Saturday 30^th January saw the annual running of the Southern championships at Parliament Hill Fields on Hampstead Heath. Whilst the morning races started a little dull and overcast, the sun came out for a glorious – if cold – afternoon of high quality running. Leighton managed a good attendance in what is undoubtedly the toughest fixture of the season.

The first race was the U15 boys which featured Billy Mead and Brian Foulger running for Leighton. Billy had a good run to come home well inside the top half in 109^th position and Brian, who is in the bottom year of the age group continued his strong season in 185^th. The club had three representatives in the U13 boys, which unfortunately was one short of a team, but all three took on the challenging 3K course with great enthusiasm. Joe McGarry was first home in an excellent 74^th position and Jordan Clay followed him home in 117^th before Lloyd Milliken – who is also a year young – finished in 173^rd. The final junior representative was Beth Tippite in the U13 girls, and her position of 163^rd was an excellent performance for our sole junior girl.

 The club had three ladies running in the senior race with Gail and Amy continuing to be ever present this season. Fiona, meanwhile chose an extremely hard cross-country to so her first run of the season. The 8K course was increasingly muddy and Gail battled around to a fantastic 65^th position. Amy claimed to have enjoyed her run and ran strongly up all the hills for 260^th before Fiona's fifty-one minutes of mud and hell were brought to an end in 336^th.

The final race of the day saw the ever spectacular 15K running of the senior mens race. As with all the others, it starts up the infamous Parliament Hill and then takes in three, three mile loops of Hampstead Heath. With Simon running for Herne Hill Harriers Andy Inchley was first home in the field of over 800 runners with a strong run in 279^th, and he was followed home by Pete Foulkes and Joe Hurley, who worked right through the field over the three laps to duck inside the top 400. Nick Clay and Charlie Thompson were very close together in 436^th and 447^th respectively. The final scorer in the team was Chris Norman who has been battling a knee injury and yet still made it around the horrendously muddy course in 73 minutes to close the team in 536.

The big events like this however, are made by having a big team turn-out and a squad of nine is the largest we've had in many years. Mike Bryant, Fred Watt and our esteemed chairman, Jon Hull all ran strongly over the constantly hilly course giving a great effort before leading the way to the pub for the post run drink, which all of the seniors attended with great dedication. As a team, the seniors managed a very commendable 39^th position out of the 54 teams that completed a squad of six, which is a very good effort for a little club like ours and a great target to work on for next year. There are a selection of pictures from various photographers in the gallery section.