Just One to Go

March acted as a real filter in this year's Stag Trophy competition as we finally had a male winner! Suddenly there are only eight athletes who can get into the top three and only three who can win it! This does not give you an excuse not to run, by contrast it really is our duty to get in the way (metaphorically!) and make it as fair a race as possible in April.

March's race saw Charlie Mead take victory with an 18 second PB as he gets ever closer to his brother's family record. This win means that he is one of the three potential winners, although he will have to win the final race and hope Amy is outside the top six just to tie with her at the top.

Amy herself finished 7th in race and earned a 1 second PB which gives her 110 points already and makes her the target for everyone else with joint second overall the worst she can do now. Amy's biggest challenger is Mark Haynes, who took another 29 seconds off his previous PB to finish 3rd on the night. having missed the first two races of the season though, Mark has no leeway and so must finish in the top five to stand a chance of overall victory in April.

On what was a cool but still evening in Leighton there were a number of outstanding performances in addition to those mentioned above. Pete Mackrell finished 2nd with a PB of 13.20 that puts him 11th on the all-time list, just ahead of Glen Turner! Having been trying for year to break 20 minutes, Fi Towell has done it three times this year and earned another PB of 19.39 this month to finish fourth just ahead of Dan Webb.

Whilst all the other leaders on the night have been regularly showing consistent improvement Dan's time came from nowhere as he beat his PB from April 2011 to draw level with Warren on the all-time list at 15:30. The final PB on the night was Jordan Clay, whose 11 second PB would have been worth more than 6th on most occasions.

Jordan and Fiona together with Gary Stratford and Katie Haylock all have the chance to gain second place overall with strong runs in the final race. It was a great shame that Katie fell ill this week and couldn't participate as even a below average performance would have kept her in the hunt for the title.

So, the final race is scheduled for Wednesday 2nd April. Please try to come along and make it complicated! It's always good for PB's in April as the clocks have gone forward and the evenings are light!