Elswick Relays 2010: It's a Win !!
The women of Wallsend Harriers raced to a marvellous victory in the Elswick Harriers-promoted Good Friday Relays, pipping rivals Chester le St with a dramatic statement of purpose and intent in one of the more prestigous of local events.
On what was an altered course of 2.43miles, due to severe flooding, Danielle Hodgkinson's third-place led the club home to an unexpected triumph, despite Chester le St placing two of the first four finishers. For Wallsend, Vicky Hindson continued her excellent form to come home in ninth place, but it was perhaps the run of Gina Howarth in 20th place that sealed a team victory by a margin of only two points.
Eight Wallsend women completed the race that combined U17 and U20 runners with Seniors and Veterans, with Kerry Bentham placing twelfth in the Veteran category.
Trafford AC's Cath Riley was first home in 12.42.
Vicky Hindson sends this personal report:
"I don’t mean to start by making excuses, but it was touch and go as to whether or not I could do the Good Friday race having been suffering for a week with a bad chest and having an inflamed calf, but after a bit of a warm up I decided to give it a go! The course had been changed due to flooding and we almost missed the start as we weren’t sure where it was!
Lining up for Wallsend were myself, Danielle (fresh from competing in the inter forces championships representing the army), Gina, Chrystal, Kerry, Penny, Kelly and Stacy.
The race started and as usual the faster lasses, including Danielle of course were off like a shot! I started off feeling quite good and realised I was right on the tail of my recent target, Heaton’s Jo Zoppi. I thought to myself just try and stay on her tail, which I managed to do quite comfortably for the first half of the race then with about a mile to go I decided to go past her still feeling comfortable.
This didn’t last long and she pulled passed me about 200 meters later. I still managed to stay on right on her tail until about 400 meters out from the finish when we ran past a big group of Heaton men who shouted her on and she picked up the pace just enough to open a few second gap which - and I don’t want to use my bad chest as any excuse - I could not close as Jo finished just 3 second ahead of me. I came 9th place overall, Danielle came a fantastic 3rd and Gina, continuing to prove herself an important member of the team since coming back from injury, finished 20th giving us first team position ahead of Chester le street in second and Tynedale in third.
It was great to see so many Wallsend women racing, with Penny and Kelly returning to competition after long period of injury, new comer Stacy who has been so keen to compete, jumping straight into doing cross country after just one week at the club and pretty much every race since. And of course Chrystal and Kerry who support the club in most races.
I would like to say a big thanks and well done to all of the girls and thanks to all of the men and the O’Gara crew for their support!"
Selected results:
D Hodgkinson 13.05
V Hindson 14.20
G Howarth 15.45
K Bentham 16.32
P SInclair 16.38
C Skeldon 16.55
K Hodgkinson 18.29
S Davidson 18.43
In the Mens events, Wallsend placed 19th in the Senior race won by Gateshead Harriers, and 10th in the Veterans race won by Sunderland.
Results
T Dunn 15.50
D Reed 15.20
D Rowe 14.42
B Hetherington 13.16
B Allsopp 13.57
R Murray 15.57
T Maddocks 18.05
P Brown 14.41.
Youngster Ryan Hall was the club's sole competitor in the age-group races, and although finishing 16th, his 14.30 was bettered by only two of the senior Wallsend runners running the same course.
Full results can be found at:
http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2010/elswickrelays.pdf
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