Four members of LBAC dusted off their passports on Tuesday evening for the sixth race in the East Midlands Grand Prix Series as they made their way right up to rural Leicestershire for the Harborough 5.

Last week's trio of Richard Inchley, Pat Neilan & Chris Williams were joined for this race by Andy Inchley for his second race of the series. With Richard and Pat competing for the leading series places in the V65 category, Chris and Andy were just out to improve on times from other races and take in a different part of the world at the same time.

The course at Harborough starts near Foxton Locks in an undulating part of the county and includes a very fast downhill in the second mile and a long drag back up from about 2.7 until 4 miles. The first and last 300m comprises a relatively slow lap of a field, so it stops you going off too fast but doesn't help the sprint finish.

So, as far the old boys were concerned, Richard did not have his best run of the series as the warm weather and long hills took their tole on him and he finished in 40:40, which was about a minute slower than last week's race at Banbury. However, this did give him second place in the V65 category, the problem was that Pat was first.

Having broken the club record for V65 over 5 miles last week, he was looking to go even quicker here. Pat felt that the 38:45 he achieved at Banbury was a little below his par and so targetted a time of under 38 minutes. Personally he achieved that aim by a few seconds, but officially his time of 38:06 is what will go down in the record books for now. Nevertheless, the resurgence in young Pat's racing could see many more records yet.

For the relative youngsters of the club, it was a mixed night. Chris Williams has just discovered the "fun" to be had on these evening races and is learning how to push himself around the routes, but the disconcerting fast start did not help him on this occasion as like Richard he was 40 seconds slower than Banbury in completing in 36:45.

Andy was not at all up for the run beforehand and contemplated not bothering, but once the race started he felt okay. It's safe to say that the 5:07 second mile was a little ridiculous but as his friends from MKAC chased him up the hill he was able to find a final spurt of energy to retain a decent gap and finished the race in 28:45, which certainly his fastest time since he was a teenager.

There are two races left in the series. Next week is the Weedon 10K and at 7.45 on Tuesday July 5^th is the Milton Keynes 10K, which you can enter on the night if you wish, so we would encourage everyone to come along and do.