The first Stag Trophy race of the season kicked off yesterday in fine style. We had 25 runners taking on the three lap course, plus a few others helping Dave with the timing and general encouragement.

 There are still six races to go and you only need to score in five to stand a chance so everyone is still very much in the game, but there were a few people who set their stalls out early. Leading the way was Mandy Clay, who having completed a cross-country season a few years back has not run for some time and managed to persuade Dave into a "nice" handicap on that basis. She came home 40 seconds clear.

The fastest time of the night was run by Jordan Clay with 13:07. This was also the fastest time by any member for 8 years, since Simon ran 12.45 in April 2006. Jordan goes 7^th on the all-time list with his next target to join the very exclusive club of sub-13 runners. Of our current members, only Simon and Tim Inchley are in this small group.

Despite his fast time, Jordan couldn't quite catch Sam Dear who achieved a new PB by around 30 seconds to take 24 points on the night. David Killick has been inspired by coaching the juniors and has been doing a few sessions on Mondays which meant he came home in a strong 4^th place in his first Stag race.

There were three further PB's earned on the night, with Lynn Boddy beating hers from 2011 to take 5^th ahead of Fiona who's 10 second PB earned 6^th. Ian Hosley smashed his 2010 best time by a whole second as he chased home Andy Inchley who filled the gap between him and Fiona.

The next race is on Wednesday 5th November so we'll be running under the light of fireworks. Let's try to retain the number of participants so that it keeps it more open throughout the season.

Full results and lots of other info about the Stag is available on the Stag Trophy page of the site.