Retired star Lee surprises himself – virtually anyway
THE GUERNSEY women just missed the top 20 and their male counterparts finished firmly mid-pack in a fairly encouraging Virtual National Road Relays showing for local distance runners.
Both ‘retired’ Olympian Lee Merrien and Guernsey Athletics team captain James Priest praised the squad’s performance at the resoundingly well-received virtual event, which started last Saturday and replaced the cancelled National 12/6 Stage Road Relays.
It challenged each entrant to complete a solo 5k time-trial and submit results to club ‘teams’ of 12 men or six women.
Such was Guernsey Athletics’ enthusiasm that they became the first outfit to pitch a full men’s dozen, leaving them in suspense of learning the final result on Thursday.
The Merrien spearheaded squad eventually finished 49th – or 44th ‘A’ team – of over 110 squads.
The ‘retired’ Merrien had been pleased to clock 15min. 14sec. as part of a cumulative time of 3-22-18, just over 25min. adrift of winners Leeds.
‘It went surprisingly better than I expected,’ said Merrien afterwards.
‘I thought that I could run maybe 16min. and I did not think I would be that close to 15, as I have not been doing sessions that often as of late.’
Fourth counter Nick Mann stood out individually with a personal best of 16-33.
But the women had arguably been the stars of the show, finishing 21st of over 130 teams taking to the six-stage event. Jenny James excelled with a breakthrough 17-09 run, making her unofficially the third fastest Guernsey woman ever, and the squad clocked 1-56-39 to trail Herne Hill by 13min.
Impressed coach Merrien added: ‘She did really, really well and it would be nice for her to get a race together.’
Rosie Williams showcased an impressive improvement, too, counting third with a big PB of 19-19.
‘That [21st] is really good, especially when you consider Sarah [Mercier] was not running,’ said captain Priest.
‘Coming in the top 50 does shows that if we are ever to take a team to take part in the 12-stage, we would not disgrace ourselves,’ he added.
‘The main thing it shows is how strong we are between the 16 and the 17min. mark. I think it’s brilliant how it seemed everyone got into the spirit of the competition.’
