The January fixture of the Chiltern League saw LBAC's best club performance in many many years. the major contributing factor was the fantastic number of senior men who ran on a very windy day at the top of a hill in Luton, however, there were great performances in many races.

For once we'll start with the boys, as the U13's had their best result of the season despite only having a team of three. Lloyd Milliken in 20^th was backed up brilliantly by Jamie Stancombe finishing 25^th in his first race of the season, while the ever present Patrick Clay also gained his best finish of the year in 39^th to help the team to 6^th, out of 14 teams in division one.

The U15 boys had an entire team who are a year young in the age group and so struggled a little to hit previous heights, but Jordan Clay had very good run to lead the team home in 29^th nonetheless. Joe McGarry and the improving Charlie Mead had a battle all the way around to finish in 43^rd and 44^th respectively. Jake Irvine joined Jordan and Charlie in completing his fourth league fixture of the season to close the team in 49.

The U17 boys is always a high quality race as it tends to be the better runners who are still competing at this age group. Billy Mead has been our sole representative all year and is clearly a big talent as he has his Stag time down to around 14.30. In the horrible conditions offered by the course at Stopsley Billy produced one of the best finishes of the day to come home in 15^th place, which is his highest position of the season.

Mathilde Sammons, for the third time this season was the only girl in the U11's and she managed to stop talking for ten minutes to come home in 62nd place, before heading out to cheer on dad! Beth Tippite and Alison Gosbee were also the only LBAC girls in the U13's and U15's respectively. Both girls had big improvements on their previous performances and should be really pleased with their efforts on such a miserable day and picked up a valuable few points for the club.

In the 2009-10 season, the senior ladies only closed a full team on one occasion, but another great effort from our resurgent ladies team saw a fourth excellent performance with six members braving the weather and the nasty hill near the end. Gail continues to do a sterling job of leading the team home, by finishing 15^th, with the ever present Amy Inchley finishing 32^nd for probably her best run of the season. Lynn Boddy is now warming to the style of cross-country running and improved on her previous two performances to be 41^st and just ahead of Jane Sauer in 45^th. Fiona Towell in 68th and Amanda martin in 81^st also did a valuable job of taking points from other teams to complete the six finishers and help to get the ladies into 7^th position on the day.

Now. The turn-out from the senior men was the best that anyone can ever remember and every single one of the members that ran should be congratulated on that. However, rather than just putting down a list of names, there were a few particularly notable performances. Anyone not mentioned, please don't be offended, the fact is that it was a brilliant all round team effort. Ian Grimshaw in 68th was second man home in his first ever club race and is a huge addition to the team whilst two other debutants in Dan Webb and Gary Buckle gave great support to the team by knocking back other clubs. Highest positions of the year were acheived by Nick Clay, Fred Watt, Warren Rose, Stuart Blofeld and Steve Orlando whilst Pete Mackrell cracked the top 70 for the first time.The result of all of these performances put the senior men in 6^th place on the day, having been 10^th or 11^th in the three previous fixtures.

Overall, after four events the club sit in 10th place having overtaken Silson Joggers after the fixture at Luton. This leaves four clubs behind us, and with only two being relegated safety is almost certain. This represents a great effort from the whole membership and with one more solid performance we should be in line for our first top ten finish in memory, with just our home fixture to go.

Don't forget, we need absolutely everyone as marshals and runners on the 12th February so please make sure it's in your diary and let Richard know that you are able to volunteer or have recruited some family or friends to marshal.