Shrewsbury AC sent four teams to the national road relays with the mission to have fun and see what we could achieve. We had two U13 girls teams, one U13 boys team and one U15 girls team.

It was a lovely day and almost all the best juniors in England descended on Sutton Park in the search for glory. Sutton park is a very undulating 3.9k loop and you are running uphill for most of the first 2k.

First up were the U13 boys team of Logan, Oscar and Charlie. Logan stepped up to the plate as a lower year today and ran our first leg. Logan has a current parkrun Pb of 21:07. Logan was pushed to the back at the start but worked his way through the pack to cross the line in 39th in a time of 15:29. That pace would bring him in at under 20 mins for a parkrun, so that shows you how well he was running. Oscar ran our second leg and picked off runners all the way to the line in a confidence boosting run to show things are going in the right direction. Oscar crossed the line in 13:27 which was the fastest run of all athletes on leg two, and 22 seconds faster than two weeks ago before handing over the race to Charlie in 18th. Charlie ran another very strong leg and passed four runners and narrowly missed out on passing another and finished our team off in 14th in a time of 14:13 which was nine seconds quicker than a few weeks ago. Well done boys!

Next up was our U13 girls teams. Selina, Libby and Roni were in team one and Amelie, Arya and Eva made up team two. Selina started off for team one and managed to bring us home in 21st in 15:43 which was 13 seconds quicker than a few weeks ago. Libby took over in the second leg and ran a great leg of 15:11 which was the 10th fastest second leg of the day. Libby was able to gain eight positions and hand over to Roni in 13th place. Roni was our third leg runner for team one and ran another amazing run, probably the best run she has ever ran. She was able to bring our team home in 6th and ran the second fastest leg of the day 14:00 second only to an international age group world record holder. 6th place in the national road relays for our U13s is pretty amazing.

Amelie led off team two. Amelie was sporting a new set of super shoes for the day and I think they helped. Amelie ran a very strong leg and was able to cross the line in 30th in a time of 16:01 which was a crazy 66 seconds faster than two weeks ago. Arya ran the second leg and she did exactly what she did a few weeks ago by getting stuck in to the course and giving it everything she had. Arya was able to cross the line in 24th place in a time of 16:13 which was an amazing 63 seconds quicker than a few weeks ago. Last up was Eva who was a last leg runner a few weeks ago. Eva ran really well and was able to cross the line in 30th place in a time of 17:10 which was 17 seconds quicker than a few weeks ago.

The gains our U13s have made in a matter of weeks is crazy and it’s fair to say that our youngest juniors are becoming a real force to be reckoned with.

Last up for us today was our U15s girls team. Sadly we only had two runners, so never got a final finishing position, but our two girls had great runs. Emma-Jayne was first up and ran a great leg finishing in 16:10 which was 33 seconds quicker than a few weeks ago. Emma-Jayne thought she had a bad race, but I’m sure you will all agree that she has smashed it! Emma-Jayne passed on to Megan who ran another great race and managed to cross the line in 16:19. Both girls ran amazingly well for the club.

We would like to say thank you to all the parents on the day for making the trip as well as the club for the new gazebo purchase. For us, this was a really special day and we hope that next year we have many more teams in many age groups. There were no senior teams running today, some rumours say they were committed in the Welsh XC league, but other rumours being widely circulated are that they didn’t want to be out run by the juniors again.

Report and pics courtesy of Jamie Adams