Telford Athletic Club's senior womens team continues to go from strength to strength. So far this season they have finished 3rd in the Midland Road Relays, 7th in the National Road Relays, 1st in the Midland Womens Cross Country League and now probably the best yet finishing 5th out of 83 finishing teams in the National Cross Country Relay Championships.

At Berry Hill Park Mansfield Claire Martin ran the opening leg covering the 3 kilometre undulating course in 10.00.65 as she brought the Telford trio home in 6th place, behind GB International who ran 9.46.another outsanding performance on a national stage saw Claire finish 8th fastest behind 5 established internationals.Claire now heads to Liverpool this week end for the second race in the UK Cross Country Challenge.

Louise Taylor took over on the second leg and improved to 5th with a 10.32 leg, before handing over to Kim Green for the final leg which she ran in 10.30.5 bringing the team home in 5th. The race was won for the 3rd year by Charnwood in 30.19, with Chester le Street 2nd in 30.48, with Bedford 30.57, Shaftsbury and Barnet were 4th in 30.59 with Telford just 4 seconds behind in 31.03. Telford were delighted to finish so high but equally pleased to finish ahead of teams such as Birchfield who had won the National Road Relays who were 13th, also Aldershot 2nd in the road relays who were 6th and Sale Manchester who were 6th in the road relays were 9th at Mansfield.

The senior mens team were 51st out of 132 finishing teams . Wayne Dashper ran the opening leg in 16.34 finishing 63rd, Chris Bagshaw ran the second leg in 17.16 bringing the team home 66th, Will Joyce ran the 3rd leg in 16.53 moving up to 62nd before Greg Wilosn ran the final leg in 16.55 improving 11 places to 51st.

The under 13 boys team were 30th out of 53 finishing teams, Jordan Basson ran the opening leg in 8.11, Andrew Parkes went out on the second leg in 8.13 before Ryan Heath ran the club's fastest leg to move up 12 places with 7.32 on the last leg.

Joanne Bailey ran the opening leg for the under 13 girls in 9.03, Kelsey Collins ran the second leg in 8.29 improving 15 places before Chloe Murphy ran the final leg in 7.56 to improve a further 13 places as Telford finished 36th out of 66 teams.

Chris Carter had the fastest time in the under 17 mens team as he ran 9.59 on the last leg to bring the club home in 46th out of 69 teams that started. Matt Everett ran 10.21 on the opening leg whilst Dan hoof ran 11.09 on the second leg.

Paul Sanderson