Belles A Laudable Fourth in National Champs

It was a busy day for Belgrave at the VLM with three of the four club captains pumping away; some brilliant runs and a very hard fought women's team race.  As it went, Bristol and West were on another planet, all credit to them; while Cornwall, who nicked us to gold back in 2011, had another great day to secure silver; whilst London Heathside pulled a surprise to snatch the bronze.  But we can be proud with our fourth, and be even prouder of our recent silver, gold, gold streak.Sophie was a revelation with a perfectly judged scamper, and lives up to her reputation as our ‘lucky charm’ since the Belles always enjoy a good day with her on board.  "Miss Medals" Fee went in there with some heavy artillery and started blasting away from the off. At 15k she still had Soph in sight. A masochist approach for sure, but probably only cost her a couple of mins such is our supervet’s incredible strength. She placed 4^th in her cat.22 years on from her London debut and Lou still packs a punch, allowing mother nature just one minute for every 11 years out on the field of play. Only one London has been missed in that time. 150 yards behind Lou our championship team was given the mother of all safety nets by Gemma.A small way back the co-skip HBR ran a very worthy 95 for the half, before running into knee and calf trouble. But still only missed a pb by a smidg. Her sidekick His Girl Friday missed going sub 3:30 by stopping to curtsey QEII at BP.Finally, our multi award-winning race walker Maureen shows she can lift when she wants to with a worthy 3:52, with what looks like a painful part deux.------------------The lads were considerably more modest but we still had captain marvel Royston running well although perhaps frustrated not to be in the 2:30’s where he belongs. Next year!There was yet another pb for Eduard who continues to age like a fine wine; with our Auckland agent “009” Romain having a real roller-coaster ride half a mile back. The oh so talented Ferg was hit with niggles in the build-up so a sub-2:50 was replaced by a circumspect and evenly paced run just seven secs up on Lou – the tease!It wouldn’t be marathon day without Postie Pete leaving it all out there. One of these years he’ll go round evenly, but as ever took the scenic route here. Finally, John enjoyed the ride so much he spun it out for nearly 6 hours. Now that’s true love...