Harvester Relays                           

10/11 June 2006

SLOW sent two teams to last weekend’s annual Harvester Relays, which were held at Teviothead in south Scotland. This is a great fun team relay event, which started late on the Saturday evening and then ran through the night. Our teams competed in the men’s handicap and women’s handicap classes, and both secured excellent 2nd places in their respective classes.

The ladies team consisted of Dorte Torpe Hansen, Vicky Whaley, Christine Robinson, Heather Monro and Diane Leakey. The team ran brilliantly, completing the total distance of 31.6km in a time of 314:25, but just had to concede to a better team at the end with MAROC winning the class by 10 minutes. They were also the 4th women’s team overall which helped us to secure 2nd position in the UK Relay league – see below.

The men’s team was made up of Jim Mallinson, Simon Evans, Richard Catmur, Andy Robinson, Alan Leakey, Don McKerrow and Ed Catmur. Unfortunately both Andy and Ed were carrying injuries going into the race. Both knew they couldn’t be replaced and so had to give it a go, although both ran at least 30 minutes slower than if they had been fully fit. Despite that the team finished just 10 minutes down overall, completing the total distance of 59.2km in a time of 604:54.

Well done to everyone who competed. Next year’s event is being held on Cannock Chase on 3rd June 2007 – much closer to London so hopefully we will get a few more teams out!

The full results from the Harvester can be found here.

UK Relay League

A big well done to SLOW’s women relay team, who have finished a mightily impressive second place in the national UK Relay League for 2006. This league combines results from the top 5 national relays of the year, with the best 4 results counting. SLOW’s women finished 4th at the British Championships, 4th at the JK, 1st at the Triple-O-Severn and 4th at the Harvester, resulting in 2nd place overall.

The men’s team also had some good results during the year, and secured an excellent top 10 overall position, finishing in joint 9th place.

Congratulations to everyone who ran in the teams at the various events.

The final standings can be found here.

Posted 16 June 2006