Category: Race Report

The Off-Road Series is Getting Serious!

The Off-Road Series – some trail blazers and a relay round up.

by James Bell

Blimey, it’s nearly July and already we are seven races into the off-road series. I can say with confidence, there have been some stunning performances and the attendance at most events has been amazeballs. Of course, the majority of athletes have done Rushmere parkrun, and just behind that in terms of attendance has been the Greensand Ridge Relay. Although both events are always popular, some of the front runners in the series have yet to grab some points at Rushmere, take note Ruth Mitchell. That said, Chris Dimmock, Matthew Brooks and Sam Dear are the only ones to have done all three park runs to date and all of these are sitting pretty in the top 10, so it’s worth completing these for the points. read more

24 Hour Relay People

Treble Relay success in 24 hours for LBAC!

Leighton Buzzard Athletic Club had success over the weekend from two different relay competitions. Firstly, a group travelled down to Wiltshire to attend the inaugural RunFestRun festival at Bowood House. Organised by Chris Evans and Vassos Alexander, the event is a festival with all things running, including inspirational and motivational talks by the likes of Jo Pavey and Fearne Cotton and races throughout the weekend from 2.5km up to a half marathon including a family fun run on the Sunday to score points for your team. Team captains included Natasha Evans, Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson and Steve Cram and it was great fun mixing with some athletics heroes before the musical entertainment from Razorlight and Olly Murs hit the stage. The last running event on the Saturday was a 4 person running club relay with 1.3km loops around the festival site. LBAC’s team of Stuart Read,Tom Inchley, Jo Sharples and Sam Dear took on 59 other teams from around the country and were comfortably in second place through the first three legs. However, with Steve Cram commentating from the Main Stage to the entire festival, they managed to catch and overtake the leading team with 200m to go to take the unexpected win as the golden ticker tape exploded into the air.

LBAC – Winners of the inaugural RunFestRun Running Club Relay!

Closer to home on the Sunday, the local Dunstable Downs Relay, organised by Dunstable Road Runners, is for teams of 3 completing a lap of trail Kensworth Quarry each. Having won the mixed team last prize year, LBAC were back to try to reclaim their title and managed to win the overall and mixed team prize with Peter Mackrell coming home in first place with Sam Dear and Jo Sharples already having run the earlier legs. The other victory on the day for LBAC was for Ruth Mitchell, Coralie Anderson and Amy Farnfield who were the fastest ladies team.

“Girls on the Run” – The fastest all ladies team around!

Congratulations to all those involved over both days and a big thank you to the organisers for some great events!

The Tightest of Tight Finishes

Going into the final Stag Trophy race of the season, there were a few things up for grabs. Firstly, there was a two way battle for the overall win with Stuart Dimmock as strong favourite, but perennial bridesmaid Warren Rose hoping that this would be his year to take home the rose bowl.

Meanwhile there was another skirmish going on for the third podium place, between Ruth Mitchell, Ian Grimshaw and possibly Matthew Brooks, given a very strong wind!

April is always interesting, because after six months of running in the dark and struggling to see up the murky alleyways of Leighton, you have light and the clothing gets lighter and there’s less of it, making for some much faster and more confident running over the 4K course. Usually around half the runners beat their handicap and half don’t, but I don’t think it gives too much away to say that ten out of fourteen did on Wednesday and a further three were within ten seconds. read more

Mixing with the Big Boys and Girls

The SEAA 12 and 6 Stage Road relays.

24th March 2019

The SEAA Men’s 12-stage and the Women’s 6-stage Road Relays returned to Stantonbury in Milton Keynes  on Sunday 24 March and it was great to see two teams from LBAC mixing it up with the best in the south of England.

Both the men’s and women’s races are a mix of short and long legs, with the short being just a few metres more than 5k and the long being approximately 7.7k.

After a lot of chopping and changing with people unable to run due to injuries, it was an achievement in itself that we managed to have the full compliment of 18 runners. read more

Commenting From Afar

By Andy Inchley

So I don’t have a serious injury, but it’s enough to stop me running for a few weeks, so in order to keep involved with the events that are going on and because we haven’t had a report on the website for a while I thought I’d write a few words about last weekend’s various events with really just a couple of conversations, the results and Strava to guide me. Apologies if my perceptions are wildly inaccurate, but you can put it down to my age!

Saturday started with the final XC of the season, the English National Schools Championships in Leeds. Back in the dim and distant past when I was a lad, this event was generally considered to be the highest standard race around. This is because not only do you have all the runners, but you also have lots of very fit youngsters taking part from other sports. Therefore, simply qualifying for the event is a big achievement. read more

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