The 3^rd April saw the first club championship road race of the year take place on the rural roads of Sandy in East Bedfordshire. Ten club members headed over to Sandy Upper School to join 517 other athletes intent on completing the fast ten mile course.

In pleasant conditions that varied between sunshine and cloud, the 10:30 start time was pretty sociable for a weekend road race. Of the ten, Tom Inchley, did not have a number and so turned up in the hope of getting one at the last minute from a late withdrawl, whilst Jane broke her own record of cutting it fine by arriving on the start line half a mile from the school with about thirty seconds to spare!

On the ladies front Liz Miller had taken on Fiona's number in the hope of setting a new club record for her age group. However, Liz' race ended early with a knee problem after just three miles and she had to turn for home in frustration. Both Amy and Jane were using this as one of their last runs before their upcoming marathons and Amy set off aiming to smash her PB from two years ago whilst Jane was aiming just to enjoy a steady run prior to next week's Brighton marathon.

Amy ran a pretty even paced race and felt good enough to make her last mile was the fastest to get an eight minute PB and become club champion in 1:16:36. Jane ran a little quicker than the nine mpm that she had planned for most of the race, but suffered from a severe stitch for the last couple of miles so finished somewhat frustrated in 1:21:45. This has become a bit of an issue for Jane so if anyone has any good suggestions they may be well received. Amelia Wallace clearly enjoyed her run around the villages as she finished with a big smile in 1:24:35.

On the boys front Richard Inchley was the final finisher and was delighted with his 1:23:50 that is now the new V65 club record for ten miles. The challenge for some then is still to be running at such a senior age. Roger Seldon is on the catch up as V60 and ran an excellent race to complete the course in 1:14:55. Roger was not far behind Chris Dimmock who finished 1:14:11 and 126^th place. Having initially been aiming for 7.30 miling he was pretty pleased to duck under that and claim 3rd place in the mens championship.

Tom's run round the course took him around in about 68 minutes, but having not entered he will not feature in the results, so let that be a lesson to you all! Nick Clay is gradually finding the time to do a little more training and just ducked uner 66 minutes to finish 48th in the race, whilst Andy Inchley pipped him to the club title on this occasion by finishing 15^th in a time of 60:20.

In the fun run that was attached to the race, Jordan Clay came fourth despite sprinting for the finish when he still had a lap of the track to go!