Fifteen LBAC members rocked up to Wootton Upper School on the edge of Bedford at around 9am on Sunday morning to take on the very popular Bedford Half Marathon. With a capacity of 2000 runners, the race is often full before the day and Bedford Harriers do a fantastic job on the organisation front, which is why it retains it popularity.

As the club half marathon championships, the turn out was pretty good on the male front, although the ladies were down to two, by the time we got to the start line. Amongst our line-up there were a couple of debutants with Ben Corfield well used to running the distance but never before in a race, while Laurie Parr hadn't run more than six miles this year so was really treading on new ground.

The day was chilly but not freezing with a stiff breeze coming in from the West, while underfoot the roads were damp but without standing water. The Leighton squad generally grouped themselves together with Sam Thompson making his first representative appearrance for Leighton lining up with Ben, Andy Inchley and Pete Mackrell near the front of the field, while Amy Inchley & Jane Sauer gathered a few boys around them for company.

The course is generally considered fast because although there are a number of hills and inclines, they are almost all in the first half and are certainly done with by 9 miles so give runners the opportunity of a negative split. It is a very rural route, just taking in the villages of Astwood, Cranfield and Lower Shelton aside from the start and finish in Wootton itself.

The first mile saw Sam Thompson go off to a flyer as he covered the ground in around 5.30, and Ben was the first to react by starting the chase early on. Meanwhile Amy, Jane, Warren Rose, Gary Buckle & Chris' Dimmock & Williams were starting much more sensibly as the began their work of getting through the pack.

Somewhere in between, Mike Bryant, Stu Blofeld (with his runny nose, but no pudding outfit), Tom Inchley and Laurie were jostling to find a pace that suited them, with only Mike having a good idea of how he was going to run. Finally, Richard Inchley was bringing up the rear of the club members and was talking down his chances, but really feeling confident after running well in Grotty last week.

After the first mile, Ben started to pull away from Sam while Pete and Andy were struggling to match the pace of the younger lads in front. As the race progressed there was a fair bit of swapping around between the Leighton runners as some thrived on the ups and some on the downs.

Having planned to use Andy or Pete as a pace maker in the aim to get 80-85 minutes in his first half marathon, Ben's plans went out of the window and he continued to storm away from everyone else to record a time of 75.25 and finish in 17^th place overall, out of 1523 finishers and with it take the club championship too.

In the ladies race there were now only two participants but both Amy and Jane ran absolutely cracking races to finish two minutes apart with both recording PB's after difficult recent months of training. Amy just sneaked a five second best to record 1.42.30 while Jane's beat her previous quickest time by over two minutes with 1.44.30 and both can be delighted with an excellent collection of races in 2011.

The other PB on the day was recorded by Chris Williams who in running 1.37.33 gained a record by eight minutes. Although they didn't quite finish together, with exactly the same time as Chris were Laurie on his debut and Tom who helped him around the course in the more "challenging" bits over the last few miles when the legs stopped working. Just behind Chris W was Chris Dimmock in 1.39.18 who was pretty happy with his time and then following the girls around the course was Gary who was feeling the lack of training in 1.46.26. the final Leighton finisher was Richard in 1.47.19 which was very close to last years time and he was very happy with that in trickier conditions.

The three in front of Laurie, Tom and Chris were Warren who was satisfied with his 1.32.49 and Stu who's cold didn't help, but also didn't stop him ducking under 1.30 by eight seconds. Mike Bryant was delighted to get under 1.30 by thirty seconds too and both Mike and Stu are looking for a well earned rest over Christmas.

The three guys who had been abandoned by Ben early on were expecting a battle with each other and so it proved as both Andy and Pete caught Sam in the first half before Pete gave Andy a scare at around eight miles. He then however, started to struggle and Sam came back to overtake him and was targeting Andy too, but just ran out of course as Andy finished 47^th in 80.59, Sam 50^th in 81.28 and Pete 59^th in 82.40.

All in all a pretty good day out running for the Leighton crew, which was rounded off by lunch in the pub for some. For most that will be the end of racing for the year and we are all now looking forward to a January packed with cross-country and a curry on the 21^st!