PSA 5 man x 3km 26th June at Trinity Playing Fields

This morning’s race was both exciting and highly competitive. For a number of the team, this was their first experience of an all schools relay event, others it was just another day at the office.

The PSA relays are, in some ways a logistical nightmare in that the teams are named, the boys are given an order and then once the race begins anything goes.  In Guildford’s case we named 5 teams for the event. Each team was made up of 5 boys and the relay format, over the shorter distance, provided an opportunity to blood some of our younger runners.

The runners in the first leg have the most competitive race in terms of having to work to hold their positons. This comes about because every runner who is not named in an official team also runs the first leg. The second leg runners don’t wait for their runner to return they simply start when they are tagged by a Guildford runner as he crossed the line in finishing order regardless of team.  This morning we saw this occur in two teams.

Declan White was our first runner over the line and had the first team into 4^th positon after an extremely aggressive of 9minutes  45seconds (50 seconds quicker than his time last year over a very similar Trinity course). He changed with Liam Stacey.

Nick Rollo, in the second team, was next over the line for Guildford, and he also tagged with his designated team mate, Marcel Niutta, after an impressive 10 minute  25sec

In our third team Henry Van Den Bake was the first runner however Blake Hillier 11min 37sec, 32 seconds quicker than last year), who had returned from illness managed to work his way through the field to be our next runner over the line so he tagged Sebastian Boyd.

Jack Grant was the first runner for team four and was also the 4^th Guildford runner over the line in 11min 40 sec and he tagged Jack McLean.

In the case of our final team Guy Taylor was named as the first runner however he was beaten in by Wei Ngo (12 min 17 seconds/ 2min 41 secs quicker than 2014)  and both these runners managed to stay ahead of Henry Van den Bake ( Henry was carrying a mild chest cold that made breathing difficult). So Wei   then tagged Liam Cowie.

From this point, the teams tend to hold true to their original orders.

The coaches notes and split times tends to look like a huge mess,  however , having worked with Darryl White as his assistant previously Jackson and I managed to keep things running smoothly, while Dene Lampard managed runners after their legs.

 Our first team run magnificently and gave us one of our highest  overall places for this event. Through the strong combined running  of Liam Stacey (10:18), Ben Armstrong (10:11) and Bailey Gillam (9:59) the boys worked themselves up into 4^th place however with Trinity closer to Cameron that a travel agents fridge magnet and Aquinas coming through like a freight train  after taking the gamble to run their faster runners last Cameron had his work cut out for him. This being said, Cameron run a 10 minute 20 second leg ( 11 seconds quicker than last year ) to give the lads a well-earned 7^th place.

Team 1	Name	Line Time	Split	Pace/km
1	Declan White	0:09:45	0:09:45	3:15
2	Liam Stacey	0:20:03	0:10:18	3:26
3	Ben Armstrong	0:30:14	0:10:11	3:24
4	Bailey Gillam	0:40:13	0:09:59	3:20
5	Cameron Adams	0:50:33	0:10:20	3:27

Our second team, which consisted of two year 7s who were new to the squad, were just as impressive. After Nick Rollo and Marcel Niutta’s great start (10:25 and 10:32 respectively) young Heath Collins took to the field with a sizzling 11:09. Rory Adams followed this up with an 11:19 with both boys running against much older competitors and clearly demonstrating that they both have big hearts and plenty of competitive spirit. Dylan Foppa was the last runner for this team and crossed the line for 20^th place with a leg of 11min 9 sec. In 2014 our second team placed 18^th however the boys collective time of 54 min 32 seconds would have placed them 13^th  in last year’s race. Another clear indicator of the competitiveness levels that the PSA XC has now risen too.

Team 2	Name	Line Time	Split	Pace/km
1	Nick Rollo	0:10:25	0:10:25	3:28
2	Marcel Niutta	0:20:57	0:10:32	3:31
3	Heath Collins	0:32:05	0:11:08	3:43
4	Rory Adams	0:43:24	0:11:19	3:46
5	Dylan Foppa	0:54:33	0:11:09	3:43

Guildford’s third team over the line today managed to take out 24^th place, one better than last year and , like our second team, their combined time of 59min 36 seconds would have placed them 20^th.  Blake Hillier opened the account with a solid 11min 37 sec and as mentioned earlier forced his way into a position to have an impact on the race,  passed over to Sebastian Boyd, who has come into his own over the last few weeks, for an 11min 34 sec leg which saw him close a 250m gap on the Wesley runner before handing over to two more of our year 7 quartet Jake Manolini and Jack Spark. Both boys were was rock solid today having got stuck in no man’s land and recorded solid  times of 12:03 and 12:04 respectively. Aiden McLaughlin brought this team home with a solo 12min 18 sec run. 

