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Road Runners

Tuesday 22nd April 2014

Road Runners

Phoenix always does well in this fiercely fought and exciting event and this year was no exception.

The U15 boys and the senior men's A team both have claims to be team of the day. With a team and individual course record, perhaps the boys edge clear.

Toby Lewis (running second fastest leg of the day) kicked of with an emphatic 5:40. Harry Swindells ran a steady 5:56 before Archie Davis set the individual course record in a fantastic 5:14 to take the trio a full minute ahead of their nearest rivals and a course record of 16:50.

For the U13 girls, Maia Hardman, Louisa Saunders and Holly Luscombe would have recorded an excellent team silver and individual third for Maya but for a late team entry that made them ineligible for the championship.

The late entry ineligibility was the same for the U15 girls (Chloe Watson, Anna Berry and Charlotte Matthews) where their team time would have won gold by 10 seconds and Charlotte would have won individual bronze.

There were two under 17 women (Sophie Mansfield and Tara Bage) running in the only women's team of the day with Zena Claire completing the trio. They came a respectable 9th out of 19 senior women's teams with Sophie taking individual gold in the U17 category.

Over 40 men and Over 50 men did well to finish 4th in tough age groups and the over 60 A team of Bob Novis, Terry Avey and Brian Friend, ran themselves into silver place behind Chichester but ahead of arch rivals Brighton and Hove.

The senior men had some big names absent but, having won this event for the last three years were anxious to repeat the trick. This was a chance for some of our younger athletes to show their metal. Boy did they succeed. Three of the six-man squad ran under 10 minutes for a team time below one hour. This took them three minutes clear of Brighton and Hove who had led for the opening two laps. How about this for a consistent team performance over a leg distance of 2 miles and 93 yards: Billy White 10:06, Ross Skelton 9:55, Mark Dooley 9:54, Josh Guilmant 10:02, Sam Wade 10:09, Robbie Fitzgibbon 9:51. Individually Billy was second U17 and Robbie third senior. Not forgetting Jake Alger who led out the senior B team with a scorching 10:04 to earn him individual U17 gold.

Apart from the late team entries, it would have been nice to have completed our representation with U13 boys and women's vet's teams. Maybe next time.

See results section for fuller details.

Thank you Andrew Haig for this report