PEMBREY Country Park near Llanelli was the place to be for runners on 7 September as Welsh Athletics held one of their biggest events of the year, the Welsh Road Relay Championships and Aberystwyth Athletic Club certainly made its presence felt.
The road relays, as the name suggests, are a series of relay races where athletes from the same club team up to run either three or four legs, depending on their age categories.
First races were for the primary school children. Although these were team scoring races, they were run as one 1,540m race rather than the relay format. Four Aberystwyth boys were on the start line with Ifan Jones, Aled Davies, Now Schiavone and Axil Evans, all in Year 5, running brilliantly against a field containing mostly Year 6 children.
In the girls’ race, Aber athletes Moli Tooze and Lottie Munton competed strongly against the older athletes.
There was a full team of four in the girls U13s race over 1,900m as well which included Yasmin Evans, Skye Evans, Llinos Rowlands and Manon Davies. All ran solid individual legs.
Although unable to form full teams, individual runners Moi Schiavone (U13 boys), Celyn Childs and Rhiannon Starr (both U13 girls), Jack Foale (U15 boys) and Gwen Tompsett (U15 girls) made the trip to Pembrey to race a leg each and will hopefully be back next year.
On to the senior and masters races where older runners were able to drop down age groups to form full teams, which proved crucial for Aber.
The club was able to field four full masters teams in total, and proved very competitive in what was an incredibly strong field.
Caryl Wyn Davies, Heulwen Davies and Jade Gaitely lined up for the women’s 35-44 team. All three put in solid performances to secure a ninth place finish with Caryl running a time of 25:24, Jade 28:31 and Heulwen 30:30.
As for the men, Aber were able to field strong teams after some juggling. Most notable was club chair Paul Williams, who should have been running in the M55 category but after his fantastic recent form agreed to drop down two age groups to help out the M35 team.
The move certainly paid off as Paul ran a time of 20:49 in the anchor leg to bring home the team for a fantastic silver medal. Former pro cyclist and triathlete Gruff Lewis laid the foundation with an excellent 19:45 first leg before handing over to Owain Schiavone who ran 18:51 for the second fastest individual leg in the category.
The club was able to enter two full teams in the M45 category with Edd Land (20:29), Aled Hughes (20:43) and Ian Evans (22:43) securing a very good fifth place finish for the A team.
The B team also had a great run to finish 16th with team manager Shelley Childs running a fabulous 21:58 first leg before handing over to Richard Anthony (23:11) and then Nick Thompson 26:46.
Without doubt the hero of the day, club chairman Williams would have been the second fastest individual leg in his own category but was happy to have stepped down into the younger age group to help secure some silverware for the team.
Team manager Shelley Childs said: “For a small club like ours to come here and be competitive against some of the best clubs in Wales speaks volumes about how the club has developed and is progressing.
“We are investing in our youngsters and our seniors are proving they can compete with the best on a national stage. Looking forward already to next year.”