“It’s equal parts bonkers as it is equal parts total unadulterated fun”
Heath signed up for the Green Belt Relay for the first time in 2023. He tells us how the event showed him new experiences and invigorated his love for the running community.
Last year I decided to sign up for the relay
After being in the club for a few years I had come accustomed to hearing about this “Green Belt Relay” once a year—a massive multi-day relay that circumnavigates the entire city of London via villages and countryside. People talked excitedly about trekking through muddy fields, getting terribly lost, climbing exhausted up the infamous Box Hill, and running two days of long runs back-to-back. They also talked about the comradery of watching Eurovision finales together huddled in the hotel lobby, sharing van rides across the countryside, and seeing parts of Greater London that even lifelong Londoners had never seen.
So, I decided that I would see what this ‘Green Belt Relay’ was about and soon got enlisted in the Men’s Veteran Team. I was told the veteran team were the current reigning champions of their category, so I initially felt pressure to not let the team down, worried that I’d be a disappointment as one of the slower runners. I could not have been more mistaken. I soon discovered that this relay is not really treated as a race… it is an immersive experience that is equal parts bonkers as it is equal parts total unadulterated fun.
The logistics of the Green Belt Relay are hard to explain without doing it
The premise of the Green Belt Relay is that in teams of eleven, each member runs two legs ranging of approximately 7 to 13 miles—one each on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the teams (of which LFR had four teams in 2023) are shuttled around the country roads of Greater London in multiple vans that see runners off at the start and position the next runners at the following exchange point. It’s a logistical nightmare, necessitating multiple vans, complicated spreadsheets, and problem-solving skills that are reminiscent of those critical thinking exercises in school where you have to figure out how to get a mouse, cat, and dog across a river in a single rowboat. But somehow, against all odds, it works.
My Green Belt Relay journey, however, did not entirely go to plan.
About five days from the event, I was struck with some of the worst sciatica I had experienced in my life. Worse, running seemed to exacerbate the symptoms. After about 4km of exercise in my practice runs that week, my hips became locked into place in searing nerve pain. And this affliction seemed to reach a momentous crescendo on the first day of the relay. In my first day of the race, I had to make my way to Staines to undertake the second leg of that day. It should have been a pleasant flat 10 mile run along the Thames through picturesque countryside. After about 3 miles in, my nerves started to burn. After about 6 miles I was reduced to undertaking a run-stop-stretch-walk-run routine. However, at this low point of my run, while being passed by team after team, when I became worried about letting my team down, I learned the true value of the Green Belt Relay experience. Other teams stopped to ask whether I was okay, unconcerned about their own time. In the final stretch, one guy from another club stopped to have a chat with me as I shuffled along. I explained my predicament, and he said “Just try to stick with me, and keep up the best you can… I’m not breaking any records here”. And I did, as he chatted with me along the way to distract me from the discomfort. His motivation helped me to my finishing point, where I was greeted by smiling, cheering frontrunners. I soon learnt that, for most participants, the Green Belt Relay is not about the final finishing position. It’s not about the winning or losing (although the losing team is awarded the highly coveted prize of the “toilet seat” trophy).
The Green Belt Relay is about experiencing the Green Belt Relay
Through the Green Belt Relay I got to experience the famous “Recce” – where members of other LFR teams running the same relay leg go out to explore the route together in the weekends preceding the relay. I got to experience roaming around country roads in the LFR support vans, which were comprised of a carefully configured group of runners for optimal pick-up and drop-off. I got to know LFR members that I would never have met on my usual runs. As a West London runner, I got to make friends with the Greenwich and Victoria Park crowds. All in all, I got to experience a social running club at its very best—a group of like-minded people who are really invested in running, but who also have a lot of silly fun, laughs, and adventure doing it.