Cathedral Relays, Birtley, 13th January 2019

This was the Cathedral Relays with no view of the Cathedral, though there was a view of the Angel to make up for it! The traditional January cross-country relays could not take place in Durham, so Birtley AC stepped in and organised an excellent event in the grounds of the Lord Lawson of Beamish Academy. They did a great job of creating a winding lap of approximately 1500m which included a couple of cheeky climbs. As it has been all season, the ground was good underfoot with a distinct lack of mud, though you had to be careful with the rough ground on the ascents and descents. The main problem though was the wind and we did have an unplanned warm-up when the envelopes containing the numbers were blown to the extremities of the field! In common with most clubs, we deemed it sensible not to risk the tent, so luckily it stayed mainly dry though there was enough moisture in the air to give a few drops of rain and treat us to a lovely rainbow.

I think most people enjoyed the course and some decent performances from our oldies saw two out of the four Claremont teams take second place in their age groups – the over 55 ladies and the over 65 men. Modesty forbids me from saying that I was second in the men’s over 60s individual rankings and Gill was third in the ladies!