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What went on up the Downs (Part 1)
Tuesday 7th June 2016
What went on up the Downs
As the summer solstice arrives, another South Downs relay has passed! Read on for what went on up the Downs...
Phoenix Fox
The women this year started with 8 who wanted to run the relay. With 6 places it seemed to be a case of all training and waiting to see who was still fit to run by June. However, as the time approached all 8 were literally still in the running. Luckily (for us) because of the issues with the men's teams being short of a runner Anita Jones bravely stepped up to join the phoenix B team whilst Deb Fris kindly volunteered to be reserve runner and so the Women's team was agreed: Liz Halliday (Captain and savant in time predictions), Erica Martin, Caz Garrat, Hannah Carey, Bobby Searle and Kathryn Harnett with Hildi Mitchell kindly offering her driving skills.
There is such an air of unpredictability about this race that adds to the excitement and this year didn't disappoint; the day started with a sighting of a fox with a beer can in its mouth, saw about 200 cows bring leg 11 to a temporary stand still and ended with a nonchalant, white stallion trying to race the runners (see picture below for photographic evidence). And had it not been for Hildi's patience and driving skills the leg 10 to 11 handover would have been missed due to the bottleneck of buses trying to leave Springhead Hill.
As for the running; Erica led the women in leg 1 handing the baton to Bobby for leg 2, preceded by Liz, Hannah, Kathryn and Caz. As the race progressed we knew we had been overtaken by Arena 80 but it was hard to know where our position in the overall race was so our goal became not letting the Phoenix B team overtake us! By leg 7 we were seeing the B team arrive as were departing and even had the pleasure of giving B team-mate Richard a lift to ensure he met his handover (hope he's not too scarred!) but happily they never caught us.
As far as club records go, Erica beat her previous record on leg 1(a) and Hannah beat the long held record on leg 10, previously held by Gemma Sharp from the Team of 2002. Well done to Bobby and Hannah for completing their first relays and for Caz for running the relay only 6 days after posting a brilliant time in the 32 mile Weald Challenge. Although we didn't beat any other individual records, as a team we smashed our previous best over this course by 5 minutes and 33 seconds to finish in a time of 13:33:55 and an overall position of 7th. T
he women's team should feel very proud of this achievement. Here's to next year.....
Kathryn
