Back in the mists of time LBAC were regular fixtures at the SEAA road relays for many years. We used to travel down to Thurrock in April for the men’s 12-stage event until it moved to Milton Keynes around the turn of the century.

The event is a slight victim of it’s own success in that many of the country’s top clubs focus on this and the subsequent national relays to get really strong teams out. As a consequence, over the years many of the smaller clubs – including LBAC – have dropped out, making the whole thing a very high standard, but with fewer participants.

However, after seven years without a men’s team competing and only one previous appearance from the women, the men re-joined last year and for the first time ever last weekend we had a team in both competitions. This is a testament to both the increasing quality and depth within our club as well as a keenness to test ourselves against the best around.

The men’s 12-stage consists of six long legs (approx. 8K) and 6 short legs (approx. 5K) alternating, while women do six short legs. As a result the men get sent off an hour ahead of the women with the best part of fifty miles to cover in the afternoon and on this occasion the prospect of running in some very strong winds combined with various showers.

The weather in the last three years has been as different as it could be. In 2013 the event was cancelled due to snow and last year it was barbeque weather with glorious sunshine keeping us warm. Whilst the showers on Sunday weren’t as bad as they might have been – although Lynn and Elliot definitely had the worst of it – we did get through two gazebos as they became more of a hazard than a help in the wind.

Jordan started off the racing with 49 other runners from around the south of England and had a pretty good run to come home in 27th place and just under 27 minutes for the 4.8 mile course. The quality of the event is emphasised by the fact that he was only just in the top half of the long leg times on the day. Thanks should go to Warren who stepped in with a few days notice after Glen’s broken body got the better of him and had to go out on leg two, where many clubs have their fastest runners He gave us great representation though with a 20 minute leg.

Pete Mackrell ran leg three for the men and had an excellent run to overtake eight teams and get us up into 34th place overall. His 26:30 was our fastest of the day for the long leg. While Pete was out on the course the women’s event started with Gail up first for us. Her time of 20:48 brought her home in 30^th out of 45 teams and got our slightly nervous ladies off to a positive start.

It’s difficult to comment on different people’s runs through the afternoon as the weather will have affected times to varying degrees but actually it would seem that whilst most were a touch slower than they might have hoped, every club was battling the same conditions. There were however, a few things of note that came out of the results; Billy won the Mead race-off against Charlie by just two seconds, Chris Norman put in the fastest short leg as the last person out, with just Pete and Andy for support and Jane put in a great effort with the “extra weight” she’s carrying these days!

It should also be noted that after our the men’s recent cross country battle with St Albans in the CCCL, we once again just pipped them by 18 seconds after nearly five hours of racing! Overall, it was a very good effort on our part to be competing well in both races at this level and long may it continue.

Leg	Name	Time	Position		Leg	Name	Time	Position
1	Jordan Clay	26:57	27
2	Warren Rose	20:03	42
3	Pete Mackrell	26:30	34		1	Gail Duckworth	20:48	30
4	Billy Mead	18:30	35		2	Amy Inchley	21:31	29
5	Ben Corfield	30:11	33		3	Liz Peters	22:28	28
6	Elliot Hind	19:49	34		4	Lynn Boddy	23:04	31
7	Andy Inchley	27:23	34		5	Katie Haylock	22:14	28
8	Tim Inchley	18:55	35		6	Jane Sauer	23:40	28
9	Ian Grimshaw	27:33	32
10	Charlie Mead	18:32	32
11	Adam Haylock	28:52	33
12	Chris Norman	18:06	31
Total		4:41:21	31		Total		2:13:45	28