Three Pacer teams entered the Turing relay on Sunday the 16^th of March.

The event is named after Alan Turing who was one of the Cambridge mathematicians who helped crack the Enigma Code machines in the Second World War.

During his time at Cambridge he used to run from Cambridge to Ely as part of his training. His marathon time was around 2:45, which for the 1940’s was a very impressive performance, and the 34.1 miles course must have helped him with his long runs!

The course is split into six legs of between 5 and 6 miles. Three legs running up river from Ely to Cambridge and then three going back.

The teams were made up of two Club entries and one Women’s team.

The weather forecast was appalling with heavy rain and high winds predicted.

It did not disappoint, with the early runners having the benefit of the rain and the wind to their backs whilst the runners on the legs back to Ely had little rain but a relentless wind to cope with.

The A team came third overall with excellent performances by Kevin Murphy, who won his leg overall and Pete Golding and Chris Cooke (the younger) coming second in their legs.

It should be noted that Chris warmed up for the event by running 23 miles the previous day as part of his marathon training.

The ladies won their section and it was good to see that we now have two new stars to add to the ladies teams in Karen Hatton and Sarah Hinchliffe.

Trish Dennison stepped in to the C team at the last minute and despite claiming that she was not race fit she ran extremely well.

Overall it was a tough, challenging but very rewarding day.

All of the runners appear to want to take part again but which legs they run may well e down to who wants to run into the wind!