Autumn Relays 2001

The fifteenth running of the Top House Autumn Relays was held on Wednesday the 28th of November, as ever at the Kitty Brewster Industrial Estate.

The weather during the event was reasonable enough, a slight wind was blowing but didn't make much difference, except to make those of us spectating feel a bit chilly.
As last year, fourteen teams lined up at the start line and were away into the dark right on time, but only after some last minute chopping and changing of some teams due to several absentees. Just under 15 minutes later, the first runner returned, with Ron Ingram apparently in team ‘W’, the only problem was we only we only went up to team ‘N’!, so Ralph of team ‘M’ was sent off, followed by a steady stream of runners. On the second leg Ralph held on and gave George over a minute's lead on the next placed team. On leg three Robbie Barkley set off in ninth position, over 90 seconds down on the leader, but managed to pass all the runners in front and crossed the line first, some 9 seconds clear of George Young. After the second leg Robbie's team were in ninth place, so he made up a lot of ground during his run.

Prizewinners; 1st - Team A - Nina Revely, Steve Walker and Robbie Barkley. 2nd  - Team M - Ron Ingram, Ralph Dickinson and George Young. 3rd - Team C - Angie Brown, Kevin Freeman and Dale Stafford, who was also the fastest on the night in 12:36. The fastest lady (and Vet) was Cath Young in 15:31, and Rob Hall was fastest vet with the fifth fastest time of the evening. Cath's time is a course record, so very well done to her. Once again keeping both of their attendance records going were Steve Gillespie, who has the only 100% record for this event, and George Young, who has run all bar one of them. A Special Endurance Award was made to Stevie Gillespie in recognition of his 100% record. For the record, Steve has three first placings (1989, 1992 & 1995), two seconds (1990 & 1999) and a third (1994).

Course Records: Team: Brian Southern, John Gaughan, Dave McKenzie – 40mins 20secs (1993)  Individuals: fastest time Andy Brown - 11mins 42secs (1993 & 1994)

Fastest male vet Rob Hall - 12mins 11secs (1990) Fastest female Gill Priest - 14mins 53secs (1995) Fastest female vet Cath Young – 15mins 31secs (2001)

Of the nine prizewinners, Nina Revely and Dale Smith were collecting trophies for the first time; the other seven had all been placed at least once before. Steve Walker and Ron Ingram collected their fourth prizes for this event; Steve and Robbie Barkley were each in the winning team for the second time. This is the fifth year in a row that the winning time has been slower than the previous one - are we all getting older or something? 

Thanks to Dave K for his organisation, and for his speedy sending of the results to me (by lunchtime Thursday). Thanks also to those who marshalled; Barney Foster, Jim Jones, Christine Willshire and Bob Soulsby; Robin Fentum who did the timekeeping, Sandra and Jocelyn for the finish recording, and to Ron Hope for working out the handicaps.

Full results were as below:

Individual Times

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