Four Inchley's and their Dave went to run in Bedford………

Tuesday night saw Amy, Richard and Andy abandon the usual MK training in favour of the third race in the East Midlands Grand Prix Series in Bedford. They managed to drag Tom along for his second run in the series and Dave Adams also made his annual pilgrimage to the 6 mile event.

Organised by Bedford & County AC, the run is based from the athletic stadium but is entirely traffic free as it utilses the park paths around the A421. The conditions for the race were almost perfect, although a gentle westerley wind meant the last couple of miles were into it, but it was far from a howling gale. The course has just two small hills as runners cross the bypass twice over a foot bridge so all in all it should have been a really good race!

On the ladies front, Amy was aiming to follow up her quick run on Sunday with something similar over three times the distance in Bedford. Although she didn't feel great her target of 7.20 miling was totally smashed as she completed the course in 43:33 to finish 19^th out of 86 women.

Behind Amy were the two old boys, with Dave enjoying his trot out to comfortably finish the run (Dave doesn't do "racing") in 50:51 and nearly five minutes quicker than 2010! Richard meanwhile was a touch slower than last year in completing the run in 27:42, but was 3^rd V65.

Nearer the front end of the field, both Tom and Andy with the wind at their backs went off much to fast (Andy doing the first mile in 5:21) and paid a bit of a price later on. However, Andy did duck under 35 minutes in a late battle with some friends from MKAC, while Tom was pretty pleased with 36:38 as they finished in 20^th & 35^th respectively out of the 307 runners. As a matter of interest, the winner was Neilsen Hall from Bedford who ran 29:07 (4.53 pre mile) for the 6 miles!

The next race of the series on a Tuesday is the Banbury 5 in two weeks time if anyone fancies a run round.