National Road Relays

04 September 2003, Feilding
Full results here

Rain, hail and shine to round out 2003 season.

Neil Finn might have been referring to the national road relays at Feilding when he wrote the Crowded House hit song - it really was a case of 4 Seasons in One Day. In fact, for some of us it was a case of 4 Seasons in One Lap - rain, hail, and shine!

Keeping on the 2003 theme of weather-disrupted championship events, the build-up to Feilding was dominated by a fierce rainstorm that closed State Highway 1 on Friday night, disrupted all travel out of Wellington and meant that Valleys (and other clubs) had to consider alternate plans as some runners simply couldn't get through by the Saturday morning start time.

Most disrupted was the Open Men's A team, and after brief discussion, they decided to go ahead with a 5-man team, with 2 runners running 2 laps. Jerry Boyd and Simon England drew the short straws.

Valleys' best medal chance came in the form of the Masters Mens A team, and they were certainly in the hunt until relatively late in the race. Murray Dougherty ran an outstanding first lap and handed over to Vaughan New in third position. By the end of Vaughan's lap Valleys were fourth and chasing, and that's how it was to stay until the end of the race.

Though disappointed to miss out on a medal, the Masters Mens team had justified their pre-race billing and were the best-performed Valleys team on the day.

Elsewhere the junior men, women's A and Masters 50 plus teams claimed eighth in their respective grades.