Easter Monday means JK Relays – just what you need after three days of hard racing! DVO entered six teams, with two runners from NOC and LEI to make up a junior team.
Middleton Park is a very fast area with grassy plateaux and wooded slopes with bluebells (no boulders whatsoever). It was used for the British Relay Championships in 2019, so many of us had run there before.
Relay courses are always shorter than individual courses, and a good quarter of the relay is following tapes, either at the Start, Finish or arena run-through. Also, the middle leg is a tiny bit shorter than the 1st and 3rd leg, so you can play to team strengths!
After the arena passage, there was another km or so of racing, so everyone was looking out for their incoming runner so they could get ready for their own relay leg. We then collected our maps (folded so we couldn’t peek) and went into the handover pen, again to scan for a DVO top emerging from the forest. Time to take off your fleece, go to the tape and wave and shout like crazy at the incoming runner who takes your fleece – and off you go!
We had 200m across the grass to the Start kite, time to unfold the map and plan a route to the first control. I had a fairly smooth run apart from needing to relocate on #2 and overshooting 5 in front of the whole arena.
Our team came 12th, with full DVO results as follows:
Men’s Short
DVOrak 10th John Duckworth, Sarah Duckworth, Richard Parkin
Ultravets 165+
DVOclock 12th Ann-Marie Duckworth, Sal Cjhaffey, Andrew Middleton
D-VOur 25th John Hurley, Judith Holt, Derek Gale
D-VOted 33rd Jane Kayley-Burgess, Anne Kayley Burgess, Nicky Hart
(in this class the ages must add up to more than 165, and each woman adds an extra 10 “years”!)
Junior Relay
13th Cara Tolley (LEI), Grace Robinson (NOC), Imogen Satherley (DVO)
No trophies this year, but we all had a lot of fun! A special thanks to Christine Middleton our Club Captain who coordinated the Teams and provided the Easter Eggs!
