National 12 Stage Road Relays, Sutton Park 16 April 2016
Hillingdon AC’s men team evoked the spirit of 2008 to ensure that the club had representation at the National 12 Stage Road Relays at Sutton Park, finishing in 50th place out of 64 teams complete teams in the final event of the road and cross country season.
With many athletes unavailable due to illness, injury and work commitments and with resources split between this event and the Southern Athletics League fixture at Uxbridge, finding people to race in the National Road Relays proved an extremely challenging task but one that each and every athlete rose to extremely well.
After failing to raise a team for this event in 2015 and after qualifying to compete in the National finals via the regional championships, as team manager I thought it was extremely important that the club fielded and completed a team in this year’s event and – as was the case in 2008 this meant that the club needed to call on a number of athletes who were prepared to put themselves on the line and out of their comfort zone to compete for Hillingdon AC.
With the race comprising of alternate 5.4 mile “long” legs and 3.1 mile “short” legs, James Laing got the team off to a strong start, running the club’s fastest long leg of the day with 28:21 and finishing the first leg in 35th place and was followed by Joel Pope 19:07; Ed Dyer 29:36; Philip Warburton 19:21; Robert Thompson 28:40; Andy Moore 18:23; Martin Bateman 29:48; Jeremy Collis 21:00; Simon Connell 31:25; Steve Hirons 20:34; Paul Leppard 32:12 and Dave Smith 20:24.
Full results may be found here and photos of the race may be found here.
The team of 2016
The team of 2008 when we finished 53rd and last complete team
Matt Revier; Martin Bateman; Pete Warburton; Richard Jenkin; Dan Thompson; Jon Castro; Andy Miles; Jason Steel; Steve Hirons; David Smith; Craig Metcalfe; Stevan Dokic
