Nine of LBAC's finest took to the redways of Milton Keynes on Tuesday night for the 10K, which was also the final race in the East Midlands Grand Prix series. It was a warm, damp evening as just over 400 runners arrived at the Open University for this long standing event.

The series regulars of Pat Neilan, Richard Inchley and Chris Williams were joined by three more Inchley's, a Coombes, a Mackrell and a Watt for the most local of the eight races, that are all either 5 miles, 6 miles or 10K. The start is on the Woughton-on-the-Green playing fields and then the course uses predominatly redways as it goes up Willen Lake and back to finish on the O.U. cricket pitch.

On the night, there were some excellent performances with both Chris Williams and Amy Inchley (22^nd lady) running PB's and breaking the 45 minute barrier for the first time. Richard Inchley was also delighted with his time as he did his fastest time of the series in 48:21 and was less than a minute behind Pat Neilan who finished in 47:22. A little way in front of Chris & Amy was Fred Watt who finished as third V60 in 43:52.

Nearer the front of the field was Pete Mackrell, who could still feel the 33 miles of Greensand in his legs as he trotted around the route to finish 58^th in 38:42 and thirty seconds behind Tom Inchley who himself was just a few seconds behind his Silverstone time in 38:16. Andy Inchley was reasonably pleased with his time of 35:44 and 21^st place, but didn't feel competitive on the night as one of his MK training partners got the better of him.

At the very front of the field, Simon Coombes has been talking for a while about getting under 33:30 for the distance and the damp & drizzly conditions seemed to suit him as he went off with the leaders from the beginning. There were no real breakaways until late in the race when Joshua Bull of Derby AC opened up a small gap and held on to win by eleven seconds in 32:55 but second position through to fifth were covered by just four seconds, as Simon came home third in a fantastic 33:07 to smash his target and run his fastest time in six years.

The next race on the club summer calendar is the Doug Anderson 5K on Wednesday 27^th July, which is also our club championship, so get your entries in a.s.a.p.