An emotional weekend for CoNAC Road Running at this year’s Round Norfolk Relay was topped off with magnificent team wins for the club in both the masters and ladies categories.
Last year our dear friend Darryl Davis passed away while running stage 4 of the RNR for the CoNAC masters team and so this year’s entire CoNAC effort was dedicated to his memory. And what a tribute it turned out to be as both the CoNAC ladies and the CoNAC masters stormed home to take the bling in their respective team categories. In a fitting climax to the 197 mile journey round the county boundary, final stage runners Andri Innes (ladies) and Phillipa Taylor (masters) crossed the finish line at Lynnsport just seven seconds apart to tremendous applause from the gathered throng of spectators.
Our masters stopped the clock on 22hrs 26mins 31secs (an average pace of 6mins 53secs per mile) while our ladies were timed at 24hrs 56mins 24secs (7mins 39secs per mile).
Please click here to view the full results, cut in as many different ways as you could possibly imagine …
There were eight CoNAC stage winners at this year’s race:
- Stage 6, Cromer to Mundesley – Adrian Mussett & Kelly Grant
- Stage 7, Mundesley to Lessingham – Sarah Stradling
- Stage 9, Horsey to Fritton – Matt Bidwell
- Stage 11, Earsham to Scole – Nicky Alford
- Stage 12, Scole to Thetford – Tessa Jones
- Stage 14, Feltwell to Wissington – Rosie Sexton
- Stage 17, Stowbridge to King’s Lynn – Phillipa Taylor
And we also picked up three of the five individual trophies, all decided by age-grading: Adrian Mussett was best male master with 89.6%; Phillipa Taylor was best female master on 87.7% and Kelly Grant was best female senior with 77.7%.
On the Saturday morning we presented the RNR with The Darryl Davis Memorial Trophy, a perpetual award to recognise the best age-graded performance by a male master on stage 4 – aka Darryl’s stage. The inaugural winner of this award was Tony Witmond of North Norfolk Beach Runners who returned an impressive 77.2% when recording 1hr 11mins 18secs on the 11.14 mile stretch – mostly off-road – from Wells-next-the-Sea to Cley.
And on the Saturday afternoon, after our masters team had completed Darryl’s stage, we returned to the spot at Cley where he fell last year and added some flowers of our own to a couple of floral tributes already there.
Throughout the race, both of our super-duper CoNAC Support Crews fetched, carried, cycled, shouted, encouraged, laughed, cried and enjoyed front row seats as we all remembered Darryl in the best possible way – by being CoNAC-ers at the Round Norfolk Relay.
Very well done CoNAC Road Running. You all performed with grace, dignity and pride at this year’s RNR as we honoured the memory of Darryl Davis – a thoroughly nice chap …