BROMSGROVE and Redditch Athletic Club (B&RAC) again entered three teams of 10 runners in the recent annual Cotswold Hilly 100-mile Road Relay Charity Race organised by Stratford-upon-Avon Athletic Club.

Each runner in a team completed a 10-mile stage, and as the race title suggests, is hilly but in reality it has many very severe climbs.

As usual, it started in Stratford and runners raced on country roads through the evocative villages and towns such as Chipping Campden, Snowshill, Chedworth, Bibury, Bourton on the Water, the Slaughters, the Swells and Moreton in the Marsh, before returning to Stratford.

The 12 clubs who took part entered a total of 25 teams and they enjoyed some excellent racing conditions.

It is not surprising that the race starts at 5am to ensure potentially slower teams finish at a reasonable evening time.

The club’s B and C teams started with the dawn chorus to complete the race in 12 hours 45 minutes and 14:57 mins respectively.

The A team, however, of seven men and three ladies, started at the more reasonable hour of 6am and finished a very creditable second place of the mixed teams in a time of 11:50, only 20 minutes behind Bourton Road Runners A team.

Each member of the first team ran well with the men averaging 65 minutes to complete their stage while the ladies averaged 82 minutes. The men’s race was won in 10:18 by Kenilworth’s A men’s team.

Team managers Joanne Hounsell-Harvey and Ian Nutter were pleased with the results and the commitment and support from all who ran for the club and even ran a stage themselves in good times on what was for them a very long and busy day.