The final round of the Motavation road race series took place last Thursday at Stratfield Brake. Ironically although this was a road race, the 3.9mile Stratfield Brake circuit is run on a predominantly grass course. However given the hot Summer, the grassy terrain was similar to a road surface. Bicester AC had 10 runners in the 375 strong field and some of the Bicester contingent saved their best runs of the series for this final race of the season.
Bicester AC’s Joshau Moran and George Hart had a tremendous scrap. Moran held a narrow advantage at the end of the first of this two lap course. However Moran powered through the 2nd lap to his best road run of the Summer to finish 27th in 23mins 04secs, almost a minute faster than his 2024 time. Moran was also third under 19 men’s finisher. Hart has enjoyed a superb first season on the road and although unable to match Moran on lap 2 still ran another superb race for 41st and 24mins 02secs.
Finlay Kerr produced his best ever run in Bicester colours to finish 46th in 24mins 21secs. This was by some distance Kerr’s highest position in a Motavation race and was a 57 place improvement compared to his run in round 4. Max Finnegan, who competes as an under 17 athlete, was having his first ever run in the Motavation series and ran an extremely well judged race to finish 78th (25mins 54secs). Isaac Moran completed his 5th race of the series to place 82nd (27mins 57secs). Ben Groves just missed out on a top 100 finish in 101st clocking 26mins 51secs.
Paul Jones was next Bicester finisher and ran well for 248th (32mins 15secs). One of the big Bicester improvers on the day was Joshua Bradley who finished in the top 300 in a Motavation race for the first time placing 288th (34mins 21secs). Bradley finished nearly 3 minutes inside the time he recorded for the same race last year. There was a good scrap between Emily Benfield and Paul Groves. Both were locked together at the end of the first lap and were still together as they reached the finishing straight. Benfield then used her sprinting prowess to forge ahead in the final 100 metres to place 317th (36mins 56secs) with Groves one second adrift in 318th (36mins 57secs).