The 2026 edition of the National 12 and 6 Stage Road Relays witnessed two brilliant 7th place finishes for our Senior Men’s and Women’s A teams, with our Men’s B team in their highest ever 26th overall and 3rd B team. The Men’s race comprised 12 ‘short’ legs of 5.4K, while the Women’s comprised 6.
The best ever performance by our Men’s team at this event was spearheaded by some fireworks from our two top distance runners, Arlo Ludewick and Sam Bramwell. Both were 2nd quickest on their legs with 15:45 and 15:42 respectively, as Arlo moved us up from 13th to 3rd on leg 2 and Sam from 5th to 2nd on leg 6. Sam’s leg was the 5th fastest leg of the day, and Arlo’s was 9th.
Either side of Arlo’s leg 2 run, Harry Bell produced a superb 16:22 on leg 1 for the quickest U20 leg of the day, and team captain Daniel Shaw ran 16:33 on leg 3 to take us into the lead. Morgan Roberts dipped under 16:40 on leg 10, and there was excellent consistency amongst the rest of our team, all running in the range of 16:49-17:08 to ensure our team position did not fluctuate significantly. In finishing 7th, we were only 31 seconds off 4th place, and 94 seconds outside the medals. A brilliant team performance.
Our 26th placed B team was spearheaded by a superb debut from Rowan Board in 16:52, backed up by strong legs throughout the whole team.
Margaret Coogan and Molly Smith once again led the way for our Women’s team with our two quickest legs on leg 1 and 2 in 19:19 and 18:35 respectively. Margaret was 14th on leg 1, before Molly moved us up to 5th as she ran the 2nd fastest time on her leg and the equal 12th fastest of the day. Soraya Lockwood, Liv Stillman, Grace Leyland and Katie Balme completed the team, all running strongly to ensure another excellent performance.
Keith Newton