Tonbridge Athletic Club took teams to the Soar sponsored Milton Keynes Road Relays on Sunday, which had been hastily organised after the South of England Championships had been cancelled. Many of the top clubs from the South took part, taking a chance to see where they might stand in the national picture. The Tonbridge men’s team showed that they can be a competitive force once again this Winter, coming home in 2nd place, just a few seconds behind a strong Cambridge and Coleridge team, with Southampton in third.
The Milton Keynes course for the senior races, was measured at 5.05km and the opening leg, of six in total, is generally the fastest overall. James Kingston, representing the Tonbridge B-team had one of his best ever races, running 14.52 to come home in 8th and record what finished up as the 10th fastest lap of the entire race. Not far behind was Corey De’Ath for the A-team with 14.59, in 11th.
Steve Strange ran 15.13, on the second leg, to move the A-team up to 4th, before Jamie Goodge put Tonbridge into 2nd with 15.02. Max Nicholls ran 15.09 and Alex Howard 15.11, which gave them a lead by just a couple of strides from Cambridge after five of the six laps. Tonbridge’s Ben Murphy now led from international Tom Keen, although they ran stride for stride for much of the anchor leg. However, Keen pulled away over the last mile to win by 10 seconds, with Murphy running 15.31.
The Tonbridge women’s team finished 6th, after a last-minute change, when an original member had a car accident on the way to the event. Phoebe Barker led the team off, coming home in 4th with a time of 17.22. Nicole Taylor then had a terrific run to take the lead, recording 16.32, which was the fastest leg of the entire race by twelve seconds. It was a tough first race, at this level, for Sophie Preston on leg 3, who had been called into the team not long before the start. Preston ran 21.01 to come home 7th, before Verity Hopkins, with 18.27, moved the team back up to 6th.
There were some solid performances from the club’s younger athletes, with both the under 15 girls and under 17 women finishing 3rd in their 3 x 2.8km races. Lily Slack ran 9.35 to win the first leg of the under 15 race, the second fastest time of the entire race and was backed up by Penny Horne (11.01) and Carmen Wright (10.59). In the under 17 race Olivia Breed ran 9.58, Ella Ayden 10.44 and Sophie Slack 10.29.
The under 17 men ran over the 5.05km course and placed 5th through Josh Prendergast (16.46), Huxley Crush (17.06) and Isaac Arnott (16.50). Tonbridge teams also finished 4th in the over 40 men’s age category and 2nd in the over 50s.
Tonbridge now look forward to taking teams to the National Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield.