SHAEF at Green Belt ‘22

Last weekend saw the wonderful Green Belt Relay return after a three year break during the pandemic.

This brilliant event sees over 40 London clubs compete against each other in 22 consecutive races over two days, completing a circuit of Greater London that follows the ‘Green Belt’ route - about 350km overall.

This event is a real club favourite, and celebrates everything we love about running: community, participation, our beautiful local environment, and the excitement and satisfaction of hard racing. Oh, and it’s self-navigated!

The SHAEF team had a brilliant time this year. Take a look at our Instagram highlights of the event for the best videos and photos of the beautiful chaos that is the Green Belt Relay!

We asked our runners for a few highlights

Eirwen said

“for me the best part of the weekend was the amazing team spirit. As a GBR newbie I was truly impressed by the way everyone rallied round to support each other, constantly helping to figure out who needed to be where and when. The positive encouragement from the team was fantastic and I’m so glad to have been given the chance to take part in such a special event.”

Aaron added

“I’ve done 4 editions with hopefully more to follow, and this was by far the most special. Returning from 2 years in the wilderness, we had a good combination of vets and first timers, everyone had fun and banded together to help out when we desperately needed someone off the bench, encouraged each other, ate and drank lots, denied Thames Hare and Hounds yet another stage win, and no one got injured. Best memory for me would be experiencing that "real race feeling” again (pinning a number on your vest and doing the best you can on the day) after not doing a lot of that over the past three years or so".

And our Green Belt race captain, Fernando, said

“my favourite moment of the weekend rather than a quote was Ian Fullen (SHAEF’s Treasurer) politely nudging me at the end of stage 5 to get moving for about five minutes, before impolitely dragging me by the shirt to the car because we were late! GBR is so good, I intend to return. I am already planning the logistics for next year and I bet everyone is already thinking about which stage they want to run!”

The team finished 15th of 41 teams, a great result for a unique team.

Thank you to everyone that took part, and to Stragglers for putting on this fantastic event.

Check back soon for a full run report from the event, with all the gory fun details.