In November 2015 Mark Adkins ran his first Stag trophy race in 20.32 and finished near the back of the field. A year on and having now completed six of the 2.5 mile handicap races, he has six PB’s to show for his efforts and is fast approaching the 18 minute mark.

Yesterday’s time of 18.15 earned him fourth place on the night but takes him into an early lead in the overall standings. Nothing much should be read into it yet as the trophy could still be taken home by someone who hasn’t even run a race yet this season. His closest challenger is Nikki Inchley, 2 points behind, who came home second last night to follow-up her fifth place from the October race. It’s Nikki’s first proper season of running for about 15 years, but is rapidly improving.

In third place overall is Amy Killick whose time of 17:13 was one second slower than in October but still earned her 19 points and leaves her 5 behind Mark. There was one other PB on the night, with Neil Green beating his debut time from last month by three seconds.

The winner on the night was new member Suzy Beech, who ran much faster than she thought she could, to win by over two minutes. Now Dave has got her number the challenge will be to continue improving on her 22:55. Splitting Nikki and Mark in the top four was Fi Towell with a strong 19:39, while Andy Inchley completed the top five with 13:35 and led home a group of 8 people in 12 seconds.

The most controversial finish of the night though was Sam Dear dipping over the line ahead of girlfriend Jo. It was close enough for them to be awarded the same time!! For Sam’s sake I hope Jo doesn’t miss the title at the end of the season by one point!

Also well done to Jenny Rawdon and Uzma Peeran who made their Stag debuts and should now be looking to improve on their times in December.

Full standings and all the stats can be found on the Stag Trophy pages of the site.

The next race is Wednesday 7th December.