Alan Roberts represented Great Britain in the European Non Stadia Championships at Grosseto in Italy recently in hot and humid conditions.
The event took place over 3 days and Alan participated in each race. The Friday afternoon launched the Championships with a 10k road race where he finished in 41:32 as 42nd over 50 to finish. His thoughts on the performance; “I was hoping to be a minute or so quicker but considering the humid conditions, I can’t complain. We finished 4th team, but we were never in contention for a medal”.
On to day two with the 3x4k cross country relays. Alan was on the last leg and ran a fast 15.56 overtaking the Italian C team runner in the closing stages to avoid the humiliation of last place! It was a warm sunny morning, but the 2 lap course gave enough shelter for it to be good running conditions.
To finish off, Sunday morning saw the Half Marathon run over 3 laps in very hot conditions. Many runners dropped out and Alan decided to adopt survival tactics. Slowing his pace dramatically paid off as he was 3rd GB athlete home and 33rd over 50. This great performance earned the team a European Team Bronze medal. Alan commented , “The Italians, Swiss and Irish dominated the team medals so it was nice to beat the Irish into 4th on the last day – 3rd time lucky for the Brits.”