Despite the early frost on Sunday morning, by the time the crowd of 21 runners + supporters from Leighton Buzzard Athletic Club were packed into the sports hall ready for the walk to the start of the 2016 Sandy 10, it was clear that it was going to be shorts and vest weather. The sun was out and it was a beautiful morning for running.

Sandy 10 was again chosen as the location of the LBAC 10 mile Club Championship race for the upcoming road running season. Some people only turn up to these races to get the Club Champs points, some were there to get PBs for that distance, some were trying to stay sane and not get injured before the London marathon and others were just testing to see if they’d make the start line in 2 weeks!

The run itself starts in the industrial estate in Sandy, runs along fairly flat for 2 miles before heading uphill and out in to the countryside. From here on it follows the road through the village of Everton towards the Cambridgeshire border, does a small loop near Gamlingay, before heading back along the same route through Everton to Sandy. Just before the course enters the village there are some fairly steep down hills leading to a fast finish back at the school and Race HQ.

What can we say about the results and performances of the day?! Firstly congratulations to Jordan for finishing first and Glen for finishing 2nd whilst Laura finished 2nd in the ladies.

There were great runs for a number of people with PBs flying everywhere. Billy even managed to sober up somewhere between mile 2 and 8!

LBAC took home the ladies team prize with Laura, Jo and Amy F placing whilst the mens team prize was also won by LBAC thanks to Jordan, Glen, Chris G and Tom I. I’m not sure when the last time as a club we took home both the mens and ladies team prizes, but it’s been a while! We also had ten finishers inside the top 36 runners, so well done and congratulations to everybody who raced on the day. What a team, what a club!

A full run down of our times can be found at the bottom of this page.

 

Sam D’s Sandy

My aim for this year’s Sandy 10 was to get a PB. Having only done one 10 mile race before (this one last year and at a cautiously steady pace) this was the easy part. I’ve been running faster than I have ever done before these last 6 months at every distance from the Stag all the way up to the Winter Half, so I thought I could be on for a good time especially knowing that the Sandy 10 course is pretty quick.

After the usual talking myself down and saying I would aim for 66 minutes/would just see how it went, I decided on a game plan. Go out at my half marathon PB pace (6:38 pace) then after 6 miles with mostly only downhills to come, push it a bit if I felt good.

Off I went, following Charlie (mumbling something about a steady start before he pulled away from me between mile 2 and 6!) and then found myself in a small group of runners all running about 6:35 pace. Perfect. The next 5 miles I stuck to this pace and the group chopped and changed a bit. After a quick mouthful of water at 7miles, I realised suddenly that I had pulled away from the pack I was with and was gaining on those in front very slightly. Knowing there was one more little hill before the finish I didn’t go flat out but just stuck at it.

After the hill, I suddenly spotted Charlie ahead as we approached Sandy, with only a mile to go. I thought that if I caught him too close to the line he’d just outsprint me so set my sights on him as early as possible before overtaking him with half a mile to go (sorry!) but I was pretty much sprinting for the line, hoping I wouldn’t run out of puff! That gets him back for the Boxing Day Trophy where he did almost exactly the same to me!

I held on and finished in 64:43, a huge PB and actually ended the race with each of the last 5 miles quicker than the one before which I was pretty surprised about! Well done everybody for some great individual and team running.

Name	Overall position	Chip Time
Jordan Clay	1	57:02
Glen Turner	2	57:20
Chris George	6	58:24
Tom Inchley	12	1:00:25
Andy Inchley	13	1:00:50
Benjamin Corfield	21	1:02:26
Billy Mead	24	1:03:21
Tim Inchley	30	1:04:05
Sam Dear	35	1:04:43
Charlie Mead	36	1:04:56
Stuart Read	48	1:06:15
Nick Clay	51	1:06:34
Laura Brine	52	1:06:35
Warren Rose	70	1:08:28
David Killick	78	1:09:58
Stuart Dimmock	82	1:10:58
Jo Sharples	85	1:11:34
Chris Dimmock	149	1:17:25
Amy Farnfield	162	1:19:15
Lisa Bowyer	174	1:20:38
Kassia Gardner	217	1:24:45
Fiona Towell	260	1:28:14
Mark Adkins	321	1:33:25