Fenland athletes greeted by tough conditions at Hereward Relay

Fenland Running Club representatives were faced with windy, wet and muddy conditions for the Hereward Relay.

The relay commemorates the resolve of Hereward the Wake (1035 to 1072) also known as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exile who was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who led a rebellion against the Norman Conquest and roamed the fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk.

Five teams from the club took to the roads, paths, and tracks complete with mud to take on the challenges of this four-leg trail event.

The five Fenland teams were made up as follows. The Banksy Mud Rats (Malcolm Tuff, Simon Hamilton, Sean Banks, Ben Jimson), Queens of the Mud Age (Melissa Milham, Hayley Missin, Ann Trett, Leah Banks), Jemima Muddleducks Ian King, Aaron Porter, Martin Jennings, Jac Richards), Heremud the Walk (Kate Woodcock, Andrew Baldwin, Adrian Searle, Ade Mills), Mashers Mud Tag (Tom Richards, Graham Milham), Dean Clarke who ran with a member of the TCRC undertaking the Ultra.

The relay started in Peterborough and finished in Whittlesey a distance of 6.9 miles, before progressing a distance of 10.7 miles to March for leg two and taking runners on the longest of the legs, 11.5 miles for leg three before reaching the final handover at Welney and a final distance of 10.9 miles finishing in Ely.

Fenland Running Club is small in comparison to many others across the region, so its team performances today can be considered excellent from a field of 95 competing teams.

The team results for the five Fenland teams were: The Banksy Mud Rats, fifth, 4:43:31, Jemima Muddleducks, 35th, 5:39:40, Masher's Mud Walk, 44th, 5:52:55, Queens of The Mud Age, 59th, 6:04:24, Heremud the Walk, 70th, 6:19:25.