Last Saturday seven club members made the trip up to Berry Hill Park in Mansfield for the English National Cross-Country Relays. Having taken part for the first time last year in the mens race, three of that team made the return trip and took a team of three ladies with them for the first time ever.

The event is extremely well organised and offers athletes of all ages and abilities the opportunity to race against some of the top runners in the country over relatively short distances. From the U13's upwards, the event attracts clubs from all over to compete in teams of three and four.

The LBAC ladies team was lead off by Gail Duckworth who is building up for a big international veterans race in Dublin next week. After a steady start she made her way round the compact undulating 3K course in 12:11 and handed over to Jill Richardson in what was effectively 54^th place (out of the teams that did close a full team). Jill ran very well to pick off a couple more places to move the team up to 52^nd and ran 13:00 on what was a chilly but sunny day. Finally, she handed over to Amy Inchley who has run very little over the last couple of months due to a nagging injury. However, this is clearly the way forward for her as she gained three more places to close the team in 49^th position out of the 77 teams entered. This is a great performance and result in a first attempt at a high quality event. Lets hope this continues for a few years to come.

On the mens front, the team were aiming to be somewhere in the region of last year, but without the pace of Simon Coombes, it was quite a big challenge. As it turns out, the team will not be appearing in the results anyway. Of course we will not mention any names, but one of our esteemed athletes forgot to wear his timing chip (Possibly distracted by the early goals going in for Burnley!) and so only three runners were recorded. However, that aside the team put in a decent performance and would have finished in 83^rd position out of 140 teams. Andy Inchley lead the team off to a reasonable start with 18:06 for the 5K course before Ben Corfield gained about 15 places with a 17:36. Joby Hobbs completed the third leg in 19:22 and Pete Mackrell ran 18:55 (We think!).

It's a great event and nice day out so if anyone fancies it next year we can have up to three teams in each event!