Chelmsford Athletic Club's road runners had a successful outing at the recent Road Relay Championships.

The senior men's team competed in the South of England Road Relays and finished 13th, a position that enabled them to qualify for the National Finals later this month.

Each team consisted of 12 runners with Gavin Chatterton, Geoff Turner, John Braine, Mark Whelan, Simon Vins and Chris Purse running short stages (5.5km) and Andy Huckson, Mark Sandford, Rob Malseed, John Burrell, Garon Heslop and Martin Gibbs the 8km stage.

The veterans' team competed in the Eastern Region Road Relays with the Over 40's men winning gold and the Over 35's women's team, bronze.

The successful men's team consisted of Roger Woodley, George Hart, Peter Tullett and David Griffin who finished in a combined time of 42 minutes 26 seconds.

The ladies team consisted of Lorraine Branch, Hazel Cybyk and Tracey Minton.

The events also served to demonstrate Chelmsford AC's strength in depth with them being one of the few clubs to field two teams in the Southern Road Relays while nine teams competed in the veterans' event.

n Thirty two Springfield Striders will be toeing the line at Greenwich on Sunday for the London Marathon.

Unusually, this year, only four of them are women. Suzanne Kuyser and Julie Hurst Smith are tackling the distance for the first time, while Ginny Powell and Jean Driscoll are London regulars.

Leading the Striders men will be Paul Dobson, who, as well as having an excellent cross country season, has managed to plough in the necessary road miles and hopes to be close to the two and a half hour mark.

Mark Healey and Andrew Mason should beat the three hour barrier and Gary Randall, Ian Gowers, Dave Turk and Julian Catmull are among the many expecting personal best times.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.