There were some fine performances in the traditional Autumn/ Winter opening fixture, the Midland Counties Road relays held at the customary Sutton park in Sutton Coldfield and this is a chance for the squad to blow away the cobwebs after their 2 week summer break. The Women’s U17 just narrowly missed a team Bronze medal by just 7 seconds & a there was a top 6 finish for the U13 Boys team. There were also some superb individual performances with Fynn Batkin & Dylan Bowley the best placed in the squad with the 4th & 6th fastest legs in their AG on the day respectively.
Fynn Batkin best individual performance of the day, 4th fastest U17 M
The U13B teams all amazingly all bottom year in the age group and all making their RR debuts, showed their huge potential and strength in depth with the ‘A’ squad finishing in 6th place with a terrific team performance. Opening leg was run by Ernie Jackson who got them off to a great start with a strong leg of 15:01 in 14th position, handing over to Alfie Frayne (15:06) who pulled back two places to bring the squad back in 12th, with Lucas Rogers showing his fantastic current form running a brilliant anchor leg (14:41) to take a further 6 places for a superb team position of 6th. The B team also ran well finishing in 22nd place with Rio Carr enjoying a terrific first leg of 15:56, and Theo Crick/ George Separovic both running well with 17:09 & 16:42 respectively, with Seporovic also making 7 places on his leg.
Boys & Girls U13 teams
The U13G all in action in the Road Relays for the first time finished in a respectable 27th place with Lauren Hewitt top finisher in the opening leg with 17:01 for 18th place, and a gusty run for Keira Potter & Rachel Newman both making their MD debuts & running well over the longer distance of 3.83km. The U15G has an incomplete team but both legs were ran well with Mia Broackway running 45 seconds quicker than a year ago with 16:22, and Freya Batkin running a strong second leg to set a 30 second PB over the course with 16:15 making up 10 places in the process.
Dylan Bowley also ran a strong leg, setting the 6th fastest of the day and a new PB of 13:10 in the opening leg to show he is in great early season form, handing over to debutants Josh Clutton who ran well with 16:04, and Ryan Raulia on third leg also running well with 15:51 to bring the team home in a respectable 21st place.
It was the experienced U17 Men’s & Women’s squads who enjoyed best of the days success, with the U17 W ‘A’ team narrowly missing a bronze medal with a superb performance for 4th place. Emily Williams opening for the team had a bit of a nightmare opening leg, having to stop when feeling nauseous she bravely carrying on to give the team a chance producing a battling run while in some discomfort to finish in 6th place in 14:56, handing over to Poppy Carmichael who showed she will be a force over the longer distances this season with a great run in leg 2 in 15:19 to pull back one place and hand over to the much improved Charlotte Maywood, who produced a blinding final leg knocking over 2 minutes from her previous best with 15:50 taking two further places and moving ahead of local rivals Corby AC in the process and closing down Bromsgrove & Redditch Anna Nicod all the way to the line to miss out on a medal by 7 just seconds. The incomplete ‘B’ team also ran well with Harriett Jolley running a fine 16:38 despite showing real team sprit to stop and encourage her colleague Emily Williams after she had pulled up, and Olivia Knibb showing great courage to run a distance well outside of her more typical 300m, also ran a fine 2nd leg.
U17 W squads, Harriett Jolley, Poppy Carmichael, Charlotte Maywood, Emily Williams
For the U17 Men the best individual performance of the day was produced by the in-form Fynn Batkin who ran a tremendous first leg slicing 30 seconds from his PB and finishing in a fine third place just a second behind Cannock & Stafford Joshua Ward, and a time which proved to be the 4th fastest of the day. Morgan Potter making his Road Relay debut for the Harriers ran well with 14:11 and handing over to Josh Cannel who ran 14:36 with the team finishing in a very respectable 15th place.
The squads get an opportunity to run the same course in 2 weeks’ time in the ERRA National road relays where they will look to improve their times competing with teams from all over the UK.