of the Bs, then Natalie Beadle continued with another good run, leaving Fiona Maddocks, running so well, to bring the team home in an excellent 8th place.

Results: 1. Cambridge Harriers 71:22, 2. Belgrave Harriers 'A' 71:33, 3. Victoria Park 73:00, ... 8. Belgrave Harriers 'B' 76:02.

A Team: Lea Adamson 17:21, Anna Sharp 17:22, Anna Price 18:04, Olivia Papaioannou 18:48.

B Team: Mhairi Hall 19:08, Sarah Riceman 18:48, Natalie Beadle 18:58, Fiona Maddocks 19:09.

ALDERSHOT

The course at Aldershot is located around what was the Military Tattoo Arena which has now been demolished and grasses over to provide an excellent setting for the relay. The SEAA Autumn relays were successfully run here for many years until fairly recently.

Lizzie Goldie-Scot, running so well again after a few years of persistent injury, set off on the frenetic first leg bringing the team home within the top 20. Samantha Amend, having had a battle with the traffic to get to the location and suffering from sore hamstrings, ran her usual gutsy race with the team now in 18th.

Sarah Astin, who has had an easy few weeks after her excellent summer which included her representing the Isle of Man in the commonwealth games, set off third in her first hard race of the Autumn. Sarah passed no less than ten runners bringing the team home in 8th. Her run was the 8th fastest of the day.

After her fine run in the Surrey relay the week before, Orna McGinley looked very strong on the first lap and look set to maintain the team's position until she tripped and fell, worryingly hurting her knee that she has recently rehabilitated after serious surgery. It meant that sadly the team were unable to finish.

Results

Lizzie Goldie-Scot 22:44, Samantha Amend 22:53, Sarah Astin 20:20, Orna McGinley DNF.