Kent AC Win Masters relay
KENT AC TRUIMPH AT BRITISH MASTERS
A delighted Vets Team Manager, Luke Armitatge, reported for us on the club’s magnificent M35-45 victory at the British Masters road relay championships held at Sutton Park.
Luke had wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of the brilliant day Kent AC’s M35s had on May 20th. The team achieved victory in one of the most prestigious masters events, with all the top vet clubs taking part. Clubs from as far as Scotland and the South Coast were in attendance, and Luke has been quoted as saying “To my knowledge it’s the first time in the club’s history that we’ve won the event.”
It seems every member of the team ran fantastically well. The race was a close one, with Kent AC passing local favourites Tipton in the last quarter of the last leg. Rob Laing led off and ran a superb leg to bring us in 17th. It shows the quality of the field that Rob – who is in great form – missed out on a place in the top ten. Tom Muddiman took over on leg two and cut his way through the field, taking an amazing 13 places and bringing us in to fourth.
Tipton had unfortunately already built up a lead of over a minute and a half on us, but Neil Phillips ran a great third leg, in fact putting in the fastest performance of all runners on this leg. Despite this, we were still left in fourth – albeit with Tipton’s lead significantly reduced.
Fortunately, Pete Lighting stormed the fourth leg, moving us up to third and coming in at third overall in leg four. Putting in another brilliant performance was Adrian Lowther, who ran the fastest of all the leg five runners and overtook a very strong Salford runner to bring us up to second.
The stage was then set for Chris Greenwood on the last leg, starting off 40 seconds behind the leaders Tipton. The rain lashed down but this only seemed to speed Chris up, and he soon chased down the Tipton lad, catching him up with 800m to go. As he overtook him he worried that he might kick again, but that was not to be. In spite of the very poor conditions Chris surged past, taking us to the national title and putting in easily the fastest time of all leg six runners. In the end, a race that lasted over an hour and a half was won by just 14 seconds.
As Luke said after the event, big congratulations to the six M35s – all of whom ran amazingly. He pointed out that we won the event without some of the talented runners who would also be eligible – including the likes of John Gilbert, Russ Bentley, Lawrence Avery, James Bowler and Johnathan Tipper. He speculated about the prospect of us entering two teams next year. If people were available and the event didn’t clash, then perhaps first and second place? Now that would be really exceptional!
Leo
27th May 2017 @ 10:00 pm
Thanks Luke – and well done a great team effort, hopefully will get to see some of the victors on Monday!