Ekiden Relay

The Ekiden is a race which orginated in Japan where teams of runners competed in a relay over long distances. Ipswich JAFFA have been staging the only Ekiden held in the UK for over 20 years. It attracts runners from all over East Anglia, with the 2014 event having a record entry of over 150 teams. The race takes the form of a 6 leg relay, of differing distances, run over a total distance of a marathon – 26.2 miles (42.2km).
This year The Jaguars were represented by 2 teams. Below are the Individual results. In parentheses is the overall finishing position by gender of that leg for the athlete:
Leg 1 – 7.2k J1 Melanie Burch (26th) 35:48. J2 Sonya Wragg (29th) 36:42
Leg 2 – 5k J1 Becky Durant (46th) 26:45. J2 Paul Gerber (61st) 25:56
Leg 3 – 10k J1 Mel Porter (48th) 42:43. J2 Stewart Marden (65th) 45:43
Leg 4 – 5k J1 Peter K-Cockburn (45th) 24:29. J2 Alexandra Bland (20th) 24:05
Leg 5 – 10k J1 Ben Dennington (38th) 41:32. J2 Sze -Ming Cheung (23rd) 39:36
Leg 6 – 5k J1 James Lambert (39th) 21:19. J2 Mel Porter (27th) 20:32
Team J1 finished in 10th Place in mixed Gender category out of 60 Teams. However, only ONE TENTH OF A SECOND behind in 11th Place was Team J2! J1 had a combined time for the Marathon distance of 3:12:36.6 secs and Team J2 ran a time of 3:12:36:7 secs – both teams averaged 4mins 32secs per kilometre
A message from Mel Porter regarding the race and the participants: “Got to say a big well done to everyone from Club for holding such an enjoyable event together and proving when together we can compete with the best!”