It was a wet Wednesday evening when six of us turned up at the University of Birmingham’s famous clock tower for the relay challenge.

Laura had done a great job of organising and we had two ladies’ teams – Uno, myself, Linda and Nicola, and Dos – Laura, Kat and Emily.  Fortunately the rain had eased off by 7pm when we lined up to start the race.  We were a bit daunted starting off with the children, as many of the youngsters looked very serious – and went off very fast.   Although it’s only a mile it is quite twisty and turny,  – was it just me who nearly went the wrong way near the start?  I was convinced I’d gone further when I heard Linda shout, “You’re at least a quarter of the way round!”  At least I only had to do the course once, unlike one of the Birmingham Uni ladies team who ran both first and last legs – with a five-minute break while her teammate ran the middle mile.   

There was lots of welcome support en route, from among others, Stuart Leslie, and Mel James, whose son Mark was running.  Other Bournville members were also taking part in the mixed event, including Beth Landor and Bob Hockenhull.  We were all finished by 7.30 and were able to watch them.  Recyclable cotton goody bags were provided to all, containing lots of sports drinks and quite excitingly free tickets for go-karting – now there’s an idea of how to get quicker!  We later found out that Team Dos were awarded prizes of running tops after finishing in fourth position – hooray!  Overall a really nice event, and a great scenic bike ride along the Rea valley route on the way home.  

Marianne Hensman

Full results here

Position	Race  Numbers	Team	Leg 1	Leg 2	Leg 3	Total
			Linda	Nicola	Marianne
2	152	Bournville Ladies Uno	00:05:40	00:06:04	00:05:59	00:17:43
			Laura	Kat	Emily
4	153	Bournville Ladies Dos	00:06:20	00:07:01	00:06:52	00:20:13