Gordon Smith Relays, 14th May 2025
With the prospect of a new course to look forward to, I think it is fair to say that the large Claremont contingent arrived at Cobalt Business Park with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. This was probably mostly true for those of us, like me, who never liked the old course!
The recent good weather continued, but there was a chill wind blowing as we met by Race HQ and headed off the find the start and finish area. This was in a car park! So, as there was nowhere to put the flag, never mind a tent, we claimed our parking spaces and laid out the groundsheet for our bags and, most importantly, post-run cakes.
Anton MIrafsari, who wasn’t running but had come to offer his support (as had Lucy Ward and her husband, Rob), made full use of the car park to lead some of our ladies through warm-up drills. The rest of us just stood and gossiped!
It was soon time for the women’s race, and we had an excellent 7 ladies teams, including 3 relay debutants – Katy Adkins, Jem Isaac and Becky Webster. Our lasses were led out by Lily Crouzier, now vastly experienced as this was her 3rd relay(!), so she knew not to go out too fast (Or so she tells me – wish I’d learned how to do that after running in a few more of these events!). Lily did brilliantly before handing over to Katy Adkins, with finally Sonja Fenske bringing home our A team in a very creditable 19th place. There were some cracking times posted by all our runners, and even our slowest team was well-positioned.
The flying machine known as Harry Mawdsley was our fastest man, and he passed on the baton in 9th place at the end of the first leg. Luke O’Neil and Mark Anderson couldn’t quite match Harry’s pace and the A team finished 14th overall. There was a good battle between Peter Noble and Russell Brown on the first leg for our other two teams, with Peter shading it by 2 seconds. Once again, the rest of us couldn’t quite match their pace!
The new course, with a nice long stretch through on a trail through the woods, was well received by our runners. I think all of us thought it an improvement on the previous one. Though we had to cross a number of open roads and get around a couple of roundabouts, it was well-marshalled by friendly Wallsend Harriers and everybody got back in one piece.
All in all, a good evening’s racing, and we move on to the big one in June – Weetslade!
| Women | ||
|---|---|---|
| Position | Runners | Time |
| 19 | Lily Crouzier Katy Adkins Sonja Fenske Team Time | 13:14 15:06 14:34 42:54 |
| 22 | Aoife Monaghan Sarah Kerr Tara Hipwood Team Time | 14:51 13:59 15:13 44:03 |
| 33 | Steph Towers Nina Jensen Cate Walker Team Time | 15:49 15:21 15:39 46:49 |
| 40 | Lynne Cornell Lena Lou Julie Cross Team Time | 15:54 16:37 15:02 47:33 |
| 50 | LIz Denyer Jem Isaac Ailsa Ralph Team Time | 17:51 16:46 17:04 51:41 |
| 52 | Lucy Keating Becky Webster Jo Perthen Team Time | 16:13 20:09 16:48 53:10 |
| 55 | Niamh Garratt Alexia O’Rourke Gill Milne Team Time | 15:50 19:39 18:26 53:55 |
| Men | ||
|---|---|---|
| Position | Runners | Time |
| 14 | Harry Mawdsley Luke O’Neil Mark Anderson Team Time | 10:38 11:57 11:30 34:05 |
| 48 | Peter Noble Laurie Johnson Tom Tinsley Team Time | 12:47 13:05 13:40 39:32 |
| 56 | Russell Brown Aaron Mansell Daniel Orlopp Team Time | 12:49 14:40 13:45 41:14 |
