What a Weekend

by Rachel Fawcett

 

No rest for Leighton Buzzard Athletic Club. Just a week after organizing the brilliant Leighton 10 the club were gearing up for another day of racing starting with the London Marathon. This year it was Billy Mead, Coralie Anderson, Katie Stanton, Michael Furness, Nicola Mellor, Ruth Mitchell and Will Eastman all toeing the line in Greenwich Park. With perfect weather conditions reports of some cracking times started coming back from the Mall. Of note, Billy completed his first marathon in 2:45:46, Mike had a PB of 3:01:56, Will in at 3:11:53, Ruth just behind with 3:14:29, Nicola got 3:17:29, Coralie gained another PB at 3:29:29 and Katie came in at 5:07:34. As we all know, these events don’t happen without some willing manpower getting the runners around and we had our very own Stu Blofeld, Andrea Meek and Carl Meek manning the Lucozade Station getting much needed isotonics down all the runners. With support from BRE, it was great for members of LBAC to give back to the London Marathon community in return all the support our club runners have had from volunteers over the years; it certainly looked like hard graft but a great day.

Then we head up to Scotland to the Loch Ness marathon where Nassim Gribi ran his debut marathon in 3:15:58 and Becky Geekie ran a 4.01 despite having no hips from 7km; strong!!! Then we bounce to Steve Buckle getting a 2:33:58 in the Dorney Lake marathon. From Dorney Lake to Clarendon where Greg Pearce ran a 3:47:14 in the marathon there. Finally up to Chester where Jo Sharples got her BQ with a 3:03:00. And that was just the marathons.

Closer to home we had Valentina Ferrari and Rachel Fawcett out on the Dunstable Downs Half Marathon. Valentina was just two mins off her HM PB with a time of 2:12:21. Pretty awesome on a trail route with 450m of climb.

So another successful day for the club. With some debut marathons, a sprinkling of PBs, important check point crews, lots of sunshine and some characteristically enthusiastic support, the club has once again smashed out some fantastic results and some much needed encouragement for everyone. For some it was about timings and PB’s, for others it was about getting around a challenging course or just having a great day running in the sunshine. All running is good running and once again, LBAC have shown what a great running community is all about. Well done everyone.