As we drove into Mansfield early in the afternoon this Saturday at the beginning of November, the heavens opened. Last season, we had lots of cold races, but managed to stay dry through all of them. This was not going to be the case today. Seven intrepid runners from Leighton had made the trip up to Berry Hill Park for what is an excellent event attracting a wide range of athletes from all over the country. For the second year running, Leighton had pulled together both a men's and ladies team for the event.

With Gail having been on site for hours and focused on her professional warm-up and Amy, Pete and Chris refusing to get out of the car in the pouring rain it was left to Andy and Jane to trudge across the skating rink of a course and collect numbers AND CHIPS for everyone running. After a bit of parking rearrangement and a small fit from Amy regarding the interior of her car and the adjacent mud she was eventually persuaded 15 minutes before the start that running would be okay.

The result was that the rain gradually abated and whilst it was still pretty chilly, it was a whole world of difference for both running and watching. Gail set off in the ladies race with some of the nations top runners, many of which would be less than half her "experience" and ran extremely well in very slippery conditions to complete the 3K course in 12:28 and 68^th place out of 122 starters. This was a touch slower than last year, but the conditions were significantly worse.

Amy then ran her leg in 13:05 which was just two seconds slower than last year despite the trecherous surface underfoot. As a team they gained four places, in part due to some incomplete teams but also some quick running over the first half. With Jane experiencing the event for the first time she also charged off down the hill and looked strong as she circumnavigated the lake and then the woods. With her slight lack of training making the second half of the race very hard she hung on extremely well to close the team out with a time of 13:40 and 62^nd place out of 104 complete teams. Very good indeed for little old Leighton!

Immediately after Jane had crossed the finish the men were off on their four 5K legs with Ben leading the way. Much to Pete's embarrasment, on the final leg last year, he forgot to wear his timing chip which resulted in us not officially finishing a team, but with three of the four team members the same it clearly wasn't going to happen again! In what were becoming more and more slippery conditions Ben set off with 200 other senior men on the two lap course and crossed the finish line in 18.11 and 89^th place.

Andy ran off down the hill with a few targets ahead, but aware that the fastest teams might end up catching him at the start of their third legs while he was on his second lap. He completed in reasonable time, but feeling a bit one paced as he overtook two struggling teams he was passed by the three leading runners from Aldershot, Norwich and Bedford. Despite the distraction of being passed like he was standing still he held it together to finish in 19.08. However, he was walking down the hill trying to get his breath back when Ben approached looking sheepish and apologising. He had forgotten to wear his chip!!

Despite having heard the news already, Pete and Chris both put in great efforts on their legs to retain the theoretical position that Leighton had. Both of them said that they felt pretty one-paced like Andy and that they were struggling to find traction on the greasy surface but finished in 20:39 and 20:56 respectively to bring the team home in 1:18:55. This time would have earned them 91^st place in the standings. The one consolation was that leading club Newham and Essex Beagles did exactly the same thing, so we were in good company.