Photo – The TAC men’s team
Left to right – Alex Howard, Jamie Macdonald, James Kingston, Ted Higgins, Ben Cole, Jack Higgins
Tonbridge Athletic Club’s men’s team clinched surprise silver medals at the National Road Relay Championships, on Saturday, at Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield. The second-place finish was the first time since 2017, at the championships that they had won medals and was only their third ever time in the top three.
Tonbridge hadn’t been mentioned by commentators as a potential top three team before the day, but all six team members ran strong legs to ensure that they were in contention throughout the race. Each leg consisted of an undulating lap of 5,447 metres.
Alex Howard led the team off on the highly competitive first leg, which featured some of the country’s top distance runners, finishing in 13th of the 76 teams. Howard ran 16.11and was just 25 seconds from the front. Ted Higgins took over and was soon overtaking others and moved Tonbridge up ten places with a 16.04 split.
The youngest member of the team, Jamie Macdonald went on the third leg and recorded 16.47, slipping one place to 4th, with Cambridge and Coleridge, Highgate and Bristol ahead. James Kingston went next and moved Tonbridge into second, whilst also closing in on the leaders. Kingston ran 15.34, which was the second fastest split of the entire race. At this stage Tonbridge were just 12 seconds behind Cambridge and Coleridge, but the leaders pulled away on leg 5, despite a good run by Ben Cole, who ran 16.29. Highgate had also closed to within two seconds of Tonbridge, with Bristol and Western Tempo within striking distance.
The Tonbridge team had been selected with a close finish in mind, so 800 metres specialist Jack Higgins was on the final leg. Higgins had a race long battle with the Highgate runner and with the final 100 metres uphill to go the two were locked together. However, Higgins used his renowned track speed to sprint clear and secure the second-placed finish.
Tonbridge also had teams in some of the young athlete age group races. The under 17 men finished 4th in their race, through Peter Fitzmaurice, Ewan Prendergast and Will Bachelor. Over the 3.88 km lap, they ran 12.26, 11.51 and 11.37, respectively, with Bachelor’s time the 4th fastest of the race. The under 17 women also put in a strong performance to place 11th through Neve Raymond (14.36), Isabel Gowing (14.22) and Isla Murray (14.50). The under 15 boys finished 14th and the under 15 girls 28th.
There were several road races involving Tonbridge runners at the weekend. At the Hastings Half Marathon Phoebe Barker won the women’s race in 80.14, with Lucy Thompson 4th and Helen Gaunt 5th. Ben Shearer won the Tonbridge Half Marathon in 73.48, with Tom Lockhart 2nd in 75.08 and Paul Freeman-Jones 3rd in 77.15. Dan Bradley won the 5k race at the same Tonbridge event.