River Relay

Organised by The Stragglers & Staines Strollers

Thanks for taking a look at the RIVER RELAY. We hope that you will find out most of the things that you need to know to help you to decide to enter a team; and if you do, the information you need to help plan your participation.

Mark Thomas and Keith Haworth

Race Directors

Other Race Details

 

The 2008 River Relay was on Sunday 14th September. The race is a baton relay (if we can find them!) run over six stages from Virginia Water to Kingston upon Thames. The route can be traced on OS Landranger Series Sheet 176.

All proceeds from the race (after expenses) go to charity

Results from all previous races including 2008 are here

  

The race starts at 9:00 AM from Virginia Water, adjacent to the Wheatsheaf Hotel car park, Windsor Great Park, on the A30. It will finish at the Hawker Centre, Lower Ham Road, Kingston. This distance is approximately 31.4 miles with each runner completing a leg of between 3.8 to 7.5 miles.

 

  • Entries

You can register your interest in entering a team in the relay now! Just send an e-mail to riverrelay@wickroad.freeserve.co.uk At the start of July a "invitation" to participate is sent to clubs. Those confirming that they want to enter teams are then sent a race entry form. (This bit of bureaucracy helps us as organisers know how many teams to expect and team captains to get their teams selected).

The closing date for payment for entries is the 30th August. Final team declarations however are not required till just before the start of the race. Any entries accepted after 30th August are at the organiser's discretion.

 

Before the race each team is required to nominates a medical or handicap charity. The proceeds raised by the event are divided between the charities nominated by the first three teams. In addition there is a prize for the team most closely predicting their finishing time and two Tombola prizes drawn at random from those teams not winning one of the other prizes.

 

  • Route Finding & Time Keeping

Each team will be responsible for route finding, getting their runners to and from stages and recording their running times. Running times must be submitted to the Race Director at the end of the race.

Each runner will be given a description of the route and a map. There will be MINIMAL marshalling en-route with the exception of changeover points. There will be random marshalling en-route to ensure fair play.

 Each team will be responsible for getting their runners to and from the changeover points. Route guides for drivers will be supplied. All the race details including route descriptions, maps and team declaration forms will be sent out following the closing date.

 

  • Team make up and declarations

Each team should be made up as follows:

Maximum of 3 men aged between 16 and 40 plus at least one woman. The balance of runners can be from the following categories.

Male vets (over 40 years); Women; Juniors (under 16)

 The final order of the runners must be stated on the Team Declaration. This will be sent with the race details. Final declarations must be made by 8:30 AM on the day of the race. The declaration should include the team's predicted finishing time which will be used for the sweepstake prize.

Unaccompanied Juniors can only run on the stages that do not include public roads (Stages 1 and 4).

No runner may run two stages for the same team. (Runners can run a separate leg for another team.)

 

  • What’s the Competition Like?

In 2005 there were 37 teams from 18 clubs in the competition and we encourage entries form corporate teams or just groups of friends!

The fastest time was 2hrs 58mins 04secs.

The slowest time was over 4hrs 30mis.

 

  • After the Race

The race finishes at the Straggler’s base at Hawker Leisure in Kingston. As more and more teams enter the final stage of the race the changeover gets really busy and there’s quite a buzz. Hawker Leisure has a bar and restaurant to keep you refreshed until the prize giving.