Autumn Relays 2002

The sixteenth running of the Top House Autumn Relays was held on Wednesday the 16th of October, as ever at the Kitty Brewster Industrial Estate. The weather wasn't too bad; cool ans damp,  with the early evening rain having been blown somewhere else by the wind. We'll have far worse weather to endure in the coming months, that's for sure. Ten full teams (four less than last year) and three runners unable to be found teams at short notice, lined up at the start line, and were away into the dark right on time. 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.
Disregarding the three non-team runners, the lead changed after each of the legs; first it was eventual winners team A, with team J in the lead at the start of the third leg. Finally (and most importantly) Ian Richardson of team A led all the runners home. The victorious team A runners were: Ron Ingram, Michael Brown and Ian Richardson, in a time of 45:02 - just under a minute slower than last year's winning time. In second place, only 3 seconds adrift were team I; Anne Potts, John Mallon and Kevin Freeman. A further 13 seconds passed and the third team came home, they were team F; Keith Willshire, Ralph Dickinson and Mal Darbyshire.
Fastest on the night was Andy Brown, and the fastest Lady was Cath Young. Rob Hall was fastest vet, and once again recorded the evening's second fastest time.

I hope everybody appreciates the effort needed to organise this race; this task was undertaken by Dave Kitching and Andy Brown. This is a lot more work than most people realise; Dave and Andy are to be congratulated and thanked for putting on a very enjoyable and well contested event.

Thanks also to those who marshalled; Jim Jones and Ken Gibson; those who did the timekeeping and recording; Robin Fentum and Sandra Gaughan.

For those of you who enjoyed the event, but who thought conditions weren't cold or windy enough, the Winter Series dates are now confirmed:

Race 1 - 23rd October (Same day as the Juventus game!)
Race 2 - 20th November
Race 3 - 18th December
Race 4 - 22nd January
Race 5 - 29th January
Race 6 - 26th February
Race 7 - 5th March

Full results are as below:

Fastest Times