Signals 2 Mile Relay Race, 18 Feb 2023

Although I have taken part in relay races with my running club before, I hadn’t been to this one. Usually it’s one lap of a one mile course, however this involved two one mile laps. The route was a nice smooth tarmac path around the lake at a country park, the only problem was that it included two hills! After a warm up, I went to the holding area and patiently waited for my turn on the third leg. I spotted my team mate before me setting off and timed her first lap so that I knew roughly when to expect her back. The relay races are always chaos, with everyone scrambling towards the front, looking for their teammates. The race organisers shout out each team as they see them coming down the hill but it’s good to be near the front so that you’re ready to jump out and start straight away.

I saw my team mate approaching and got ready at the start line, luckily there was no baton to pass this time and I just had to make sure she was in the box before I started running. I headed off quite quickly and I was feeling good but thought I needed to slow down a bit and get to a sustainable pace. I reached a hill and tried to maintain a good pace, then made the most of the downhill at the other side. As I got to the other side of the lake, the wind and rain picked up and I had to run uphill into it. I tried to stay strong though and the crowds helped me to continue as I went downhill to finish the lap. I tried to maintain a similar effort over the second lap, again meeting wind and rain as I got around the far side of the lake. It was hard to gauge how our team was doing as there were so many people on the course but I felt confident that I had given it a good shot. I found out later that our team had come 3rd!

Sarah Hunter