Last Wednesday saw Bedford Harriers host the Doug Anderson 5K in Bedford Park. This race doubled as both the club and county championships as 11 LBAC members made the trip up to the middle of Bedford.

The running conditions were practically perfect as it was a warm night with a very slight breeze. This helped contribute to a number of excellent times and PB's for many people.

On the ladies front, Amy Inchley finished first in a time of 21:25, which was a PB by a significant distance and saw her chasing Chris Williams all the way in his first ever 5K as he finished in 21:06. Behind Amy, Jane Sauer was also delighted with her new PB of 22:40 as she finished as 5^th V35 which pleased her even more. The third lady was Fiona Towell who only made the start by the skin of her teeth and finished in 27:06.

In the men's part of the race, ahead of Chris was Dan Webb who was making his debut over the shortest regular road racing distance and managed to break twenty minutes at the first attempt, with an excellent 19:50. Ian Hosley, who's training has been pretty intermittent of late was satisfied with his 19:35 for the 3.1 miles was the sixth man home for the club. Tom Inchley's two and a half laps of the park too him 18:46, whilst Pete Mackrell closed out his race in 18:08 to gain another PB in 35^th place overall.

Taking third place on the night was our resurgent club captain, who surprised himself a little to finish in 17:34 and only eighteen seconds behind Andy Inchley after both lads started off a little too quickly and were hanging on from early in the race to finish 16^th & 22^nd. The performance of the night, however, clearly went to Simon Coombes who broke the club record for the distance by a solitary second as he had a tremendous battle with Phil Holland of Ampthill to claim third place overall. Simon's time of 15.38 works out to be exactly five minute miling, which most of us can only dream of, even for one kilometre, let alone five.

The fourth of the five club championship road races takes place this coming Friday evening in Blisworth near Towcester. Wootton Road Runners put on a barbeque after what is a very social summer race.