National 6 stage road relays
After a close battle with neighbours Severn AC, Cheltenham Harriers finished as the leading Gloucestershire team in the National Six Stage Road Relays at Sutton Coldfield.
Despite both teams being well below full-strength, it was clear from the start of the race that the two squads were evenly matched and the race would be too close to call.
The tricky task of the highly competitive opening stage was handed to Corin Hughes, who finished second at the previous weekend's Gloucestershire Cross-Country League.
He was lying 83rd of the 87 runners at the top of the infamous opening hill, but then used his experience to pick his way through the field to hand over in 62nd place.
Hughes' time of 18 minutes, 59 seconds gave the Harriers a 91-second advantage over Severn's James Rose and was a 33-second improvement on his performance at last month's Midland Championships that were held on the same course.
Stage two saw Seb Foy gain three places and move the Harriers up into 59th position with a new personal best of 19.24. This was a nine-second improvement on his Midlands time, although Gary Hope had reduced Severn's deficit to 72 seconds.
Russell Forsbrook then took the third stage knowing that Tim Dalton would be chasing him down. The Harrier improved on his Midlands time by four seconds with a 19.43 leg to leave his team 62nd place, but Dalton had overturned the deficit to give Severn an eight-second advantage at halfway.
Eighteen-year-old Will New made his National Six Stage debut on the fourth leg and set a new best time for the course of 20.28, 27 seconds quicker than his previous best.
This left the Cheltenham team in 64th place and 23 seconds behind Severn, who had extended their lead through Alex Hope.
However, Stage Five saw former Severn athlete Andrew Hussey turn the tables on his former club as he took the Harriers back up to 53rd. Hussey's time of 19:38 was a seven-second improvement from last month as he passed Simon Fortnam to build up a 44 second advantage with one stage remaining.
Veteran Dave Randall took the last leg and brought the team home in 63rd place with 21.11, with Dave Lander bringing Severn home 19 seconds and four places behind.
Randall's run was more than a minute quicker than he ran last month and ensured that the team also beat their target of a sub two-hour time as they finished in 1:59.24.
Severn AC 1.59.43: James Rose 20.30, Gary Hope 19.06, Tim Dalton 18.23, Alex Hope 20.13, Simon Fortnam 20.45, Dave Lander 20.46.
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