A Weird and Wonderful Half

Oxford Half 2016

by Jo Sharples

The 2016 Vitality Oxford half marathon was to be my first 13.1 this year, having raced nearly every other distance. It is also my second time at this event, but my first time running this course as they’d revised the course last year. My previous experience in 2014 had the race starting in the Kassam Stadium and also included the Iffley Road running track where Sir Roger Bannister ran his famous sub-4min mile. I had loved everything about that race, so this year’s had a lot to live up to. read more

Marathon Majors

’twas a night before Christmas 2014 when a small group of Leighton Buzzard and Milton Keynes runners were out celebrating the end of a fine year of running. Young Pete Mackrell had run a new marathon PB of 2:40:29 in Cologne in September and followed that up with a fine 2:42:04 in a bitterly cold and windy New York two months later….New York marathon…..one of the six marathon majors….one beer led to another, and another beer (or three) led Pete to an idea….a wild idea….’what if I could run all six marathon majors in a two year period he questioned?’ ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Gary, ‘you’ll never do that!’ read more

Loch Ness Marathon

Loch Ness Marathon

by Conn Bardi

10th February 2012 – the beginning of my diagnosis with fibromyalgia
25th September 2016 – I ran my first marathon, in Loch Ness.

My journey into running took off in February 2016. I cycled a lot up to then, but it used to leave me tired – both physically and mentally. Physically because it simply did not agree with me. Mentally, because I had to deal with traffic, cars, roundabouts. With the aggression on the roads on the increase, going for a ride became a chore. So my running jaunts in my old pair of trainers became more frequent. The jog round the block grew into a commuter-run. The commuter run turned into a longer trail round my town on my rest days. In time, distances that left me sounding like a nuisance caller, were not challenging enough. My body was growing stronger, my energy levels were rising, and – unlike cycling – I was not dodging cars. The bike was left parked and a new pair of trainers took its place. I learnt about parkruns, gait analysis, and wondered why 6.2 mile races were called 10k. read more

Records at Stag

The Stag Trophy race of October 2016 should go down as breaking a new threshold for LBAC.

I believe 35 runners is a record attendance for our monthly race that has been going since the dawn of the club almost exactly 40 years ago. On top of that, and possibly more importantly there were more women participating than men, with 18 completing the course. Additionally we had a few juniors and a healthy collection from the beginners group so it really did bring everyone together.

With so many new people getting involved at the start of the season it is great to see but had the potential for chaos so thank you to all of those that helped to make it work alongside Dave and Pete. I gather it all worked pretty well. read more

A Gem of a 10K

Gail has done the Standalone 10K on a number of occasions and always said it was a pretty fast course, but generally as a club it hasn’t been on our radar in the past as it means venturing into darkest Hertfordshire without an easy route to get there.

However, our aim to spread the club championship races through the year meant that we thought we’d give it a go this year.

The race is based from Standalone Farm on the outskirts of Letchworth and attracted a field of 1340 runners this year including a band of 13 from LBAC. It is an undulating single loop course and with perfect autumnal weather, our squad was hopeful of some good performances, perhaps even challenging for the team prize in the men’s category. read more

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