A perfect Spring morning met all the runners as they arrived in Flitwick for the club's traditional 10K club championship. The course is well known by most as few were doing the race for the first time and it features a number of inclines without anything too bad.

Over the years the race has grown and in 2011 there were over 800 competitors on the start line, with many using it as a sharpener before the London marathon next week. Leighton's fourteen participants consisted of six ladies and eight men, all looking for early points in the club championship standings of 2011/12.

On the ladies front, Liz Miller was out to set the standard of a new club record for the V60 and V65 age group. This was in doubt as she was unable to finish the Sandy 10 last week, but the undulating rural course around mid Bedfordshire proved less of a problem as she completed the course in 57.07 and now holds two new club records. Behind Liz, Rebecca Gooch (68.26), Theresa Keefe (70.26) and Helen Crossland (76.04) were all out to make sure they completed the event and did so with smiles on their faces. Since joining the club, each of the ladies has struggled to attend regular training, but hopefully an enjoyable run around Flitwick will inspire them a little!

Up in front of Liz, Amy Inchley was doing her final race before London and received another confidence boost by achieving yet another PB. Running round at a very consistent pace, Amy completed the course nearly six minutes quicker than last year in 46.45. However, the club champion on the day was Gail Duckworth who just missed out on yet another sub-40 10K as she crossed the finish line in fifteen seconds over that mark.

On the men's front we were honoured by the presence of Pat Neilan at a race for the first time in 18 months. Pat was looking to duck underneath John Adam's V65 record of 51.13 and finished extremely strongly around the park as he completed the course six seconds over fifty minutes and set a new standard for the old boys! Up in front of Pat and thirty seconds ahead of Amy, Jon Hull completed the course in 46.11 while the club's other V60 in the race, Roger Seldon, finished in an excellent 44.56.

The best intra-club battle of the day was for the third place in the men's club championship as Joe Hurley and Warren Rose battled it out. Having done very few miles, despite planning on running London next week, Joe looked to take it easy and work through the field, which he did for the first 8K. At this point he spotted Warren ahead in the distance and set himself the target! With less than 1K to go, Warren saw the encroaching Joe and kicked on for home, but Joe had all the momentum and went past with 300m left and just held on to take the bronze medal. Those guys were two minutes ahead of Chris Dimmock who was pleased with his 43.52.

On the day, Leighton's two leading runners were Andy Inchley and Nick Clay. Nick did almost exactly what he predicted prior to the race and completed the course in 39.28 to finish 44^th overall in the field. Meanwhile Andy Inchley had one of his best 10K's ever as he worked through the field in the first half to battle his way to 9th place in the race and a time of 35.52 to take the club title for 2011.