Autumn Relays 1998

The twelfth running of the Top House Autumn Relays was held on Wednesday the 25th of November, as usual at the Kitty Brewster Industrial Estate. Given the history of the weather for the event, the lack of any rain or sleet, freezing temperatures or howling gales, prompted several runners to ask if they had turned out on the wrong night. Since everybody turned up on time, and Ron had already prepared "substitutes" for a couple of people he knew weren't running, the race started promptly. Eleven teams lined up at the start line, (there were 10 last year), and set off into the dark.

As ever, Included in this year's teams were Steve Gillespie, maintaining his 100% record for the event, and George Young, who has run all bar one of them. I know now why George missed the event just that once, it had to do with some leeks! Ask him yourselves..... Anyway back to this year's race - the wind was slight, and coming from the north; that meant it was only in the runners faces when they went past the Gencon factory, and in the last 200 metres to the finish. Not bad at all. At the end of the first leg it was team L in the lead, they were to remain in first place throughout and take the first prize. The team members were: Tom McCullock, Allan Kenny and Martin Gaughan, in a time of 42:41, slightly down on last year's winning time of 42:09. In second place were team A; A. Bosworth, Kevin Freeman and Rob Hall. Third home were team F; Gareth Hope, Dickie Cole and Dave McKenzie. Allan Kenny has been a winner in this event once before, but you have to go back to 1988 to find it. For Tom and Martin, this is the first time either of them have placed, and it was Martin's eighth attempt!

Fastest overall was Andy Brown (12:02); this is the sixth time from seven starts that Andy has been quickest on the night, and the fifth time in a row. Many people's times were better than they might have expected because of the good conditions.

Ron would like to thank the following people for their help with the marshalling and timekeeping: Keith Willshire and myself for the timekeeping; Robin Fentum, Brian Smith, Ken Gibson, and Denis Moss for marshalling. Thanks also go to Brian Dudding and Rob Marshall for standing in and enabling all teams to have three runners. I know Rob has been feeling under the weather since he ran.
I am sure everybody will echo my thanks to Ron, who once again organised an excellent event.