Soar Points

Above: Oli Carrington (A team) and Henry Silverstein (B team) set off on the first leg of the Soar MK Relays. Thanks to Pete Clarke for the photograph.

Sunday 26 September should have seen the third of the customary quartet of relay championships at this time of year (following the County Road Relays at Wimbledon Park on 4 September and the Track Relays over the weekend of the 11th and 12th September, and leading up to the National Road Relays on 9 October), however the Southern Road Relay Championships were abruptly cancelled just days before the race, due to an unsafe stand at Crystal Palace, where they were due to be staged. Just as frustrated team managers had stood down their athletes however, Marshall Milton Keynes AC, sponsored by SOAR and with the help of Mike Boucher of Aldershot, Farnham & District, and Paul Mizon (Bedford and County AC), came to the rescue, offering to stage an alternative relay event from their Stantonbury Athletics Stadium, over the short-leg course familiar to athletes who compete there in the 12-Stage Road Relays each April. And so the Club's teams – though fewer than had been entered for the SEAA Championships – were gratefully re-assembled.

The U13G team of Ava McAndie, Isabella Harrison and Josie Hughes finished fifth of the 16 complete teams in their category; with the U15B team of Hugo Kelly, Tom Davies and Matt Weisz eighth of 14; and Lulu Weisz, Millie Thorpe and Georgia Winter sixth of the 16 complete U17 Women's teams.

The combination of Albane Fery, Ellen Weir (both U20s) and Grace Batchelor, anchored by W40 Claire Grima, were eleventh of the 17 Senior Women's teams.

Forty complete teams turned out for the Senior Men's event, in which the HW A team finished in seventh, with Oli Carrington leading off in 15:20, followed by Tom Jervis (15:13) and George Mallett (15:31). The unstoppable Richard McDowall, in his final outing before the London Marathon next Sunday, posted the fastest leg, with 15:04, handing over to Fred Slemeck (15:53) with Charlie Eastaugh bringing the team home in 15:44. For the B team, which finished 16th, Henry Silverstein led off in 16:19), followed by Andrew Penney (15:54), Joe Croft (15:43), Ross Franks (16:11), Jackson Creegan (15:55) and Andrew Merry (17:22).

Normally team positions in the SEAA Championships dictate qualification for the National Championships in Sutton Park, Birmingham, but the cancellation meant that for Southern clubs participation in the national event would be at the invitation of the English Road Running Association, based on results from the last running of the Championships. Consequently HW will be sending two teams to Sutton Park, Birmingham, where the question is, can anyone beat Ben Toomer's best time of 17:30 set in 2018 over the 5847m course.

'The times the guys posted at Milton Keynes show just how far the squad has come and that we are really heading in the right direction,' says coach Ben Noad. 'The last time we competed over this course in the SEAA 12-Stage Championships in 2019, Charlie's was the fastest of the short legs, with 15:38, but we have so much quality now that five athletes ran quicker than that on Sunday.'

One of those athletes was Alex Robinson (above), in his first race since 2019 following a string of niggling injuries. He posted a storming 15:34 on the lead-off leg for the C team, cementing his place in the 12-man squad for Birmingham.

'Alex has been training really well, so I was expecting a big performance at Milton Keynes', says Ben. 'Had he been able to get a race in before the relays he would have certainly been in the B team, if not the A team. Because we have such strength in depth now, to be fair to everyone we had a policy that in order to be up for selection for the A team you needed to have raced – anywhere – between 1 August and 26 September, and pressure of work didn't allow that for Alex, but it is fantastic to see him running well and injury free. We just need to manage his racing now to try to avoid injury. Likewise it is great to see Andrew Penney back in the fold after similar injury and work commitment issues – the two of them are Hercules through and through and have great experience. It all bodes well, not only for the Nationals but also for this season's Surrey League campaign which begins in Richmond Park the weekend after the Nationals. We need as many people as possible turning out for the first League match to try to get an early win and show our intent'.

'It's great to be back in a yellow vest again,' says Alex Robinson, and, he predicts, 'there is going to be a sea of yellow in Richmond Park in a few weeks time!'

SOAR MK Results

Lighting Up Battersea

In a warm up/selection race for what turned out to be the SOAR MK Relays rather than the SEAA Championships, HW athletes turned out in force for the third in the series of Friday Night 5K Under the Lights events (this time on a Thursday!) at Battersea Park on 16 September.

Heading up a string of HW PBs and underlining his current form was Richard McDowell, clocking 14:32.1 in seventh place. He was followed in by Tom Jervis in 12th, who ran himself into the A team for Milton Keynes with a PB of 14:38.6. Ed Mallett finished in 18th place in 14:46.4, while Alex Milne in 24th finally appeared to have battled through injury just in time for the London Marathon on Sunday, clocking 14:56.8, to complete the sub-15 minute quartet.

Full results

Above: Richard McDowell finished in 7th place, and below: Tom Jervis negotiates the bandstand. Photo by James Rhodes (@jrhodesathletics (insta) @james_athletics (twitter)

Ultra Impressive

HW was represented by two athletes – Maximillian Dew (M35) and Adam May (M40) – in the Self-Transcendence 24 Hour Track Race at the Millennium Stadium Track, Battersea Park over 18/19 September. First staged in 1989, this annual race in the calendar of the International Association of Ultrarunners has a limit of just 47 competitors bidding to cover the greatest distance in 24 hours, fortified by 'pit stops' for food and drink.

Max finished in 33rd, having covered 91.926 miles; while Adam was in 35th, with a total mileage of 86.576.

Elsewhere....

Jonny Cornish (left) warmed up for the National Road Relays by winning the Hackney Half Marathon in 66:36 last Sunday, 26 September, a month after finishing 23rd in the elite race in 65:43 in the Antrim Coast Half Marathon in Larne, Northern Ireland on 29 August. Meanwhile, also last Sunday, M50 Tom Cheetham tested himself over the same distance in the Ealing Half, clocking 1:29:53.9 over the testing, hilly course in the lead up to the London Marathon on Sunday (he is on course to clock his 100th Marathon in the 2022 London event). Tom was joined in the race by Gary Forde, who finished in 1:41:35 – 'way off my PB', he points out!