Viewtube runners come second in the Spitfire Scramble 24 hour relay

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park's very own Run England group viewtube runners came second in the Spitfire Scramble 24 hour relay at Hornchurch this weekend.

The mixed team of 8 local runners ran over 200 miles [34 laps] between them, beating last year's best distance by nearly 20 miles, and were only pipped at the post in the last 30 minutes by a team of London Marathon staff that included the son of one of the founders Chris Brasher. Despite competing against much bigger athletics clubs, the team were only edged into second place by less than 5 minutes or 8 seconds per challenging 6 mile cross country lap after a whole day of running. Hugh Brasher commented, "We only came to run 30 laps but you pushed us right to the line."

Local running coach and team captain Paul Lewis would like to specially note the efforts of Stephen Glanville, who ran on an injured ankle after the first lap, and Lindsey Buckley, Mike Bristow, Alessio Crd, Ivaylo Enchev, Ashan Zaidi who worked incredibly hard on what was their first time at this kind of event.

Paul said, "We came so close to achieving what would have been an astounding victory considering we have only been running together for a little over a year and the event was at least twice as big as last year when we finished 9th. I suspect there are even better results to come from these guys going forward." The team MPV Chris Cameron managed to complete all of his laps in under 40 minutes.

To join Paul’s group or more information on Running and Athletics at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park please contact Darryl Gheerawo dgheerawo@westhamunited.co.uk or visit www.londonathletics.org/Take-Part-Olympic-Park