Ekiden 2026 – 04 July 2026 – Teams and instructions

31 May 2026 - By Jodee Mayer

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

Ekiden Relay 2026

Date: 04 July 2026

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 come for the start and 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. 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.

Course

The course is off road, mainly on a flat lawn 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 will need the running orders by 12 June 2026 please. I will set up WhatsApp chats as soon as I can but  if you beat me to it, then just drop me a WhatsApp to let me know!

The leg distance is fixed for each runner, so it just the order of runners I need.

3 of the 4 teams have estimated finishing times of within 30s of each other, with the 4th team not far outside this, so it looks to be a good competition with trophies on offer for the fastest team on the day.

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 team names if you can send those to me!

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!

The teams below are not in estimated finishing team order…

	TEAM 1	TEAM 2	TEAM 3	TEAM 4
5km	Liz Stuckey	Georgia Blofeld	Irina Ashdown	Lysia Jiggins
5km	Anita Grainger	Rachel Sharp	Lisa Leader	Celine Elson
5km	Colin Short	Clare Boston	James Montgomery	Alex Stuckey
7.2km	Glen Waller	Annalise Etherington	Jamie Light	Samuel Hajder
10km	Will Radley	Owen Dare	Simon Handley	Stamatios Katsimis
10km	Amy Eyo	Liz Atkinson	Mark Austin	Lee Tooey

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. Runners will 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 and arrange to collect it from Ian Lucas.

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

Food

There is food to purchase on site, and otherwise bring your own food! The food waste for the last few year’s picnic was quite substantial so back to bring your own this year please!

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

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