Stubbington Green Runners

As Saturday 14th May dawned I had the pleasure of driving The Three Amigo’s (Eric, Alan and Nigel) and The Apprentice (Nikki) plus One (John) to Emsworth to compete in the annual Emsworth to Basingstoke Relay.

The team of six now down to five set to run 18 legs on this tough relay over mixed terrain were feeling ever so slightly nervous!  A total of 70km with 1500mtrs of climbing through gorgeous but challenging countryside lay before them. As the team were still unsure at this point if they had a 6th member or not due to a misunderstanding and a breakdown in communications the plan of action for the day was still a little unclear and lots of organising was still needed.

First port of call was the local Bakers where we installed ourselves swiftly and placed our order for coffee’s and Bacon Butties Mmmmm! Upon the arrival of Phil May at the Bakers it became clear very quickly The Amigos were not getting a 6th member to run in their team after all and that in fact our fellow Stubbington Green Team only had five members running in their team too. This was going to be a tough day for Stubbington but the sun was shining despite the awful weather report and everyone’s spirits were high.

Eric, Alan, Nigel, Nikki and John decided to pull together and give all the extra legs to Alan “because he’s worth it!” That’s actually not strictly true as Nigel and Eric both got an extra leg but it certainly felt by the end of the day that Alan had ran a ridiculous amount of legs and had almost completed half of the course. Alan being the gentleman he is, decided to accompany Nikki on her legs as well as his own as they were so remote and Nikki being still very new to running was a little daunted by the prospect of getting lost along the way. The legs were divided into the following:

Amigo Alan ran legs 1, 2, 8, 13
Amigo Eric ran legs 6, 7, 12, 18
Amigo Nigel ran legs 3, 9, 14, 17
Apprentice Nikki ran legs 1, 5, 10, 15 (accompanied by Amigo Alan)
Plus One John ran legs 4, 11, 16

The Amigos all ran fantastically well on the day despite the pressure of the extra legs. The handovers were carried out with precision and fortunately no one got lost although Eric did take a slight detour on leg 18 in a bid to just keep the day going that little bit longer. Nikki was amazing and ran extremely well completing a staggering four legs, an achievement to be very proud of so early on in her running career! John ran brilliantly on the day after being concerned about problems with his knee and feeling slightly apprehensive at the start. On the whole The Three Amigo’s and The Apprentice plus One defied the odds and delivered an excellent performance completing the relay in 6 hours and 53 mins and finishing in 16th position. The splits can be found on the table below: Donna Mitchell