Last Tuesday night saw six LBAC members make their way over to the stadium at Bedford for the third race in the East Midlands Grand Prix Series and the Bedford 6.

It is a slightly unusual distance, being just short of 10K but the race is very long standing and was supported this year by 324 runners on a glorious warm evening. The route goes around Priory Park and is extremely flat, with the one hill being a bridge over the A421, which is done both on the way out and back.

The ever improving Helen Crossland has a very good run, despite a fall in the first 100m. She was too busy reading the sign that said "Careful! Hump in Road" and fell over the hump! Despite this incident she completed the course in just over 56 minutes, which means that she was nearer to 9 minute miling than 10.

In front of Helen, Richard Inchley had a good run as he was aiming to get under 50 minutes, but actually managed to get under 48 on the night as he chased Fred Watt. Fred finished 1.30 in front of Richard with 46:12 being his finish time.

Dan Webb was looking to make up a little from his post binge relay run at the weekend and he was very pleased with his effort as he managed to get inside the top 100 to record 41:32 and therefore be under 7mpm all the way and just behind friend of the club Chris Mahon.

In front of Dan, Pete Mackrell was continuing his attendance at the full series but has been struggling to reach the heights of his pre-marathon fitness. On this occasion, he was battling to stay ahead of the highly talented Rebecca Murray of B&C. He did manage that and recorded 36:11, which was a touch slower than the previous week at Rugby, but was still gave him 21^st place overall.

At the same event last year, Andy Inchley went off far too fast and blew up in the second half of the race so when his first mile was 5:30 this time he feared the same. However, 7th place early became 6th at 3.5 miles as he battled with a chap from Kettering. He then managed to hold on to this position up the mile long final straight to record 34:11 and beat last year's time by nearly 40 seconds.

The next races in the series are the Corby 5 (30/5) and Banbury 5 (12/6).