The Stag Trophy race of October 2016 should go down as breaking a new threshold for LBAC.

I believe 35 runners is a record attendance for our monthly race that has been going since the dawn of the club almost exactly 40 years ago. On top of that, and possibly more importantly there were more women participating than men, with 18 completing the course. Additionally we had a few juniors and a healthy collection from the beginners group so it really did bring everyone together.

With so many new people getting involved at the start of the season it is great to see but had the potential for chaos so thank you to all of those that helped to make it work alongside Dave and Pete. I gather it all worked pretty well.

On the running side of things there were 11 people making their debut in the event and so now they all have times to try and beat next month, but also Dave has a better idea of how fast they should run!!

On a night where generally we were low on PB’s two people did manage to beat their best ever time with Mark Adkins recording 18:32 and Coralie Anderson 18:49. Clearly this bodes well for them both, but Mark’s time in particular was fast enough to earn him the victory on the night by a clear 20 seconds.

Behind Mark were two Amy’s. Amy Inchley is on her way back from producing the latest of the Inchley’s and was surprised that she was able to run that fast (It’s amazing what the Stag can do!) and just behind her was Amy Killick in a time of 17:12. I haven’t checked the history, but I would be surprised if we’ve ever had a female run a faster debut time and that is great to see.

Behind the Amy’s was when the rush cam in with 20 people over the next minute. Warren Rose ran a good time to just duck ahead of Nikki Inchley on her return after a 15 year absence and Carlee Littlechild picked up 20 points in 6th place on her debut. Stuart Dimmock separated Carlee from Stuart Blofeld who recorded the fastest time of the night with 14:33 and Bianca Inchley completed the trio of Inchley sisters-in-law to finish just ahead of Coralie who completed the top ten.

If these attendance numbers continue it is likely to put a very different slant onto the overall standings as the leading totals are likely to be lower. This should give everyone an incentive to return for all the future races. Whether you finished first or last, absolutely everyone still has a chance to challenge for the title so it will be great to see similar numbers next month.

All of the results are available via the Stag Trophy page on the website

Well done everyone.