Eight runners from each club ran a timed five miles as part of the virtual competition

A very youthful Wirral team qualified as England’s representatives in the National final when they won England Athletics Virtual Road Relay Competition (February 10-21) for the top 50 clubs by just 21 seconds.

The event saw eight runners from each club - four men and four women - run a timed five miles which has to verified by Garmin/Strava as being the right distance and not a downhill course.

Wirral’s team was TJ Jones (24:46),  Ethan Brady-Jones (24:51), William Strickley (25:23),  Daniel Hayes (26:28), Sophie Tarver (27:11), Keira Brady-Jones (27:43), Emily Kearney (27:43) and Ellen Mary Kearney (28:34) who totalled 3:32:39.

Incredibly, six of the Wirral team - including all of their men's team - were under-17 athletes.

Norwich (3:33:00) and Aldershot (3:33:09) completed the top three.

Woodford Green’s Phil Norman was easily fastest with 23:12 using a point-to-point route from Barnstaple to Braunton and certainly was not hampered by a 15mph south-easterly wind!

His miles were 4:33, 4:37, 4:39, 4:38 and 4:32.

Cambridge’s Jonathan Escalante-Phillips (23:40) and Guildford’s George Dollner (23:52) were second and third fastest men.

The three fastest women were Guildford’s Hannah Irwin with 26:56. She used a looped course on the edge of Cambridge and ran miles of 5:22, 5:27, 5:23, 5:22 and 5:21.

Newbury’s Izzy Fry was second fastest with 27:03 and Wirral’s Tarver (27:11) third fastest.

Norman scored 92.68 per-cent on age-grading and that was only surpassed by 2019 AW Reader’s Choice Masters Athlete of the Year Clare Elms who scored 100.25 per-cent on age-grading with a 29:35 on a loop in Greenwich. Her time is much quicker than the world age best (57) in the real world and was four minutes quicker than any other W55 athlete.

The next best age-graded performance was at the other end of the age scale as 15 year-old Keira Brady-Jones ran 27:43 for a 92.49 per-cent.

A more detailed report and results are in the AW Clubhouse section for members here.

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