From Emma Sheppard…

On Sunday, 12 intrepid Harriers made their way to different parts of West Yorkshire for the annual Leeds Country Way Relay. It’s a circular route over 6 legs of between 9-11.75 miles (it felt longer to me!) involving variable terrain (think Baildon Boundary Way on steroids) and 62 other teams.

Tony and Thomas kicked off proceedings in style with a storming 1st leg from Garforth to Stanley, covering just under 12 miles in 1 hour 25 mins.

Gav and Justin took over the baton on leg 2 -11.15 miles dispatched in a very speed 1 hour 27…perhaps hoping to get to the pub in time for first orders?!

Nathan and Tom were late additions to the mixed team line up -with the gauntlet set down by Nuno of trying to beat the 30 year old leg record of 58 minutes (for 9.8 miles). They only missed it by a few seconds -and would have demolished it but for a couple of wrong turns having had no time to do a reccie. They were still the leg winners by a long way!

Next up was me and John on leg 4- a lovely route from Thornbury to Golden Acre taking us through loads of places I’ve never been before (and in some cases probably don’t want to see again for at least for another 12 months!). After an unpromising start, involving leaving one of our race numbers at home and practically wrestling the sharpie off the Marshall so I could draw my number on before Tom and Nathan materialised for the handover, then taking the first 3 miles to recover from the trauma, we got into our groove and the miles sped by. Thankfully we only sustained a few nettle stings and scrapes before finding ourselves safely back at golden acre, partly due to the life saving properties of lucozade tablets (3.5 mins quicker than our predicted time and about 25 mins quicker than our reccie). Thanks John for getting me round!

Jonathan and Nuno were up next on leg 5 and also had a storming run -getting the baton through its 10 mile journey to Thorner road in 1 hour 26 and that was despite a brutal final hill (and traffic to contend with).

Kate and Peter had an amazing final leg back to Garforth -speeding round the 9.7 miles to Garforth in 1 hour 16 (6 mins quicker than predicted and a lot faster than most of the other teams).

Very happy with our 10th place overall -lots of fun and a fantastic team effort. Also a huge thank you to Nuno for doing a great job organising us.