Herts Phoenix under 17 men’s team travelled to Aldershot to compete in the South of England 4 stage Road Relays on Saturday which were held in the Rushmoor Arena. In warm sunny conditions the athletes performed very well over the 3,851 metre undulating and twisting circuit to finish in 9th place out of the 43 teams that completed the event.

David Wilson a student at Chauncy School, Ware ran the first leg in 12:24 bringing the team home in 10th place, followed by Tom Barfoot (Boys High, Bishops Stortford) who completed the second leg in 13:02 finishing 13th before handing over to Vasudev Zaver, (St Albans Boys) who ran very well and picked up 4 places in recording 13:00 to leave Edward Shepherd (Boys High) to run the final leg in 12:48 and hold onto 9th place in the final Team placings.

On Sunday it was the turn of the Senior and Veteran Men’s Teams to show their paces over the two lap 5,922 metre course, and again they ran in very warm sunny conditions. The Club had entered two Veteran Teams, the 50+ team which  included one runner who in fact is over 70, this team finished in 18th place with individual times Richard Foskett 25:33, John Steed 30:54, Norman Morrison 24:05 and Stuart Mann, who had already run for the 60+ team, 26:24. The over 60 team members all ran very well to finish in runners up spot out of the 11 teams that completed the hard fought race. Richard Melvern 23:07, Mike Dixon 25:03, Stuart Mann 24:53 and Richard Bloom 25:51. The Senior men’s race was the final event of the day in which the Club finished in 49th place out of the 78 that completed the race. Bryn Reynolds led off and came home in 33rd place in 19:47, followed by the in-form Matt Carlisle who brought the team up to 20th overall in 18:56, Mike Tarpey, 19:53 also ran strongly to further improve the team position to 16th place, with the younger members of the team, Richard Tarpey 22:18, Peter Townsend 22:30 and Jon Kinahan 23:21 running well against strong opposition completing the race to finish in 49th place overall.