Brennan leads Stratford AC to seventh-place finish

STRATFORD AC claimed a comfortable top-ten finish in this year’s National Masters Road Relay Championship at a wet and windy Sutton Park.

The club were represented by a team in the M65 age group, consisting of Roger Wilson, Phil Brennan and David Jones.

This was a three-leg relay, with each leg being 5k. Jones ran the first leg in a time of 22.10, but found it really tough going.

He has run this course on a number of occasions and finds the first uphill mile one of the toughest of all the races he competes in.

Jones was pleased with his first mile time of 7.01, but feels that he suffered in the next mile due to the effort expended. He was only able to hand over to Roger Wilson in 14th place. Wilson’s time of 22.52 enabled him to gain two places.

Roger had to drop down an age group to accompany his two ‘younger’ team-mates. Had he been running in his own age group, his would have been the fastest time in that age group.

Phil Brennan, setting off in 12th place, ran a storming last leg of 22.14, almost two minutes quicker than his time last year.

Brennan was able to gain five places, enabling Stratford to finish comfortably inside the top ten, in seventh place, which was a big improvement on last year’s 11th place effort.

The race was won by Oxford City in a time of 59.52. To illustrate the national and competitive nature of the event, other teams to finish ahead of the Stratford trio were Rotherham, Bingley, Altrincham, Barnet and Wolds Veterans.