22 Barlickers made their way to Birchwood for the the Northern Road Relays. The first time the club has entered a road relay and everyone did the club proud. The men got underway with Gary Shaw in 31st, Dan Taylor in 115th and Richard Starkie in 138th. The ladies went 5 minutes later with Lorraine Slater getting proceedings underway in 53rd.
For the A team Nick Treitl came back in 34th on leg 2, Ian Livesey pulled a few places back with a cracking run to take Barlick to 30th. Andy Berry had a solid run and stepping in at the last minute bringing the baton back in 41st. Shaun Chew had a good run and clawed a couple of places back to 39th then Steve Chew finished off in 35th.
Andrew Carson had a cracking run for the B team on leg 2 pulling back 9 places and the team up to 103rd. Des Walkden pulled another place back up to 102nd. David Poole pulled another 3 back with a strong run and the team were up to 99th. Pete Beresford did a solid job and pulled another place back and James Fent finished it off and came back 99th.
The C team amazingly pulled back 4 places on leg 2 even though Mad Bob Jackson decided to stop and have a chat after the first lap. Michael Alexander pulled 6 places back on his first run for a while after injury. John Race machine Boothman pulled 2 more places back. Andrew Chew had a great run and pulled 8 places back. James stead pulled 3 back on the last leg and they finished in 115th.
The ladies had Emma Bailey on leg 2 and she turned an ankle but still managed to get round only losing 1 place. Rachel Lowther had a solid run only losing 1 place also and then Jen Hird pulled 6 places back on the last leg to finish 49th.
A good learning experience for the club, with a few of our best runners unavailable we more than held our own. The next road relay will be interesting to see if we can push on and qualify for the nationals.
Out of the 140 teams who started the men's race, the Barlick teams finished as follows:
35 Barlick A 2:07:16
99 Barlick B 2:28:37
115 Barlick C 2:46:57
Ladies
49 Barlick A 1:52:50
The results for the ladies' race are not yet available