LBAC had a very successful day out at the Bedforshire and Buckinghamshire County Championships last weekend. The races were staged this year in Bucks as the two counties alternate the hosting duties year by year. The course that played home to the championships was at Hughenden Manor, a couple of miles north of High Wycombe and offered an extremely stern test to even the strongest of runners.

Every race started a little way up a very steep hill and simply went straight up so the first 200m "sorted the men from the boys"! There were 22 club members who made the journey to this picturesque part of Buckinghamshire and were wondering if that was the right decision when they arrived, but all decided they were up for the challenge.

The races are a little bit complicated as both counties run together, but are then seperated out in the results, so you might finish 10^th in the race but 5^th in the county for example. Beth Tippite was the first person up the hill in the U13 girls and she successfully negitiated her small lap of the course in just over 15 minutes to come 9^th in Bedfordshire. Alison Gosbee has recently joined the club and picked the two hilliest races of the year to start her cross-country career. On this occasion Alison finished in 8^th place in Bedfordshire and is probably pleading for some flat ground!

Our final lady competitors were Gail Duckworth and Amy Inchley in the senior ladies. In total across both counties there were 48 finishers and Gail and Amy were 12^th and 21^st respectively whilst coming home 5^th and 7^th in Bedfordshire. Gail was, as ever, the first V55 and Amy improved massively on her result from last year. Also in the race was occasional training member Margaret Chew from stopsley who won the V60 prize on the day.

In the U13 boys, the club had two representatives in Lloyd Milliken and Patrick Clay who finished the race in 13^th and 17^th respectively. Once again, the U15 boys made a superb effort to get 5 lads out on the day and as a result took the gold medals in the team awards. Brian Foulger in 6th place led the team home with Jordan Clay just over a minute behind. Joe McGarry, Charlie Mead and Jake Irvine then completed the team a minute further back. Billy Mead was the sole representative for the club in the U17 boys race, which is always a small high quality field. Billy ran very strongly over the closing stages to move into third place and take the bronze medal in the Bedfordshire Champs and qualify for the inter counties.

The final race of the day saw the senior men doing three large laps of the course which included the severe hill six times over! Whilst there were 10 LBAC men who started the race, unfortunately Fred Watt is a V60 and they do a shorter course, Andy Inchley lives in Bucks and Simon Coombes is first claim for Herne Hill Harriers so none of them could contribute to the team score, where six are needed.

First to finish then, was Fred Watt who's 4K took him just over 17 minutes and earned him a bronze medal. Simon Coombes finished in his red and black vest as the 6th Bedfordshire man and is likely to go on to represent the county at Nottingham in March. Ben Corfield took a weekend off from university and followed Simon over the line to finish 7th in Beds and lead the LBAC team home. Thirty seconds behind Ben over the 12K course was Andy Inchley in 46 minutes and 22nd out of the 100 finishers across the two counties.

Club captain Tom May then started some good club packing with Pete Mackrell, Pete Foulkes and Nick Clay all finishing just two minutes apart. With one more scorer needed, it was looking reasonably good for the men's team and Ian Roberts provided that final spot to finish as the 30^th Beds man before Gary Buckle on making his club debut over the toughest course around came home in 38^th. As it turned out, the men's team pipped Stopsley Striders and Dunstable Road Runners to the county title and so the club left with two team awards on the day.