Team 3	Name	Line Time	Split	Pace/km
1	Blake Hillier	0:11:37	0:11:37	3:52
2	Sebastian Boyd	0:23:11	0:11:34	3:51
3	Jake Manolini	0:35:14	0:12:03	4:01
4	Jack Spark	0:47:18	0:12:04	4:01
5	Aiden McLaughlin	0:59:36	0:12:18	4:06

Our final two teams finished 27^th and 28^th respectively with both finishing better than our 4^th team in 2014 which placed 29^th

Team 4	Name	Line Time	Split	Pace/km
1	Jack Grant	0:11:40	0:11:40	3:53
2	Jack McClean	0:24:46	0:13:06	4:22
3	Sam Simba	0:36:33	0:11:47	3:56
4	Bailey Bartholomeusz	0:48:56	0:12:23	4:08
5	Cameron Miles	1:01:28	0:12:32	4:11

Team 5	Name	Line Time	Split	Pace/km
1	Wei Ngo	0:12:17	0:12:17	4:06
2	Liam Cowie	0:27:01	0:14:44	4:55
3	Gabriel Boyd	0:40:41	0:13:40	4:33
4	Thomas Schoneuer	0:55:53	0:15:12	5:04
5	Caden Alexander	1:08:33	0:12:40	4:13

In the PSA competition it’s the first 15 boys that count for points so in the case of the 5 man relays it’s a schools first three teams over the line that count for points. The question then begs, why run more than teams? The reason being that this is a way in which you can push other teams back by finishing ahead of their point scoring teams. When you look at the places of the teams below you can see how this can work.   

All Schools 5 man by 3km Relay at Trinity
Position	Name	Time
1	Hale	0:49:12
2	Scotch	0:49:20
3	Aquinas	0:49:26
4	Trinity	0:49:59
5	Aquinas	0:50:03
6	Aquinas	0:50:16
7	Guildford	0:50:32
8	Trinity	0:50:58
9	Hale	0:51:02
10	Trinity	0:51:13
11	Wesley	0:51:41
12	Hale	0:52:24
13	Christ Church	0:52:30
14	Wesley	0:52:34
15	Wesley	0:52:37
16	Scotch	0:52:42
17	Christ Church	0:52:58
18	Christ Church	0:53:15
19	Aquinas	0:54:08
20	Guildford	0:54:32
21	Scotch	0:55:35
22	Aquinas	0:56:11
23	Wesley	0:58:42
24	Guildford	0:59:35
25	Scotch	1:00:36
26	Scotch	1:00:46
27	Guildford	1:01:27
28	Guildford	1:08:32

School	Points	Place
AC	(3-5-6)                    14	1
H	(1-9-12)                  22	2
TC	(4-8-10)                  22	3
SC	(2-16-21)                39	4
WC	(11-14-15)              40	5
CC	(13-17-18)             48	6
GG	(7-20-24)              51	7

It was fantastic to see the boys again giving 110% for their teams and leaving nothing in the tank in getting to the line. The leadership team again did  fantastic job of getting the team to collectively give it their all and their war cry was heard across the field today as they came in for their captains’ last minute instructions.

Below is the rank times for the boys that ran today. I have indicated a time for them if they ran last year over this course, as a gauge of the improvement they have made. I must apologise to the boys where there was no time provided (NTP). While I focused on getting split times for the relays teams, I assumed (wrongly) that blue chip would have picked up the first runners times as they crossed the line and this was not the case. These times may appear on the Blue Chip website later in which case I will inform the boys.

Of the 13 boys who ran last year, 12 ran times better than last year and 1 ran a time equal to that of last year ( Bailey Bartholomeusz who has had a season troubled by a chest infection finished spent today but looked so much more in control at the end of the race)

Guildford Individual Times All Schools 5man x 3km Trinity
Team Rank	Name	Line Time 2015	2015 Leg Split	2014 time	Pace/km
1	Declan White	0:09:45	0:09:45	0:10:47	3:25
2	Bailey Gillam	0:40:13	0:09:59		3:30
3	Ben Armstrong	0:30:14	0:10:11		3:34
4	Liam Stacey	0:20:03	0:10:18	0:11:00	3:37
5	Cameron Adams	0:50:33	0:10:20	0:10:31	3:38
6	Nick Rollo	0:10:25	0:10:25	0:11:01	3:39
7	Marcel Niutta	0:20:57	0:10:32	0:11:42	3:42
8	Heath Collins	0:32:05	0:11:08		3:54
9	Dylan Foppa	0:54:33	0:11:09		3:55
10	Rory Adams	0:43:24	0:11:19		3:58
11	Sebastian Boyd	0:23:11	0:11:34	0:13:54	4:04
12	Blake Hillier	0:11:37	0:11:37	0:12:09	4:05
13	Jack Grant	0:11:40	0:11:40		4:06
14	Sam Simba	0:36:33	0:11:47		4:08
15	Jake Manolini	0:35:14	0:12:03		4:14
16	Jack Spark	0:47:18	0:12:04		4:14
17	Wei Ngo	0:12:17	0:12:17	0:14:31	4:19
18	Aiden McLaughlin	0:59:36	0:12:18		4:19
19	Bailey Bartholomeusz	0:48:56	0:12:23	0:12:23	4:21
20	Henry Van Den Bake	0:12:32	0:12:32	0:13:45	4:24
21	Cameron Miles	1:01:28	0:12:32	0:13:44	4:24
22	Caden Alexander	1:08:33	0:12:40		4:27
23	Jack McClean	0:24:46	0:13:06		4:36
24	Gabriel Boyd	0:40:41	0:13:40	0:14:45	4:48
25	Liam Cowie	0:27:01	0:14:44		5:10
26	Thomas Schoneuer	0:55:53	0:15:12	0:17:23	5:20
	Guy Taylor	NTP
	David Ashenden	NTP
	Daniel Brecich	NTP
	James Holmes	NTP