Autumn Relays 1999

The thirteenth running of the Top House Autumn Relays was held on Wednesday the 17th of November, as usual at the Kitty Brewster Industrial Estate. The weather for the event wasn't actually too bad, (at least it didn't rain anyway) although the temperature dropped like a stone during the previous couple of days to around 1 or 2 degrees on the night. A 15-20mph wind made the outward part of the run that bit more testing, but helped on the way in.
Since everybody turned up on time, (and maybe because there was a certain football match kicking off at 8 o'clock), the race started promptly. Twelve teams (one more than last year) lined up at the start line, including one with a member short.
Keeping both of their impressive records going were Steve Gillespie, who was maintaining the only 100% record for this event, and George Young, who has run all bar one of them.
Anyway back to this year's race - the wind was strongish, and coming from the north-west; that meant it was in the runners faces during the outward leg, and also during the final straight to the finish. At the end of the first leg it was team I in the lead, they were passed on the second leg by team J, who were to go on to take the first prize. The team members were: Cath Young, Steve Walker, and Joe Frazer in a time of 44:26, well down on last year's winning time of 42:41. In second place were team F; Pauline Cunningham, Mark Wallbank and Steve Gillespie, followed three seconds later by team F; Anne Best, John Miller and George Young. There was only a further two seconds to team A in 4th place, after Andy had gone out in 10th place at the start of the third leg. Cath Young has been a winner in this event twice before, in 1990, when there was a separate event for ladies, and in 1994. For both Joe and Steve Walker, this is the first time either of them have been in the winning team, although they each have placed second and third in the past. (Joe 1987 - 2nd & 1996 - 3rd, Steve 1994 - 2nd & 1997 - 3rd)
Fastest overall was Andy Brown (12:18); Andy has only been beaten once out of the eight events he has taken part in, and this is the sixth time in a row that he has recorded the night's fastest time. First Vet. went to Rob Hall in a time of 12:54, which was also the 2nd fastest on the night. Rob was 4th two years ago, and 3rd last year, so he seems to be improving!

Ron would like to thank Brian Dudding for doing the timekeeping. For the first time this year there were no marshals on the course - maybe everybody knows their way around well enough now?
I am sure everybody will echo my thanks to Ron, who once again organised an excellent event. The spread of finishing times was just over two minutes, so he can be well pleased with the team selections.