Race Date: Saturday 12th April 2025

After the Northern Road Relays at Redcar a couple of weeks earlier it was action stations once more as plans had to be made quickly and teams formed for the Nationals with some temporarily putting their own marathon preparations to one side in order to support their club.

Team Captain Malcolm Baggaley reflected on what was an exceptional all round performance at the National finals: “The race is an undulating (hilly) 5.08km around Sutton Park in Royal Sutton Coldfield, and Saturday was blazing hot. Our women’s teams absolutely smashed it, with our A team coming in 21st out of 53 starting teams. With Annie Chambers fastest of the Steel City women on the day with 18:47, so fast on that course. Showing our strength in depth, we had a strong B team in the women’s race too, coming home in 32nd place, and the 5th B team. For our men, this was about getting a seat back at the table. Qualifying through the regional rounds for the first time since 2019, and only the second time since 2010, getting to race on Saturday was a massive achievement in itself. Our men’s team finished 56th out of 67 starters, and Ben Naisbitt was the fastest of our legs with 17:12.

To put some of the numbers into context, there are over 1700 EA registered clubs, and therefore eligible to race in these and the regional qualifiers. So 21st, 32nd, and 56th on the day, is actually out of 1700+ clubs. Steel City were the only South Yorkshire club to have full men’s and women’s teams, let alone having two women’s teams. This shows our strength in depth and definitely something for the club to build on.”

Strava is always a good source when seeking genuine reaction with descriptions of the course and conditions such as “really hot, really hard”, “hot, hilly, hard” and “that extra 100m was not needed. Much hillier and hotter than expected but still loved being back racing”. Others reflected on personal performance “top day out” or “So so happy never paced so well dying at the end but kept it strong at the end. Being lapped by the overall leader with 700m to go really helped the motivation along with a fantastic crowd and Steel City Striders support. Really really over the moon. Now for many beers.” Not everyone was so happy with “not my finest performance” or “seven seconds slower than 2019” but athletes are never really happy are they? There was also drama for one of the second leg women athletes as she was literally shoved to one side as the faster third leg men went past. Respect lads and did you get his number?