FOUR-TIMES Northern women’s champions Chesterle- Street will be aiming to improve on last year’s bronze medal-winning performance in the National Four Stage Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield today.

The powerful Cestrians quartet will be fired off by international Alyson Dixon, who made her Great Britain debut in last weekend’s IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Birmingham, despite a late illness alert.

The anchor-leg runner will be Freya Murray, who has already guaranteed herself a place in Scotland’s Commonwealth Games squad, and will be hoping for another impressive run before jetting off for ltitude training in Colorado.

Murray, who, in the last five weeks has won the BUPA Great Yorkshire 10K and the BUPA Great Capital 5K, ran the fastest time at Sutton Park last year, when she lifted her team from ninth to second on the penultimate leg.

Chester-le-Street’s two other runners, North of England representative Melissa Turner and Scottish international Emma Raven have also been recording fast times recently and team manager Barry Foster expects the quartet to give favourites and defending champions Aldershot, Farnham and District, a run for their money.

Chester-le-Street are also fielding a very strong B team of Morag McDonnell, Maxine Czarnecka, Angela Hibbs and Tracey Laws and could well secure a top ten placing, which would speak volumes for the club’s impressive strength in depth.

The North-East will have four clubs competing in the men’s Six Stage Championship, Sunderland, Gateshead, New Marske and Morpeth. The Northumbrians, 11th last year behind winners Belgrave, are again expected to be the region’s top performers.