Captain Gould flies the flag for Leamington in Hilly 100 victory

Phil Gould captained Leamington C&AC's men's A team to victory at the Hilly 100 relay race on Sunday, bringing them home on the last of ten legs which take runners on a circular 100-mile course starting and finishing in Stratford.
Leamington C&AC show off their shields for winning the men's and mixed events at the Hilly 100. Picture submittedLeamington C&AC show off their shields for winning the men's and mixed events at the Hilly 100. Picture submitted
Leamington C&AC show off their shields for winning the men's and mixed events at the Hilly 100. Picture submitted

Charlie Staveley completed the opening leg from Stratford in 62min 32sec before handing on to Dave Mulvee who did not seem fazed by the large climb out of Chipping Campden, clocking 57:35 on arguably the hardest of the legs to move Leamington into a lead they never looking like relinquishing.

Paul Andrew, Jamie Langley and Jack Savage maintained C&AC’s strong position before Tom Foulerton stretched their advantage by a massive 11 minutes on leg six, coming home in just over the hour (60:32).

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John Muddeman extended the lead even further on leg seven, with confident runs from Vassilis Andreoulakis and then Simeon Howson giving Gould a handy cushion on the final stretch.

Having driven the first 90 miles and suffered a bad fall four days before, Gould was slightly below his best, but he still clocked 63 minutes for the final ten miles, stopping to collect the team flag to carry across finish line as the clock was stopped in 10:15:22.

Leamington C&AC also entered two mixed teams with the A team winning the mixed team race in a time of 11:33:32.

Setting off at 6am, Nick Tawney ran the first leg before taking over captaincy duties for the day.

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Marc Curtis, Jenny Jeeves, Matt Butler, Garrath Schule, Wendy Daniels and Jason Hill all followed before the leg eight runners were set off on a mass start at 1pm.

Brian Miller went to the front of the pack and handed over to Steve Hundal before Zara Blower took the final leg, arriving at the finish before the officials.

Leamington’s mixed B team, who were captained by first-leg runner Graham Garlick, completed the 100 miles in 13:58:07.

Alex Montgomery, Craig Bower, Jack Gammon, Paul Caruana, Chris Hitchman, Steve Howes, Simon West, Laura Gould, Carol Blower and Susie Tawney completed the team.

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Kenilworth Runners entered eight teams, with more than 100 members either running or supporting the teams along the route.

The men’s A team finished second in 10:40:42, while Kenilworth’s men were the leading B team in 11:06:02.

Their ladies’ A team were third in 12:38:33, battling it out with Spa Striders’ ladies until the 75-mile mark when Striders took a lead which they extended to the finish line at Stratford Cricket Club.

Newcomers to the event, BRAT won the women’s race in a course-record time.

Spa Striders men’s A team fought gallantly for fourth place in the men’s race while their B string were runners-up to Kenilworth in the B team event.

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