For the record, Rich Peters completed the B&W Junior team victory in this event, and Bristol Uni won the women, but in truth there wasn't much competition for the two Bristol clubs, and this is a venue that offers so much as an early season event. Personally I was glad to be back in business as I'm still getting rid of the tail end of a nasty cold, and a short fast run out like this showed exactly how much progress I need to make in the next three weeks before the home international.

The Bristol teams were fairly well balanced between the "seniors" Pete S, Craig, me and Sean and the "juniors"; Matt P, Nathan, Dan W and Rich, and yes clearly the age descriptions weren't totally accurate. Steve M. was on the first leg for the first Uni team, which meant Craig had and Nathan had some catching up to do with Doug. At half way things were tight at the front, and Craig had pulled us back to a [distant] third. Oli was on the third leg, both he and Dan were comfortably ahead of me, despite Craig's excellent run.

I need to get fitter, so the chance of a good work out over 2 miles was just what I needed, although I made little to no impact on the race. Rich was too quick for Dave G. on the last leg and that was that.

It was a perfect setting for a short early season relay. A flat scenic course, I found it slippy after the rain, but you couldn 't ask for a faster surface in a scenic setting, and not too far from the M5. As ever it comes down to clubs supporting, and if you like recognising the worth of, events. The South West isn't exactly a densely populated region, and for an event like this to work it would really need broader participation. Certainly Mike, Ian, Richard and the other organisers have set up an excellent event should the clubs south of Taunton choose to join in.

... anyway it's history now, I've got less than three weeks to get fit, or at least fit enough to not let the team down. There was a strange attraction to having a Sunday run out without the tension of a big event - but I don't think it would have been as much fun if I was going well.