Sunday 27th September, Rushmore Arena, Aldershot
There was a good performance from the Brighton men at the Southern 6 stage Road Relay Championships which saw them achieve their goal of finishing in the top 25 and qualifying for the National Road Relays next month in Birmingham.
Many of the teams put their best runners on the earlier legs and it was Josh Painter who took up the challenge. It was a well paced leg from Josh (19:58) which saw him come through from back at the start to finish 38th out of the 92 teams which started. James McCarthy on leg two ran out of his skin in what was probably his best performance to date. With a time of 19:43 he gained 9 places to take the team into 29th place. Another good leg from Martyn Bean, who was using the race as a sharpener for the Portland marathon next week, gained the team seven places to 22nd place. Richard Airey and Andrew Donno ran solid legs each dropping just one position each. It was then left to Chris Thomson to finsih the job and with a final leg of 19:38 the Brighton men finished in 22nd place to clinch qualification.