Last Saturday saw the third fixture of the Chiltern League Cross-country season take place at Stowe School near Buckingham in cold snowy conditions.

Some of the club's junior representatives were possibly put off by the freezing weather and so numbers were a little reduced after the excellent turn-out at Watford, but eight U16's still made a great effort to score valuable points for LBAC. First out on the course was Mathilde Sammons, who has run all three U11 races this year and clearly (judging the photo's) had a whole range of experiences during her run!

At the other end of the day and completing the Sammon sandwich was Mathilde's Dad. Mark decided that a freezing cold day on a hilly course in North Bucks was the ideal time to make his cross country debut in the senior men's race! In the last year, Mark has started contributing much to the club through coaching the juniors and taking many of the photo's for the website. However, he felt he couldn't nag the junior members to run without having had the joyful experience himself! So now he has.

Despite the freezing weather, we had a pretty good turn-out from the senior men, with 15 making an appearance on the day. There were a number of leading figures missing for various reasons, so the final result of 11^th out of 14 teams was an excellent effort. Simon Coombes was the first finisher, but unfortunately is a non-scorer due to his second-claim membership. Behind Simon, Andy Inchley and the fast improving Mark Field led home a superbly packed group of Tom May, Pete Mackrell, Stuart Blofeld, Tom Inchley & Joby Hobbs who all finished between 75^th & 80^th.

Despite a horrible cold, Nick Clay made it around the course to score in 8th place, with our resident Brazilian Rod Lopez following him home on his club debut. Sunday's Luton marathon was unfortunately cancelled, which gave Warren Rose the opportunity to use his training to traipse around the course and score some great points for the club. Mike Bryant, Steve Orlando and Richard Inchley then filled the vital gap between Warren and Mark and took many points off the other teams.

The stars of the day were the excellent ladies team, who were 7th overall and ahead of many much larger clubs. The huge improvement that has been seen so over the last couple of years is creating a vastly stronger club and long may it continue. On this occasion, each of the ladies moved their way through the field throughout the race and correspondingly, each of them had their best performance of the year. Gail (19^th) lead home Jill and Amy in 28^th and 29^th who worked superbly together in the second half of the race. Jane and Lynn also ran brilliantly to come home in 38^th and 42^nd respectively and contribute hugely to the team effort.

In the other junior races, Patrick Clay finished 39th in the U13 boys as the sole representative. Alison Gosbee made her debut in the U15 girls and worked extremely hard all the way around the course to finish in 39^th place. Once again the U15 boys had a full team on the day and Brian Foulger once again led the lads home with his highest position of 17^th place. Jordan Clay, Charlie Mead and Jake Irvine then finished in consecutive places from 34^th to 36^th to complete the team. In the U17 boys, Billy Mead had by far his best run of the season to finish in 16th place, which is a tremendous effort in a race that is always a very high standard.

After three fixtures, the club overall position is 11th out of fourteen and we are looking good for retaining our top flight status, with two fixtures to go in Luton (January 15^th) and Wing (February 12^th). The leading lights are the ladies team who currently lie 8^th, and the U15 boys in 9^th. So make sure you've all got those two dates in your diary well done to everyone from the weekend.