This Saturday saw the running of the 2024 Northern Road Relays, held at Stanley Park, Blackpool. Although we didn’t have any senior representation on the day, we did originally plan on taking 3 Junior teams to test themselves against the best Junior athletes from the Northern region. This included teams from Liverpool, Preston, Sheffield, Manchester, Blackburn, Salford, Southport, Leeds and Bury amongst others, as well teams from the North East and Northumberland. The Northern, Midlands and Southern Road Relay Championships are second only to the National Championships in terms of the level of competition.
Despite trying to wrap the athletes up in cotton wool in the build up to the Championships, School Town Sports being held just 2 days before was a big concern for coach Bernie! Things never go as planned however, and completely unrelated to Town Sports, we lost 2 U13’s and an U17 through injury/illness in the days leading up to the race weekend. We thankfully still had a complete U15 Boys team featuring Rowan Steel, Matthew Foster and Kyle Sridhar, and an incomplete U13 Boys team of Dan Callaghan and Matty Richardson would still take part.
U13 Boys
The U13 Boys were up first in changeable conditions. Luckily no rain (unlike the monsoon conditions that greeted the Southern Road Relay competitors that day!) but one minute it was breezy and overcast, the next, warm sunny spells! The course was 100m of track and 2800m around the picturesque Stanley Park, before a final 300m of track to finish. A mainly flat route but with some undulating sections.
Dan ran first and finished his 3.2K leg in an excellent 11:25. This placed the boys 10th at the 1st changeover and it was also the 20th fastest leg overall out of all 136 runners! Matty then set off around the park on the 2nd leg, and despite being a late substitute himself, produced a great run and leg time of 11:45. This was the 40th fastest leg of the day! Fastest leg was North Shields Poly’s Noah Penfold in 10:27… Even more astonishing as he’s a first year U13! We think if Ollie was available to complete the team on the day, they’d have been vying for around 4th or 5th position by the end of the race. Great performances from both boys, and good experience despite the incomplete team. Hopefully we can have a few more available for the Northern Cross Country equivalent in Sheffield!
U15 Boys
Attention then turned towards the U15’s – A competitive age group with many recognised names amongst the other teams. Thomas Thake from Hallamshire Harriers, the multiple Junior London Marathon and National Cross Country winner and several athletes with National Top 10 finishes including William Delamere and Caleb Still of Southport and Waterloo AC, Yaried Alem of Leeds and Michael Phelan from Warriors AC.
We hoped to be involved in the medal chase here after the 2022 event, where Rowan, Matthew, and Finn on that occasion, finished 4th in Manchester as U13’s. We looked to have a solid team on paper, but the excitement of relays is that you never quite know ‘all’ the members of the other teams and what order they’ll be running! Relays can ebb and flow as strategy and running order come into play.
We opted to use the experience of Rowan on the 1st leg. Usually the stronger runners go first to get the team into a good position and Rowan was looking forward to locking horns with some old foes on the start line! Despite an early end to his track season and a few weeks on holiday taking a break from running, Rowan went out hard from the gun and stuck with the leaders for the first mile. With heavier legs kicking in during the second half, he dug in to finish the 1st leg in 6th position running 10:25. George Marsh from Keighley was only 2 seconds behind and Logan Fairey of Derby and Asher Phillipson of Lincoln just 5 and 6 seconds ahead respectively. Rowan ended up running the 10th fastest leg overall out of 106 competitors, excellent!
Matthew then took over under pressure from 7th place but he also had 4th and 5th place within sight. The pre-race chat was all about ‘redemption’ for the Manchester relays 2 years ago when the team were seemingly safe in 3rd place and he self-admittedly, had a race to forget, to drop the team to 4th and out of the medals on that occasion.
He came around the final corner to approach the final 300m track section in a superb 4th place, having overtaken Derby and Lincoln and created a gap of 10-15 seconds, as well as North Shields Poly who were in 3rd place after the first leg, running 10:52 for his 3.2K. This was the 4th fastest 2nd leg and 19th fastest leg of 106 overall. English Schools XC Champion Yaried Alem was the only runner to pass him, as he took his Leeds team from around 20th to 3rd during the 2nd leg, running 10:15!
We then had Kyle on the 3rd leg, arguably the most in form junior athlete at the club currently. Although inexperienced, Kyle has definitely gained more confidence this season, finishing 2nd in the Great North Junior 4K recently. The race situation was getting exciting now with the final Leeds runner around 10 seconds in front of him in 3rd and a Warrior Pentathlon & AC runner a further 15 seconds ahead in 2nd. Certainly not inconceivable that he could close the gap, depending on who was running last for those teams!
We waited patiently for the first team back, and as expected, it was the extremely strong team from Southport that rounded the final bend having lead for the entire race. Then, squinting through the distant tree lined path for the next runner, it looked vaguely like a White and Blue vest… Indeed! it was Kyle in 2nd and he still looked strong, just 25 seconds off the lead and with a good gap behind!
Just the 300m of track to go and a magnificent run of 10:16 would secure a coveted team Silver medal for the boys, running the joint fastest 3rd leg (same time as Thomas Thake!) and the joint 5th fastest leg overall. The boys also finished 17 seconds ahead of 3rd place team, Hallamshire AC.
Our last Northern Road Relays medal was a Bronze 5 years ago for the U17 Boys and it doesn’t occur very often so the U15 Boys should be hugely proud of this achievement. Despite the unfortunate circumstances that meant we didn’t have the number of teams on show that we wanted, it did make the journey worthwhile!
