Well, what a great night WSX had on Saturday at the Sunset and Beyond Relay Race organised by SOC at Fleming Park, Eastleigh. The event was held to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the club and it was the brainchild of Colin Hicks. It consisted of a 6-person team, which had to include at least two women, and entailed two 4k, 5k and 7k runs. Most of the courses were within the park but the longer ones went also into the nearby urban area. There was a Mass Start of the 9 runners at 5pm and straight away Emma Crickmore dashed off in the lead and never relinquished it, completing her 4k run in the best time of the evening (24.33mins). Emma was heading up the Wessex Hex team – consisting also of John Cook, Roger Crickmore, Jason Falconer, Gavin Clegg (ex-WSX) and Carolyn Dent (BOK, but partner of Rob Hick – so she’s a proxy WSX member!).’My’ team – Wessex We Six – consisted of Tracy and James Crickmore, Peter Suba, Dale Paget, Alan Blanchflower and myself, running the anchor leg. Tracy unfortunately pulled a calf muscle on control 4 – out of 25 controls! – so had to hobble round on the first leg. So Wessex We Six were over 9 minutes behind our WSX rivals after the first leg. But by leg 3, James and Peter had put ‘my’ team back in the lead and by the time I took over at just after 8pm, we had just under a 15 minute cushion over the team from SLOW ‘A’ who had overtaken WSX Hex. Even I couldn’t lose such a big advantage! – although the last SLOW runner clawed back over 10 minutes on me! (He must have been a young’un). So WSX We Six were triumphant by just over 4 minutes, and WSX Hex came in 3rd just under 4 minutes behind SLOW. The 4th team (SLOW BG) took over 30 minutes longer. Three teams were DSQ’d – including the two SOC teams, which is a bit of a shame at it was ‘their’ night! We also had WSX representation in the WIM/WSX Collaborative Team  – Rob Hick and Gavin-Avey Hebditch – and they came 6th.

Not only did the two WSX teams come in the top 3, but also Emma won a prize for the fastest 4k leg of the night; and James for the fastest 5k run of the night. (Peter narrowly missed out on the fastest 7k leg) So a great night all round. Prizes donated by Silva and Up and Running.

While we were having fun in Eastleigh, the Jolyon and Lyra Medlock were up in Scotland at the Scottish Spring Weekend.  In the Middle Distance event at Abbey Craig, Jolyon was 9th on Brown, and Lyra 3rd on the Orange. At the GB Squad Sprint Race, Lyra came 4th in the Jnr Women Under 16s – she was the only W12 amongst the W16s – so a good result. And she suffered a bruised and swollen face after crashing into British sprint champion Kris Jones on that event. But that didn’t stop her competing at the GB Squad Scottish Orienteering League event the next day and beat all the Scottish girls into 1st place on the Orange course! Brilliant.

The Summer Series website is set up now  – here – where you can find all the events scheduled from April to August organised by WSX, SOC, Sarum and WIM. The details are also on our website under the League tab.

First event is on April 9th in Fordingbridge, organised by WIM