Solid showing at National 6/4-stage
Belgrave’s women came 16th and the men came 35th at a high quality day of racing at Sutton Park.
Women
On leg 1, Sarah Astin led off for the 'A' team coming home in 3rd place after a blistering run, the 7th fastest of the whole day. Sarah has begun to build up her training again after a few weeks taking it relatively easy after her tremendous summer. The ever-reliable Fiona Maddocks took the first leg for the 'B' team, sensibly not getting caught up with the frenetic pace of the leaders.
It was never going to be easy taking over from Sarah on the second leg, but Orna McGinley managed to hold off the pursuers until the last kilometre and although she was passed by five runners, finished strongly. Natalie Beadle had perhaps her best ever road relay race for the 'B' team, gaining 14 places for her team. Natalie likes to do fell races in her home in the Lake District and her strength on the hills obviously showed.
Olivia Papaioannou has been working very hard to regain her fitness and the excellent form she had before her serious accident in the early summer. Liv found the race very tough but got round without losing too many places. Sarah Riceman prefers longer distances but liked the tough hilly course and had strong run gaining another seven places for the 'B' team.
Anna Sharp has recently joined the club having moved to London to work in a hospital. She is an excellent acquisition and ran the second fastest Belles time of the day on the somewhat lonely last leg. Clemmie Cooper, another new member, completed the race for the 'B' team. Clemmie showed a lot of potential having previously competed in Modern Pentathlon.
Results
'A' team, 16th 62;04. Sarah Astin 14:12 (3), Orna McGinley 15:54 (9), Olivia Papaioannou 16:21 (15), Anna Sharp 15:37 (16).
'B' Team, 36th, 67:19. Fiona Maddocks 17:20 (59), Natalie beadle 16:10 (45), Sarah Riceman 16:42 (38), Clemmie Cooper 17:07 (36).
Individual times
A. Quirk (Bracknell) 13:38, 2. A. Donnelly (Lincoln) 14:00, 3. J. Judd (Blackburn) 14:02, ...... 7. S. Astin 14:12.
Men
With only Sam Gebreselassie of our superstars available for this one and no chance of a medal, there was a brief “should we scratch this?” discussion but it quickly became clear that six solid boys were keen for a hitout.
Perfect running conditions and a stacked field greeted us at Sutton Park and soon it was over to TM / driver / occasional runner Steve Gardner to brave the first leg scramble.
A solid run from Jonny Scott, “lacking sharpness” or so he told us, gained us a further three places. Having grown up just round the corner in Solihull, Jonny used his knowledge of the course well. With our photographers on a cooldown/warmup, his run went uncaptured but we did catch him a few seconds after crossing the line for a debrief:
Belgrave senior men: Steve Gardner 18:28, Sam Gebreselassie 18:05, Neil Wilson 19:04, Jonny Scott 18:51, Jonny Neville 19:01, Conall McNally 18:57.
Our total time was 14 seconds quicker than the same race last year but we finished 5 places worse off than our 30th in 2021.