When most of us left Oxford on Saturday, Nick was nowhere to be seen. He was out on the course searching in the mud for Jordan's lost spike. Together with Mandy and the boys – as ever – they were first to arrive at the course in Shotover Park and clearly the last to leave. They were involved in eight of the nine races and also brought along the gazebos for us to change in.

The first races to take on the mud at the bottom of Shotover hill were the U11's, with LBAC having 10 within the age group spread across the two races. There were around 80 youngsters in each race and Leighton had a number of cross-country debutants. For the girls, Ellie Rabbits had a great race to be first home in 40^th place as she led a team of six girls to 13^th out of 20 teams. Sadie Towell, Chloe May, Melissa Chapman, Elspeth Eley and Josie Young all finished just over one minute apart. In the boys race, Dominic Grimshaw was trying to emulate his parents' cross-country achievements and led the team of Scott Towell, Max Rose and Harrison Philpott to 15^th place as he finished in 46^th.

As the runners got slightly older, it was fantastic to see that the club had a full compliment of four girls in the U13's. At this age they make a full contribution to the divisional scoring and so simply the more full teams we get out the better for the club. This race saw what was possibly the individual performance of the day as Amber McGrath, Penny Grimshaw and Megan Westrope ran strongly to give great support to Sarah Plummer who finished in 21^st place at the head of a big pack of girls.

In the boys U13 race, we had just two runners but Kieran Philpott (41^st) and Henry Mead (59^th) put in great performances to earn valuable points for the club. As with the U13's the U15's were down to two with Lloyd Milliken and Patrick Clay picking some well earned points, although both will probably not feel they were at their best on the day.

Our excellent squad of prize winning lads have now made it up to the U17 age group, which as ever is probably the highest standard of race. The race now falls between the two senior races and the lads run up to 4 miles so had to take on the main Shotover Hill. Charlie Mead (45^th), Tom Boozer (47^th) and Joe McGarry (48^th) had a close battle all the way round to complete the scoring team which was led home by a cracking run from Brian Foulger who finished in 21^st. In between them was Jordan Clay, who managed to mislay a spike at some point on route and unsurprisingly lost a number of places to finish 37^th as the team finished 8^th.

By the time the ladies took to the course at 1.15, it was a very pleasant autumn afternoon with temperatures in the low teens. Leighton were rewarded in this regard by having seven members on the start line and giving us very good strength. Lorraine Holloway-McLean and Anna Mead ran much of the route together a few seconds ahead of Fi Towell, but Lorraine's half marathon strength paid off as she came home in fifth for the club and 65^th in division 1.

Having not run at all since June due to injury and operations, it was fantastic to have Jane Sauer back out running as she came home in 53^rd. Lynn Boddy has had an inconsistent summer with training so was really pleased with her run in 46^th. Ahead of her Amy Inchley nicely surprised herself by coming home 31^st, with just club president Gail Duckworth finishing 17^th in the division and 1^st V55. The great teamwork saw the ladies finish in 9^th place on the day.

As ever, the day's final race saw the men take on two laps of the route to complete a 5.5mile race and do the dreaded hill twice as well as the quagmire at the bottom. For various reasons, numbers were not high as twelve members fought to make up the ten scoring places on offer. As with all the races, we will be looking to get as many runners out as possible at future fixtures because not only does it increase competition but those outside the top ten take points away from other clubs thereby improving our position.

On this occasion, although were weren't in great numbers, those that were there ran their socks off. At the front end, in his first ever senior race Billy Mead finished 50^th in division one and chased Pete Mackrell (45^th) and Andy Inchley (43^rd) all the way round. In 77^th Tom Inchley discovered that training does actually help you run faster as he battled with Tom May (82^nd) and Joe Hurley's strength through the slippery mud really paid off as he was sixth home in 90^th.

Warren Rose completed the very challenging course in just under 40 minutes and 111^th place, before Nick Clay, Dan Webb and Mike Bryant closed out the team within 25 seconds of each other before Mike consigned his spikes to the dustbin. Not far back from those three, Chris Dimmock finished with a sprint in 162nd, while V60 Roger Seldon ran his first CCCL for a number of years to finish the LBAC representation in 180th. All of these great efforts by the men meant that they finished 8th overall and ahead of much bigger clubs like Vale of Aylesbury, Chiltern Harriers and Oxford City.

Taking all the races together over the day, Leighton finished in 10^th place out of the 14 teams with Headington ahead and Wycombe behind with both gaps just 70(ish) points. That may sound a lot, but is really just one well-placed senior man so turn-out at every fixture is vital.

The next race is at Shuttleworth, near Biggleswade on Saturday 10^th November so make sure it's in your diary.