Matching the men’s result with another fifth-place finish, the HRC ladies “A” sextet of Lisa Palmer, Louise Insley, Wendy Mullineux, Jill Burke, Rose Leivers and Wendy Roethenbaugh built on their dominant, victorious BDL XC campaign and sixth-place finish in the Midland 4 Stage Road Relays last September to again demonstrate the collective quality and potential of the team.

Each one of them has been showing great form individually throughout the winter, with Lisa and Louise hitting personal bests and Jill her fastest time for three years over half marathon in February, Wendy M and Wendy R key components of the winning BDL team and Rose dropping personal bests as she builds towards the London Marathon next month.

In a further show of club-strength, of the 48 teams that started the women’s event and 36 that finished, the HRC “B” team also finished a brilliant 28th.

Twenty minutes after the men got underway, Lisa got the “A” team off to a flying start on Sunday and raced her way to third on the opening leg.

With each team running six stages of 2.69 miles, Lisa’s time of 15:04 also saw her finish the day sixth-fastest overall (and only ten seconds adrift of third).

Louise continued the momentum on stage two and maintained the team’s top-3 position before the solid middle order of Jill and Wendy M brought the team home sixth with two legs to run.

With home-club Royal Sutton Coldfield sitting in fifth but only able to field four runners, the HRC ladies moved up to a comfortable fifth and only sixty-seven seconds behind multiple-time former champions Charnwood AC.

Birchfield Harriers were away and gone after four stages and would go on to win by a healthy two and a half minutes ahead of Bristol & West and Notts AC.

Rose Leivers, incorporating the race into a long run effort in preparation for London, handed over to Wendy R in fifth and Wendy, with uber-determination and gritted teeth, showed a clean pair of heels to the chasing Westbury Harriers runner to sprint up the final hill and anchor the team to fifth.

Perhaps even more remarkable – and exciting – is that two-thirds of the women’s “A” team were veteran runners, surely making them serious contenders for British Masters Road Relay honours on May 17th.

Last-minute withdrawals almost saw an incomplete “B” team line-up but six were organised, ready and raring to run thanks to the efforts of team captains Rob Rainsford and Lisa Palmer the day before the race.

Abbie Leivers continued her good form that has seen her hit 5k PBs in consecutive weekends at the Colwick parkrun to bring the team in 37th on stage one.

Rita Fisher ran four seconds quicker and gained six positions before handing over to the returning Gemma Housley. By the time Gemma, Heather Wesson and Jo Potter had completed their efforts, the side lay in 30th position.

Relay debutante Marie Mann would go on to anchor the team to inside the top-30 and, similarly to the men, the women’s “B” team finished sixth out of eight complete “B” teams (though there was also a “C” sextet in the shape of Kenilworth Runners) – a remarkable effort given the struggles in the past to name just one side.

Full results

Photos: Facebook

HRC progression continues at Sutton Park: 12 Stage report HERE