It’s a quiet week for racing as people gear up for the Brass Monkey and Quayside 10km next week.
We did have plenty running at the Birtley Relays and a few doing parkrun’s. Birthday boy Malcolm Liddle managed to get his 100th on his 21st birthday (plus a few more 😉) – congratulations on reaching the 100th milestone and all the best from everyone at the club!
Birtley Relays
On a chilly Sunday morning we had 7 teams competing throughout the morning. 3 male vet teams, 2 ladies teams and 2 senior teams.
I’m glad I had my thermal kegs on as that North Easterly wind was a bit cold…
The day starts with our old gagdies teams (v35+) and our three teams tackled the 3km route very well. Steve Robertson racing for first time since May decided to make things a bit harder for himself running his 2nd lap with one shoe!
It was great to see Rich Houghton back in action with a solid run. It was Paul Taylor who impressed with an excellent 1st leg – the marathon training is working wonders. Roland backed Paul up very well and with our one shoe wonder who brought the team home.
A late call up for Paul Robinson saw him follow Rich with a very impressive run, Dave Jones who was struggling with the lurgy also ran very well to bring the team home.
Mike Russell, swapped the hills of the alps for the hills of Birtley and put our v55 in great position. John Rippon was next up with a cracking run handing over to Alan ‘Rambo’ Thompson who powered round the course bringing the team home.
Our two women’s teams set off – Hazel Bough with an impressive start settled into her running to put the team in a great position, Mary ‘little legs’ Hall was next up and gained a few places to hand over to Rachel Dodds who glided round the course.
Our 2nd ladies team was brilliant also, with Bella Russel flying up and down those hills (that ski training paid off) to come home just behind Hazel. Imogen King was next up with a brilliant run, handing over to Simone King who anchored the team and had a very impressive race!
On to the young lads (and me)… We had two senior teams which is brilliant as we’ve struggled to get teams for this fixture in the past.
It was Chris Mason and James Douglas who led the teams out – Chris ran superbly pushing all the way to the finish. Chris handed over to Stephen Dobson who was making his debut, Steve ran very well in his first race for the club who handed over to to me… Like Chris, James ran an impressive 1st leg handing over to Danny Spoor, Danny, with Steve in his sights managed to chase him down to hand over to Jonny Rewcastle – Jonny, not on his favourite surface had a brilliant run, bringing the team home.
Thank you and well done to all that ran the relays!
We do have several relays throughout the year, all entries are covered within your memberships and will be roughly 2 miles (some national events might be longer). Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more details or speak to Andrea and Ben if you’re interested.
Relays (working from memory so don’t quote me on the dates):
Feb (ish) Hetton
March – Our Good Fridays
April –
May – Wallsend
June – Gosforth
July – Weetslade
