July 1995 saw the running of the first Green Belt Relay. A two hundred mile road race around London’s green belt.

The Welsh Castles & Round Norfolk Relays were already well established, and with Stragglers taking part in both these relays each year, we thought, why not organise one of our own, around London. An idea brought about by the building of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, over the Thames Estuary. This would allow the event to be a complete loop. Unknown to us, it would prove impossible to get permission to run across the bridge. However, undeterred, it was decided to press ahead with the event, finishing one leg north of the bridge, and starting the next just south of the bridge. The task now was to find a safe, scenic and direct route along which to run, and to find runners game enough to compete.

The first of these took over a year to complete. Many hours were spent studying maps and having to drive, cycle, run and walk the selected route. Often a whole day’s work was lost because: a road was reached that was too busy to cross; a pedestrian tunnel under a motorway had been closed, or a suitable changeover point could not be found. What soon became obvious was that roads in general were built to bring people in and out of London and not around it (M25 is an exception). The final result was a tough and testing course on road, towpath, bridleway and cross country.

The second task was now to get teams to compete. This proved much easier than the first. In total six teams took part, all coming from the South London Area. Teams were made up of people of all ages, sexes and standards. The Relay started on the Thames Towpath at Elmbridge Leisure Centre, heading first west then north and east around London.

At the end of the Day One, after eleven hours of running and over one hundred miles covered, only thirty three seconds divided the first two teams. These two teams, Ranelagh Harriers and Straggler’s "A", would widen the gap to the rest of the field on Day Two, and turn the event into a two horse race. The final result was a win for Ranelagh by forty minutes, in a time of twenty one hours and fifty nine minutes.

A word of praise to all those who took part. There were very few marshals, no lead cars or bikes, only some arrows, a map and a brief set of instructions as a guide, yet no-one got severely lost. I remember walking up to London Marathon Winners, Hugh Jones, of Ranelagh Harriers, in the Rose and Crown Pub car park in Sandridge, in the pouring rain. I asked him if he had read his instructions and was happy with the route. There was no front vehicle, and he would probably be leading. This didn’t seem to affect him. He ran the eleven and a quarter miles in fifty seven minutes, and came back the next day and produced a similar performance. This typified the spirit of the event. The relay was treated the same by everyone: to be enjoyed and to run as well as they possibly could for the benefit of their team.