Hillingdon AC’s Senior Men completed their participation in the 2022/2023 road and cross country season by finishing 36th in the South of England 12 Stage Road Relays at the Olympic Park in Stratford.
The team were chasing a top 25 finish in order to qualify for the National 12 Stage Road Relays at Sutton Park in Birmingham on 15 April but despite a strong team performance and some very quick individual legs, the team finished eleven places and eight minutes outside of this, recording a combined time of 4:08:46 over the total race distance of 72km (averaging 3.27 min/km or 5.33 min/mile pace). Similar to the Aldershot Road Relays in September, this event again showed the quality and strength in depth that exists in athletics in the South of England at the moment and means that the club must field very close to it’s strongest possible team in order to qualify for National Road Relay finals.
Pick of the performances for Hillingdon AC were from Abdi Hamud who ran the first (long) leg in 22:32 over 7.2km, Liam Holbrook who ran 15:07 over the short 4.8km leg. Jack McVann who ran 23:26 (long) and the Thompson brothers, Dan and Rob who ran 24:36 and 23:49 over the long leg. Furthermore, there was a lot of effort and application displayed by all that competed and this bodes well for next season.
Full results may be found here, while photos of the race courtesy of Rob Thompson may be found here.
