As a scorching hot day in Bedford cooled to a sultry twenty-two degrees, thirteen members of LBAC joined about 350 other runners in Bedford Park for the Doug Anderson 5K. This was the club championship for the second year running and is the shortest of the road race distances.

As ever, each individual had their own personal target, but Simon Coombes was after a new club record as a V40, having recently joined the old boys category!

The course is two and a half laps of the park which feels completely flat at a jog or walk, but when you are coming round for the third time there is a very slight incline can take the wind from your sails if your not on top form.

The paths around the park are relatively narrow and so a fast start is the order of the day for most people in order to get something of a clear run early on. Within the first 500m Simon had joined a small group of three who opened up a small gap on the rest of the field and spent much of the opening lap leading the race out as everyone had their own personal battles.

As the final lap unfolded Phil Holland of Ampthill started to open up a gap on Simon and his old legs couldn't quite go with it in the warm weather but he did continue to have a strong run around the course and came home in third place with a time of 16:19 which gave him the club and county championship titles and a new club record.

After a very fast start by Jo Breslin, the ladies club championship winner was Gail Duckworth who was back running after her daughters recent wedding. She finished just 7 seconds behind Tom Inchley in 19:39 with Jo a minute back in the end. All of these efforts combined to give the boys second place in the overall team standings and the ladies fourth.

The full results are available here, but the LBAC results were;

Name	Time	Pos.	Gender	Age Group
Simon Coombes	16:19	3	3	1
Andy Inchley	17:14	12	12	2
Tom May	17:39	24	24	5
Pete Mackrell	17:51	27	27	12
Chris Norman	18:30	37	36	17
Tom Inchley	19:32	61	57	20
Gail Duckworth	19:39	64	6	1
Warren Rose	20:07	78	68	11
Jo Breslin	20:36	91	14	4
Chris Dimmock	20:42	96	81	13
Amy Inchley	21:56	135	21	3
Lorraine H-McLean	27:03	244	54	10
Liz Miller	27:53	259	59	1