Ekiden 2025 – Teams and final instructions

23 June 2025 - By Jodee Mayer

*Final instructions are awaited and further information will follow in due course*

Ekiden Relay 2025

Date: 06 July 2025

Time: Arrival by 9.45 am, for a race start of 10.20 am.

Whilst we appreciate not everyone will be able to, we encourage everyone to stay to support the rest of your teammates and to see our last runner over the line in true black and gold style

Location: Ipswich High School, IP9 1AZ – parking available, as always we encourage car sharing. There are over 1200 runners and so it will get busy. Some of us will be there super early to set up, and the car park is open from 7.45am.

There will be portable toilets on site – we do not have access to the school’s toilets or showers.

For further information about the course and facilities please see the post here.

Course

We understand the course will be the same as last year which is as below-

Teams

The teams are set out below, and I have set up Facebook messenger groups as best as I can – please look out for it in the message requests if we are not Facebook friends. If you are not on social media and you are in a team, please message me or someone else in your team so the teams can be sorted by Wednesday 25 June at 7pm.

As a reminder the legs are as follows:

• Leg 1 – 7.2km
• Leg 2 – 5k
• Leg 3 – 10k
• Leg 4 – 5k
• Leg 5 – 10k
• Leg 6 – 5k

It would be great to have some different team names for this year!

Each team will also need to nominate a captain for on the day – the team captains main job is to make sure everyone turns up to run when they need to!

MEN’S OPEN		WOMEN’S OPEN
Rupert Bulgin		Claudia Baba
Joshua Maleary		Sian Tate
Daniel Griffiths		Annalise Etherington
Paul English		Irina Ashdown
Clive Smith		Fiona Collins
Ian Cuthbert		Elizabeth Prior
MEN’S VETS		WOMEN’S SUPER VETS
James Attenborough		Rachel Sharp
Glen Waller		Karen Flowers
Samuel Hajder		Lisa Leader
Simon Handley		Nat Lilley
Louie Kitchener		Jenny Layley
Paul Cole		Celine Elson
MENS SUPER VETS
Michael Conroy
Andy White
Alex Stuckey
James Cooch
James Montgomery
Paul Thomas
OVER 60 1		OVER 60 2
Owen Dare		Graham Eyre
Mark Austin		Andrew Read
Terry Alabaster		Mark Austin
Ian Lucas		Craig Vernon
Geoff Reddin		Seyed Ghazi-Nouri
Martin Byford		Colin Short

The relay itself

The race uses batons containing timing chips which will be handed out to the A leg runners (7.2km) just before the start.

Team captains need to ensure that their runners are in position to take over when the previous runner finishes. You’ll need to wait in the “holding pen” until told to go out on the field and get ready to be passed the baton. We will cover this again on race day and have a demo of the hand over.

What to bring

Kit 

You will need to have a WRC race vest (black and gold) to run in on the day. If you do not have one, please let Will or I know ASAP and we will try to source you one to borrow, or purchase one through the members section of website which Ian Lucas can bring it on the day for you (if not before!).

Other than that, the usual things you would bring to a race – don’t forget your trainers!

Food

We have also set up a Google doc for the WRC picnic this year, in the hope of being slightly more organised than last year! This can be found here and please just add your name by the item you will bring on the day to share with your teammates. If there is something you want to add to the picnic that isn’t on the list, do add it and let me know you have done so 🙂

Don’t forget to bring water – there is a water station on course.

Food and drink will be available to purchase at the event, and do bring anything else you might want to!

Other stuff

We recommend bringing a camping chair/picnic blanket/something to sit on.

No dogs are allowed on site.

Any questions, queries, or issues let Jodee or Will know.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Your Captains