National 6 Stage Relays – Sutton Park – Saturday 7th of October
Guildford’s senior men’s team eclipsed their previous best performance at the National 6 Stage event (18th) with an excellent 11th place finish at Sutton Park. Tom Foster lead off the 1st leg for GGAC coming home in 37th and handing over to Daniel Wallis who despite aggravating an on-going injury only slipped a few places. Dan Maud (brother of Andy) took over in 3rd place and with work to do. On his debut for the club and first ‘proper’ race over more than 1500m, he took Guildford up to 33rd. The fightback was on at this point as other clubs who lacked the depth of GGAC started to wane and the G’s strength started to come to the fore. Next to go was GGAC stalwart John Sanderson, who made up no fewer than 11 places on the field before handing over to Cam Rielly on his 1st Claim debut for the club. Cam ran a well paced leg, with other runners blowing up around him to pull back another 10 places to 12th overall. Andy Coley-Maud took to the course with a group of other runners within a handful of seconds, the group came together at the top of the hill with no one wanting to take up the pace making and Andy providing an excellent wind shield to those in his wake. The group accounted for positions 11-15 and included some quality runners. However, Andy used his experience and course knowledge to apply the pressure where it mattered and broke away with 500m to go to secure 11th.
Guildford also fielded teams in the Mens and Womens U17 competitions for the first time ever (we think!) with Eloise Hudson, Violet Isaacs & Robin Simons in the ladies finishing 13th team and Zeb Baker, Abel Davies & Sean Marcus in the mens finishing just outside the top 50. Hannah Knights also was there representing the club with a solid run on the 1st leg of the ladies event.
Bruce Judd Relays – Stoke Park – Saturday 7th of October
A busy weekend for the juniors with 2 U17 teams at the Nationals, we also had x9 teams running in the Bruce Judd Relays, hosted by GGAC….this is seen as an important race as Surrey selectors review these results when looking at selection for the December intercounties race. So all to race for!
The hot and windy conditions couldn’t have made it feel any less like X-country, making for some very tough racing out there! But our juniors raised their game and showed fantastic grit and determination.
Team bronze medals were won by our U15 Girls A Team (Sophie H, Maddy D & Roisin D)
and our U13 Boys A Team (George B, Hugo W & Daniel B) took home the silver
Alongside the team results we had 7 top 10 on individual results too, showing great strength and depth to our squad.
A huge thank you to our volunteers at the Bruce Judd Relays, this is an historic fixture that requires a lot of hands to make happen. Without you giving up your time it would not have gone ahead.