Cardiff eighth in Relays

Monday 11 April 2011

Cardiff's men's team finished in an excellent eighth place in last Saturday's National Road Relays at Sutton Park, Birmingham, just pipping rivals Swansea Harriers who finished ninth.

This highly prestigious event brings together the finest road running clubs in the whole of Britain and a placing in the top 10 is a mark of a quality team. In excellent conditions, 63 teams started and 60 finished the relay which consists of 6 "short" legs alternating with 6 "long" legs.

Cardiff's overall time was 4hrs:16:56 a mere 21 seconds ahead of Swansea.

Club captain James Thie set the team off and completed his long leg in 12th place before rushing off to a meeting at UKA in Solihull. Ieuan Thomas pulled the team up to 6th on the second (short) stage and Alex Hains improved to 4th before James Mills concluded his stint in third place. This was to be Cardiff's highest position but, by the end of stage 8, the team had settled into 8th place and held this until the end.

Kevin Seaward, running stage 9, clocked the fourth fastest time of the stage, Ieuan Thomas was seventh fastest of stage 2 and Nat Lane was eighth fastest on stage 11.

The final stage was run by James Raven who managed to hold off Swansea's Steven Davies. Individual performance were as follows:

Stage 1: James Thie (26:58): 12th
Stage 2: Ieuan Thomas (14:46): 6th
Stage 3: Alex Hains (27:04): 4th
Stage 4: James MIlls (15:02): 3rd
Stage 5: Rowan Axe (27:25): 6th
Stage 6: Michael Kershaw (15:13): 8th
Stage 7: Adam Bitchell (27:42): 9th
Stage 8: Jonathan Peters (15:52): 8th
Stage 9: Kevin Seaward (26:42): 8th
Stage 10: Michael Kallenberg (15:52): 8th
Stage 11: Nat Lane (27:55): 8th
Stage 12: James Raven (16:25): 8th