New Season! New Skips! And thrills and spills at the Surreys…
Surrey County AA 6 stage road relay, Wimbledon Park, 5 Sept 2015The 2015-16 Road and Country season began with a riotous affair at the Surrey road relays, always a competitive event at which the Bels have given as good as they’ve got in the last 20 years.We kicked off with new man Gregg Clark, who despite coming down with a heavy cold ran an outstanding race to be some 30 seconds up on prediction. A great find, and comparatively new to the sport this is a most welcome addition to our ranks, with real potential.Over to a somewhat unfit TM who ran with a heavy heart as our Leg 4 runner had not arrived and was incommunicado. But a pip up the leaderboard was nibbled and we had muscle to come.The Lion was poorly on this day alas, barely any running for weeks through injury, and this ain’t a course on which to find form. But in classical Belgrave spirit he kept our kettle boiling, and that’s all we can ask.Still no leg 4 arrival, so Phil Wicks had his warm-up curtailed to be thrown into the mix. Running isolated and with the medals over two minutes away, Phil promptly churned out the greatest run ever seen in the 18 years of this course. An absolutely incredible 13:29, when years can go by without 14 being broken. Suddenly the bronze was only 40-odd secs away. We were still a runner short though.Another hero was the captain Gus, who has had Achilles and calf problems for months and no quality running. But he still ran a fine leg to pull right up on Thames in bronze.Where was Royston?! Still 13 minutes away alas after a nightmare near 3 hour journey from Reading. We let him off the leash anyway, and with more great spirit he pattered along to a tidy time, carrying his number like a baton.Frustrating stuff perhaps, but the positives far outweigh the negatives, and even with a punctilious Roy, we would still have narrowly had to bow to Thames. 1-0 to them.1 SLH 1:29:28; 2 H/W 1:30:51; 3 THH 1:32:04… 19 Belg 1:45:22.G Clark 15:53; W Cockerell 16:08; P Owor 16:10; P Wicks 13:29; G Upton 15:01; R Maddams 28:41 [started late, clocked at 15:42].For the women, Zoe Vail Smith ran a tangy 17:03, which compares nicely to her 18:39 from 2013.---------------------------------------------------New Captains Announced:We have four new skippers to announce for the coming season:For the women the two-headed monster of Zoe Doyle and Mel Wilkins gives us a formidable boost to our mission. They have nailed no fewer than 53 fixtures in the last two seasons and carried off a shed load of medals for their trouble. Zoe has just placed 4th in the World W35 vets in Lyon and Mel is in great shape herself. We feel sure that the squad will get right behind these two great Belgrave pioneers and give them all the support and encouragement they deserve.For the men we have the equally impressive duo of Craig Ruddy and Gus Upton. Craig has given us one electrifying run after the other in recent seasons, and his stunning effort at the Southerns was the key to us winning a medal there for the first time since 1971.Gus is a great untapped talent who blitzed to our fastest short stage at the National in April. He totally believes in the team ethic and regularly races for us when less than 100% to bail us out of trouble – as in the above report.All four captains are humble, unassuming, ferociously competitive animals. We can but wish them well, and hope for fine things.Finally, Charlie Dickinson steps up to join me as Team Manager of both men and women. I couldn’t do it without him, and it’s only right to put his phenomenal contributions to both squads on a more formal setting.Have a great season one and all.