I have always enjoyed the Ian Hodgson Relays and after an extremely windy start to the weekend we had great conditions and blue skies on Sunday which meant excellent visibility for a change-a bit different to the previous year when the relays had to be cancelled due to bad weather. Kirsty and Lynn ran an excellent 1st leg and brought us in a close 2nd behind Holmfirth having caught Ilkley up on the steep descent down Red Screes. They handed over to Liz Batt and an unsuspecting Pippa Wilkie (Pippa was meant to be running the shorter leg 3 but a last minute change saw Jenny taking her place).
Liz and Pippa had another storming run to collect the fastest womens leg time on leg 2 and handed over to Julie Wilson and Jenny Johnson on 3rd leg. Despite all Julie’s protesting about being not as fit as usual the pair managed to put in a good time and hang on to bring us in just behind the super speedy Ilkley pairing.
This left Janet and me in our usual preferred position of chasing Ilkley on the last leg (we have decided its far better to chase than be chased-much more fun?!) although we started the leg with a 5 minute deficit on Heather Dawe and Andrea Priestley so we weren’t hopeful of catching them. Anyway luckily for us Heather had just finished cycling a hundred cols in the alps followed by the 3 peaks cyclo cross and so maybe wasn’t her usual self and we managed to catch and overtake them on the summit of St Sunday crag and avoid a sprint finish this year to take victory by 5 minutes and beat our previous record by a minute. A great day out and fantastic team work and thanks to Kirsty from all of us for organising a brilliant team once again. Now for the FRA’s….!
Karen