Two teams of ladies went up to Sutton Park for the Midland 6 Stage Relays on Saturday 1st April although a last minute injury meant our B Team was one runner short of a complete team. 

Kiya Dee made a welcome return from injury, using the race as part of her build up back to fitness and still got the A team off to a good start with a mature, controlled run coming in 12th on leg 1. Legs 1 and 3 are run over 5.38m whilst the others are all 3.16m in distance. Ellie Balfe demonstrated her great recent form on the shorter leg coming home in 20:42 losing only 2 places. Georgia Palmer had a storming run to complete the long leg 3 as 4th fastest on the stage and with 10th fastest time of the day, running 33:5 and taking the team up into 6th place. Legs 4, 5, 6 are all over the shorter distance and were completed by Rachel See, Jane Fairbairn and Petra Vymetalova respectively.

Rachel clocked an impressive sub 20 time, 5th fastest on the stage holding onto 6th place which remained the position to the end as Petra and Jane both ran well to ensure no teams passed them in the latter stages. To come away with 6th place in the Midlands whilst missing a number of key runners was an excellent result for the team. 

Meanwhile the B Team were led off by Jo Wilkie coming in 30th on leg 1. Jodie Hatton Belliard ran the first of the short legs and handed over to Sophie Bestwick in 33, for the other long stage. Consistency was the order of the day, for the B Team, as each athlete ran similar times, to others on the same distance legs.  Fast improving Jodie ran a strong 23:20 to move the team up to 32nd, Lucy proved her recent pb form to run 23:12 and Mel the final runner for the team on leg 5 running 24 minutes despite suffering with a bad back. The team was in 28th after leg 5, so just a shame not to have a full team and complete all 6 stages.