HERCULES Wimbledon Athletic Club enjoyed one of their best ever Road Relays performances as a host of teams headed to Aldershot for this year's unofficial Southern Road Relays Championships.

Hercules’ senior men’s teams finished 6th, 17th, 29th and 41st out of 79 completed teams, with junior teams also performing admirably.

This year saw almost all the south of England’s top clubs boycott the official Crystal Palace edition, citing poor organisation and miscommunication on behalf of the South of England Athletics Association for a number of years, with that event held featuring less than 15 teams in the senior men’s edition.

Tom Jervis got the A team off to a flying start, guiding the team to fifth on a typically competitive opening leg. Jervis’ time of 18:00 for the undulating 6km course was Hercules’ fastest of the day. Indeed such is the competition for places these days that not far behind, Ed Mallett ran 18:36 for the B's, a time which saw him take Hercules into the top 16.

The second leg saw Andrew Penney continue the strong start, running 18:22 to lift Hercules into the silver medal position. Charlie Eastaugh, running for the B’s was similarly impressive running Hercules fifth fastest time overall in 18:35 to take the team 12th.

The third leg proved the day’s most competitive as Jonathan Cornish’s 18:19, Hercules second fastest of the day, saw Hercules slip to third, Finn Johnson running 19:13 as the B’s came in 13th.

George Mallett ran 18:43 as Bedford and County moved past Hercules into third. Even an 18:20 from Dan Cliffe couldn’t prevent Hercules slipping further back to fifth as clubs backloaded their teams. Setting off for the final leg Fred Slemeck had the unenviable position of setting off ahead of Jacob Allen of Highgate Harriers, who overhauled Slemeck (18:56) through a 17:42 run which was the fourth fastest of anyone on the day.

Joe Croft (19:30), Archie Walton (19:33) and James Stockings (19:11) closed out the B team in 17th, meaning they beat 23 different clubs ‘A’ teams.

Hercules will head to the National Road Relays held at Sutton Park on October 8, hoping to better last year’s club record tenth place, with the B team hoping to secure a discretionary place from the England Road Running Association.

Elsewhere Hercules Wimbledon enjoyed some promising junior runs. The Under-13 boys trio of Sam Dyson, Harry Allen and Theo Creed finished in a time of 33:16 with Dyson running the 12th fastest time of the day.

The Under-13 girls were ninth out of 27 teams thanks to Isabella Harrison, Leah Paulson and Beatrice Eminson. Like Dyson, Harrison was the twelfth fastest in her age group on the day.