Ten Halesowen teams of 50 athletes in total took part in the 2026 edition of the Midland men’s six-stage, women’s four-stage and junior three-stage road relays.
The men’s, women’s and masters teams all tackled the same course over 5.43 kilometres over the equally loved and equally hated hilly Sutton Park course!
The senior women’s team (pictured above) achieved a fantastic eighth place finish, completing the four stage event in 1 hour 26 minutes 21.427 seconds (every thousandths of a second counts!)
In her first senior road relays event, Lucy Hellingsworth had a superb start, running 20:31 to put Halesowen in twelfth place.
Phoebe Dodd gained a place to eleventh after running 21:21.
Halesowen were fourteenth after leg three with Poppy Dunlop clocking 23:41 and then Ffion Collins, also on her senior Sutton Park debut, took another six places on the anchor leg with a time of 20:47.
The women’s B team were 27th with Louise Collins running the fastest leg in 21:50.
The men’s 6-stage team were looking for a top 25 finish to qualify for the National Road Relays and hopes were high for a quick time with both Max Parker and Joe Rogers donning the old gold vest.
They were led off by Joe Donkin, whose solid run of 18:08 put the team in 38th place.
Dan Tsegay took another fourteen places in running 17:54 and following an 18:50 from Joe Rogers, Max Parker ran the quickest team leg of 16:48 to put Halesowen in 22nd place.
Max recorded the fifth fastest time of leg four and the 34th quickest of the whole race, not too shabby considering it was a just a leg loosener ahead of his target race of the Berlin Marathon on Sunday 27th September.
James Thomas’ run of 18:14 grabbed Halesowen a couple more places and Peter Dear gained another four places with a final leg run of 17:39.
The team’s total time was 1:47:36.610.
The record books were being examined in fine detail post-race on Saturday evening and although the varying course distances over the years make direct comparisons difficult, the consensus is that it was one of the best performances by a men’s Midland Road Relays team.
Both the men’s and women’s senior team have earned their place in the Nationals at Sutton Park on Saturday October 3rd.
Halesowen’s B team unfortunately failed to complete all six stages with Adam Hollis retiring on leg two due to injury.
At time of publishing, they were ranked in 102nd place but are facing almost inevitable disqualification.
Ethan Jordan’s published time of 51:23 reflects the confusion and delay after Adam’s withdrawal, with a kindly official allowing Ethan to start his leg.
His Strava time came in at 19:00.
The C team came in 86th with Ben Dunlop quickest in 22:23.
There was also a strong Masters representation with the A team tenth, the B team 17th and the C team 28th.
Paul Bradley broke the 20 minute barrier to set the fastest HACC Masters time of 19:34.
And in the junior 3-stage races ran over 3.88k legs, the Under 16 Girls were sixteenth and the Under 18 Men were twentieth.
RESULTS
For the first time at the Midlands event, the race was chip timed and all the results from FR Systems can be found here.
PHOTOS
Photos from Kevin Wakerley from Birchfield Harriers
RADIO HALESOWEN TOWN REPORT
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