Photo – Jamie Macdonald the youngest member of the men’s team
Tonbridge Athletic Club’s men’s team finished as third English team in the national 12 Stage Road Relay championships, on Saturday, at Sutton Coldfield, to be awarded bronze medals. With twelve runners per team, competing of six legs of 5.38 miles and six of 3.17 miles, the race lasts over four hours and is the most significant test of a club’s strength in depth.
This year the level of competition was extremely high, as Central AC from Scotland were first home, from Highgate Harriers, Kent AC, Swansea and Tonbridge, leaving the latter with the bronze English Championship medals, due to a Scottish and Welsh team being ahead. Some top runners were on show, with Andy Butchart, 6th in the Rio Olympics 5000 metres, running the fastest long stage leg for Central AC, with 24.57. Alex Yee, the Olympic silver medallist in the individual Triathlon, ran for Kent AC and was just a second slower, which helped put James Kingston’s, fastest long leg for Tonbridge at 25.26 into context.
More than seventy teams had qualified for the men’s event, via the recent Regional Championships and for the first time ever Tonbridge had a complete B-team that ran well to place 34th. The A-team started strongly, with Alex Howard, back to his best and placing 10th with 26.10 for the long leg. Stuart Brown took over, attacking the first short stage, to run 15.38 and move the team to 5th. Then the ever-reliable Ben Cole ran 26.19 to move Tonbridge into 2nd, before the youngest member of the team, Jamie Macdonald, had one of his best races to take the team into the lead with a 15.37 time.
Tonbridge slipped back to 9th over the next four legs, from Corey De’Ath (27.49), Steve Strange (15.55), Nathan Marsh (27.25) and Cameron Chambers (16.09). However, James Kingston ran his 25.26 split on leg nine to put Tonbridge in 5th, a position that they then maintained through Michael Ellis (15.37), Kieran Reilly (26.19) and Ben Murphy (15.53).
The women’s team finished 14th overall, with the fastest legs coming from Phoebe Barker (30.11) and Katie Goodge (19.28), as the team of six ran two long and four short stages. The others involved being Annabelle Hales (19.45), Maria Heslop (33.03), Jess Murphy (20.16) and Polly Pitcairn-Knowles (20.01).
Tonbridge AC had some competitors at the Bromley International Challenge meeting, on Saturday. Jack Lennard ran his fastest sprint times since 2019, winning both the 100 and 200 metres in 10.89 and 22.02. Joe Stone ran a personal best 100 metres of 11.29, in the under 17 age group and also ran 22.75 for 200 metres.