George Jephcott Memorial Boxing Day Relays
Nelson family take the honours!
On a very cold but dry Boxing Day morning, 24 runners turned up at Abington Park in Northampton for the annual George Jephcott Boxing Day Relays, this year we had a full range of runners from the junior section right through to the vets and this year we even had two female sprinters who came and joined in the fun!
The runners were all handicapped so they could be put into fair and even teams, but sometimes even the handicapper gets it wrong when he is to generous with times he gives athletes, and this happened with the young Robert Nelson and the evergreen Mark Barraclough.
With each athlete having to complete two laps of the park with the slowest going first, the winning team was soon showing there true colours, on the back of secret training, when after two laps Robert and his dad Stuart were miles ahead of the second placed team, behind them the race for the minor places was hotting up, where the fastest lap of the day for a female was run by Emily Waugh in a time of 9.58, which moved her team into 4th place after the second lap.
Towards the rear of the field, and even though he was running by himself, Rory Grant put in two very quick laps of 9.09 and 9.07, to be the second quickest runner of the day behind Stuart Nelson who ran laps of 8.51.and 8.48.
As the race unfolded and teams were getting closer, a lot of effort was being put in by all the runners, as 7 teams were within a minute of each other, and this included the team of sprinter Charlotte Allee and Brian Summers.
The race concluded with Robert and Stuart Nelson finishing first, 2nd place going to Matt Finnegan and Mark Barraclough, and 3rd place going to Joe Lantsbury and Ruth Love-Smith, with Ruth coming over specially from New Zealand with her family to run the relays.
A great morning was had by all and the handicapper would like to thank all athletes for turning up and running, and the result recorders for there help, and we look forward to seeing you all next year.
