From Dan McKeown…

We had a renegade quartet of Harriers at the Leeds Dock Relay on Thursday evening – a highly furtive event that I stumbled across while I was doom-scrolling through Twitter. Teams of up to four aiming to complete as many 0.9-mile laps of the dock as possible within a one-hour time limit. I came up with the team name ‘Scrooge McDock’ and emailed the organiser to grab a berth.

Alongside my usual running buddies Danny Thompson and Lawrence McCourt, a recruitment plea on a long-since archived Fell Relays Facebook chat turned up some guy called Jack Wood, so we had a fearsome foursome and were ready to hit the docks.

The format: the course was a pavement-pounding slog round the docks with a quick scuttle across some cobbles at one point; there was a kind-of socially distanced changeover and each runner had to collect a token at the end of their lap to stick in their team’s envelope. Any team out on course at the end of the hour would be allowed to complete that lap, and the fullest envelope would determine the victor. It sounds like a faff, but it worked fairly well.

Roundhay Runners had clearly got the memo about the event as they showed up with 15 teams. Alas for the blue wall, it was to no avail – a lung-bursting fourth lap from Jack Wood (whoever he is) allowed Lawrence to get away for his own fourth lap – our 14th in total – just before the hour expired.

This was enough to secure us a famous victory and possibly our own likeness in the shape of a waterfront statue in days to come (TBC – the organisers haven’t got back to me about that one yet). Roundhay’s ‘A’ team had to settle for an unfortunate 13 laps, while there was a six-way tie of teams on 12 laps for third place, making for a somewhat crowded podium.

The event was organised by Run Leeds as part of the Leeds Waterfront Festival, which is on until the end of the month, so if anyone’s looking for something to do with the kids / in-laws there are events like canoeing and (checks website) er, Tudor jousting. (More on https://leedswf.co.uk/)

There don’t appear to be any results posted up online and I wouldn’t be surprised if none were forthcoming. The main thing is, we have our victory medals, plus we got the upstairs decking at the Brewery Tap all to ourselves, so I’m chalking that up as another win.

Result:

1. Scrooge McDock (14 laps)

Jack Wood (4 laps)

Lawrence McCourt (4 laps)

Dan McKeown (3 laps)

Danny Thompson (3 laps)