In the National 6-stage Road Relays in Sutton Park (Birmingham) on Saturday 14th April, Trafford’s senior women finished 37th. The team changed significantly from the Nothern relays three weeks prior, providing several athletes with good A team experience. Vicki Cronin set the pace on the first stage, handing over to Ciara Lydon in 24th. Ciara ran our fastest short leg and passed over in 32nd. Jo Lott kept us in the top 40, placing 39th. Running the second long stage, Louise Mangan did well to place 40th. Alison Holbrook and Sue Exon then benefitted from the sunny and still conditions to move us to 38th and 37th on the fifth and sixth stages, respectively. In the Men’s 12-stage, Trafford fielded an incomplete team. It was promising to see Danny Lawton back from a niggle as he finished 39th on the first stage. Graham Hogg continued his decent form of late moving us up to 36th. As he did in the Northern Relays, Jeff Prest completed a long stage and handing over in 38th. Danny Hayes moved us up two places and set the same time over the short stage as senor Hogg. The next long stage was Graham Holbrook, hopefully this didn’t curtail his recovery from recent injury. Fresh from warm weather training, Alex Jones moved us from 50th to 46th. Richard Wallace then completed the team, placing us 56th after 7 stages. It will be exciting to see how the Vets teams fare over their National Road Relays in a few weeks. Full results and photos are here: https://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2018/. Videos of the Men’s and Women’s first stages are here https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=DljUHC3Yerg&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCiLL-3yt7H0%26feature%3Dshare and here https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=c-5TF_qCJKU&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DjIFSuWrn6Ow%26feature%3Dshare Simon O’Meara
