A brief report – the details may be sketchy but who cares we had a grand day out.
Mixed success for our relay team today in North Wales.
After last minute changes which saw Mike Robinson replace Lloyd in the open team and Tim Austin (now part of the Lakeland DPFR outpost!) come in to the B-team we were ready for the off.
Rob hung on to a quality field for a top ten finished leaving Al and Mike R to start the charge. They brought us up to 7th after which Neil and Phil produced the performance of the day. They finished fastest on the navigation leg taking 3 minutes out of the Bingley pairing (some guys called Jebb and Holmes) to come home 5th. Newcomer John Rocke made a fine fine debut overhauling Edinburgh University to claim a valiant if somewhat fraustrating 4th place.
Ladies team were short of some key runners but finished an excellent second (Philippa, Lynn, Debbie, Helen, Kirsty and Rachel)
Kirsty adds:
Pippa ran a great first leg to get us of to an excellent start in 4th place. Lynn and Deddie ran a solid (but tactical?) second leg to finish just behind Ilkley. Kirsty and Helen then did some serious heather bashing to overtake Ilkley and Calderdale to finish 3rd behind Bingley and Carneathy. Rachel had meanwhile started in the mass start for an excellent run with the final placing being 2nd(?to be confirmed) behind Bingley. Well done to everyone for a great performance!
The Vets team were going for a third title on the hop and well they did it again! Steve led us off in style puting us in 4th. John and John put us out of sight of the nearest vets and in sight of the open team with a storming leg. Simon and Joe made a couple of errors but held 1st place leaving Dave Taylor to bring us home 7 minutes clear of Horwich. Only 2 more titles to go to equal Kendals 5 in a row. START TRAINING NOW!!
Last but not least the B team finished 18th overall and 1st B team (yeah – but no prize) suberb legs from Gavin and Tom on navigation (beating the vets) and Mick on the anchor leg were the highlights of a solid performance. Its comforting to think that only a dozen or so open teams in the UK can beat our second team.
Well done top the organisers for a top event.
Mike Nolan