Sandown road relays.

Back to Sandown Raceway for the road relay championships last Saturday.

We've had some wild weather conditions at Sandown over the years but the wind blowing into your teeth down the back straight was the strongest I can remember. Added to that, the back straight is an uphill stretch for five hundred metres. At least the sun was shining.

We had to run two laps of 3.1 kms each. The guys running earlier legs were saying don't worry about the rest of the course, just try and stick with someone up the back straight into the wind.

Tom started our division, handed over to Theo who passed onto to Tony and then me. Sure enough, it was a cruise until the wind hit as you turned left at the base of the hill climb. When I reached the hill on the second lap, I glanced around and there were several runners running single file directly behind me for protection from the wind.

Our first three runners had built a lead of over two minutes giving me the luxury of anchoring the team to an easy victory. It was only division seven but a win's a win, right? We also had teams in divisions one and three and two women's teams as well. Tracy ran her best time ever in her second relay for the team.

Afternoon tea followed the warmdown - Seth from SF brought along a bunch of US candy - 'Watchamacallits' - and there were cakes, fruit and other yummy things. That's the best part of a race meeting.