By Chris Williams

 

For a small club of around 50 senior members, there was no better display of the quality of runners than at the Doug Anderson 5k on Wednesday night. Up against mammoth clubs such as Bedford Harriers and Marshall Milton Keynes, who can quite easily field a group of runners for a race larger than our total membership, we managed to win the race, place 3 men in the top 10, win the men’s team prize, field a further 9 runners including our president on her continued return to running, achieve 4 all time PBs and at least two other season PBs. We even managed to field a small contingent of well placed supporters and cheerers on this pretty flat course around Bedford Park.

   

The temperature was still a heady 23 degrees and it was a humid night for Simon Coombes to put in a truly remarkable of 15:45 for a V40, to win the race and lead home Glen and Andy to the team prize as well. The PB’s were achieved by Andy (he thinks!), Warren (who got under 20 minutes for the first time), Andrew (who is improving very quickly having just started running) and Kate (who smashed her best by 88 seconds!).

 

Andrew and Kate continue to show massive improvement race on race, with Kate even challenging Fi for second club lady. James, Gary, Warren and Sam were able to egg each other on to produce good results all round. Chris kept Gail in his sights but her experience just kept her ahead to the end.    

Additionally Gail showed she had lost very little of her quality during her time off to take her age category (and a couple below) while Gary was the V45 county champion despite having a dodgy leg that held him up! All in all, no–one could complain and this was a great race for all.