NEMAA Road Relay Championships – 1st May 2024
by Geoff Hewitson
Last Wednesday evening (1st May) the ‘team relay season’ was in full swing, with the ever popular Neptune Relays at Sedgefield clashing with the NEMAA (North East Masters Athletic Association) Road Relay Championships. Whilst our club had a massive presence at Sedgefield, it was just the one MV65+ team of Mark Standbridge, Andy Turnell and myself who made the trip to Jarrow to fly the flag for Crook AC.
Our event took place in its usual home of Bedewell Park (Jarrow), which is situated just across the road from Monkton Stadium. Although it goes under the title of NEMAA, this is an open championship event, hence not restricted to NEMAA members. The minimum age criteria of 35+ did however apply.
The format involved teams of three with each leg being approximately 3k (2 laps of the park). It’s mostly flat and on paths, roughly square shaped so just the four corners to negotiate. As is the case with most other relay events, older athletes are allowed to run in younger age category teams but each team must be declared in the category of its youngest member.
Race 1 was for all ladies’ teams plus a small number of 65+ men’s teams, including ourselves. I’d spoken to a couple of friends from other clubs who are in my age category, asking the usual stuff about which leg they were on etc. Both were bemoaning the fact that a lack of interest (or numbers) amongst their M65s meant that they were having to run in the second race as part of a younger team. I couldn’t resist saying that in theory our little club could have fielded three M65+ teams!
After collecting our numbers, there was time for a couple of warm up laps of the course before the field assembled for the start of race 1. Mark S was first to go and ran a very solid 12:47, handing over to Andy as 3rd placed M65 team behind Morpeth and Jarrow & Hebburn. The deficit at this point was 70 seconds and 22 seconds respectively. Andy (12:42) also ran really well, reducing Morpeth’s advantage by 13 seconds and losing just 2 seconds on a decent Jarrow second leg runner. Although not being aware of the time gaps on taking over on leg 3, I was 57 seconds behind Morpeth and 24 seconds behind Jarrow at the start of my leg. I didn’t recognise the Morpeth runner but I did know Micky Joyce, on the 3rd leg for Jarrow. About halfway round the first lap I was confident we’d finish second but on the basis that I expected to catch and overhaul Jarrow. As it turned out, we did finish second, but not the way I thought – about halfway round the second lap it was clear that the Morpeth leader was tiring at a rate of knots but also that the gap to Micky wasn’t closing as quickly as I’d hoped. He took the lead from Morpeth with about 500m to go, and I also passed the Morpeth runner in the last 200m, but was still 13 seconds adrift at the finish. A good effort all round, cracking runs from both Mark and Andy, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit disappointed with myself for what was perhaps a missed opportunity. For whatever reason I know I’m struggling for form at present. 2 months ago, I reckon I could have made up those 13 seconds but it’s what we can do on the day that counts. Still, plenty of positives and more medal success for our club.
It’s worth mentioning that there were some very strong ladies’ teams taking part. Six ladies ran sub-11 minutes for their legs, whilst loads more were under 12 minutes. Interesting that the overall winners were the F45 from Elswick Harriers, who finished 22 seconds ahead of the F35 team from Heaton.
Results:
Race 2 was for the M35, M45 and M55 teams. We had no club involvement in this one but as usual, it looked very fast and furious! Looking at the results, if we’d been in that race we would have finished 50th/55.
As those of you who were competing at Sedgefield will know, the weather was very pleasant for an evening relay with good conditions for running. What this event clearly demonstrates is the very high standard of Masters’ running in the North East.