Women's SEAA 6 Stage Road Relays 2016
Women's SEAA 6 Stage Road Relay
Gravesend Cyclopark, 20 March 2016
With high hopes of making it three years on the trot in the medals it the Belle’s were hit with last minute drop outs and injuries to contend with along with the new format of two long legs and a new Relay course. Our solid A team was therefore left a tad more fragile than expected as we entered the fray but as ever the team spirit and bravery of all our Belles tackled the task and ensured a respectable top 10 finish for the club overall.
Despite pre-race nerves our in-form road-come-track-star Keri Mackenzie nestled in at the back of the leading pack to run a brilliantly paced opening leg to put the Belles safely inside the top 10 of off to a good start. Next up was Flic Cole who selflessly stepped up at the 11th hour to run our first of the two long legs and put in a brave performance having only just done a 20mile race seven days prior. Despite feeling the heat from some of the front loaded teams nipping by, Flic showed true grit as she pushed around the three laps and kept us safely in the top 20 before handing over to Saron Haileselase.
With a nasty back sprain only a couple of days prior proving a hindrance to our ex-Ethiopian international, Saron still managed a very respectable short leg and took back a handy three places to leave Zoe Vail Smith in 15th with the top 1o in sight. After weeks of illness and slowly come back into form with training, Zoe had an absolutely storming run as she ate away at the runners ahead of her taking back place by place for the Belles on each of the three long leg laps which definitely suited her to a tee.
With the medal positions well off the pace a consolidated run for Rose O’Brien was happily on the cards as she took on the 5th leg. Enjoying the course and running around in the mix of men’s and women’s runners and even gaining a place to take the team to 10th, the 800m runner predictably saved it all for a “glory run” downhill sprint finish to hand over to road running stalwart Jojo Rhodes for the final leg. With the knowledge of a few runners not too far ahead and a record of performing well at this event Jojo had a brilliant run as she battled it out with Brighton & Hove in the closing lap to anchor the team to our 10th place finish overall.
A big thanks to all the supporters on the day and team managers Charlie and Will for scrambling as always to sort the team out. As always it was a brilliant day out and the new course proved a great success for spectators and athletes alike. No doubt we will be back stronger and faster for next year.