With not a snowflake or patch of ice to be seen for many hundreds of miles (at least outside the odd freezer!) the "Boxing Day" handicap was able to be run in glorious weather on Monday. Nineteen fine athletes turned up at Leighton Town Football club for the final race of the club championship season to challenge for the prestigious Langmay Trophy.

There were seventeen club members plus Glyn Raymen of the Fun Runners and Pat Neilan's son-in-law Simon. It has been a very long time since we had seventeen from LBAC on Boxing Day so there was talk of moving the date permanently, although it does say in big letters on the trophy "LBAC Christmas Handicap"!

The event is organised as a blind handicap, so unlike the Stag, no-one knows what their handicap is. All the runners start together and it is run as a straight race. However, Dangerous Dave Adama has predicted a time for everyone based on current form and his own insight. The winner is the person who beats their predicted time by the largest difference. It therefore doesn't really favour anyone, whether they are fast, slow, in-form or out of form.

The route is very simple. It heads out from near the Falcon pub to the end of Stanbridge Road at the bypass, does a kink over the bypass and follows around to Billington. You then turn right up the hill in Billington and head straight back towards town, finishing just before Grovebury Road. A total of about 5.57 miles, depending on who's GPS you are using!

Monday's race saw the club's elite out to get a run round with Simon Coombes immediately heading off in the lead. An initial 200 yard burst from Joe Hurley saw him up with Simon before reality kicked in and he got sensible again. Ben Corfield, who is back from uni for Easter settled in behind, but taking it pretty steady, while Andy Inchley and Pete Mackrell were in third and fourth. There were small groups developing as the race progressed with Nick Clay chasing after Pete and Chris Williams, Dan Webb and Steve Orlando all in close proximity. Glyn, our ultra running friend from the Fun Runners started steadily with Richard, but started to pull away after a mile or so.

There were a few position changes throughout the race, with Nick overtaking Pete, and Glyn nipping past Pat, while a pit stop for Dan Webb cost him a few places. Karl Elston started off at a good pace, but was hunted down by Amanda Martin in the last few hundred metres. However, the first three remained Simon, Ben and Andy. All in all though the finishing positions are irrelevant as it's all about the handicap and we retired to the bar to await Dave's results.

Unlike the Stag this year, the Langmay trophy did not seem to favour the new young members, with most of them bring up the rear of the field. However, with exception of Dan everyone was within a couple of minutes of their predicted time so there were no major complaints about the final results. In fact, it was very much a case of experience dominating over youth as only one of the top five was under the age of fifty!

In fifth place was Liz Miller who's recent good training is giving great rewards in the races she has entered. The comparitively youthful Simon Coombes took fourth after completing the course in 30:40, but left third to Joe Hurley who's fast start was obviously just the spur he needed to drag him round after last week's marathon.

So, the top two places were taken by the two oldest male club members. It has been a few years since Pat Neilan has done two races in a month, but he followed up his club record at Flitwick with a silver medal position in this event. The winner however, was young John Adam, who smashed his predicted time by over two minutes to take his first ever trophy after approximately 126 years as a club member. Many congratulations to John, who's claims of not being able to run on the road have now been summarily dismissed!

There are a few photo's both in the gallery and on the Facebook page.