Four Striders descended on Belper on Saturday afternoon and for the hell of it formed a team of ‘Mixed Seniors’ in the 4 x 5k Derwent River Relays hosted by Belper Harriers. This race is quite flat, being run alongside the mighty Derwent with the start, handover and finish at the Rugby Club, all accompanied by an organist playing everybody’s favourite singalong tunes from yesterday. No one joined in. But it was a lovely day for it.
This was something of an experimental race for team captain Ciaran Guilfoyle, who was attempting to discover whether it was possible to run and make a fashion statement at the same time. (Ed. Wot? No picture??) The experiment seems to have been a modest success, and Ciaran is now applying for a Home Office grant to rerun it on a grander scale and have it peer reviewed. As for the traditionally shod team members Yan Cain, Kate Wray and Kenny Malton (fresh from both the Colin Potter 10k the evening before and the Darley Parkrun earlier that day) they were each and every one of them absolutely marvellous, and at times gazelle-like.
Overall the team came 21st out of 59. Individual times as follows:
| Ciaran Guilfoyle | 23.06 |
| Yan Cain | 23.52 |
| Kate Wray | 21.22 |
| Kenny Malton | 18.04 |
No category results were available at the time of writing this report.
Turnout for the event probably suffered from most local runners having raced in the Colin Potter less than 24 hours earlier, but this is a friendly relay (think Hairy Helmet with a kissing gate) and worth considering in future.
Ciaran