Thursday evening saw sixteen club members head over to Fairlands Valley Park in Stevenage for the 3K road relays. This annual event sees many teams from clubs all over the area competing over an unusually short distance in teams of five for the men and three for the women.

The route is pretty simply a lap of Fairlands Valley Park, which is predominantly flat but the small inclines that there are make you pay if you've started off too fast as many do! The weather was dry by the evening but the earlier rain had left the paths slightly slippery.

Leg one saw Laura Smith, Amelia Wallace and Andy Inchley line up alongside new member Paul Wiggins and over 100 other teams to begin the event. The leading man on the first leg completed in 8:50 while Andy came home first of the Leighton teams to hand over to Pete Mackrell after a 9:53. Paul completed in just over 11 minutes with Laura leading the girls home in 12:39 and Amelia in 13:04.

The second leg saw Pete (10:26) take the boys "A" team from 12^th to 10^th while Amy (12:14) moved the girls "A" team from 14^th to 11^th. The rest of the boys "A" team were remarkably consistent with Billy Mead, Chris Norman and Tom May running 10:39, 10:41 & 10:32 respectively to bring the team home in 52:12 and 12^th place overall. The boys "B" team closed out in 58:45 after Chris Williams (12:17), Joe Hurley (11:46) and Fred Watt (12:17) ran consisently over the 1.87 miles before Mike Bryant put in an excellent run of 11:23 to gain four places and finish 30^th team.

On the ladies front, after Amelia's first leg, Fiona managed to complete the course injury free in 14:51 before handing on to Helen Crossland who was very pleased with her time of 19:04. Jane Sauer ran the third leg after Amy and matched Laura's first leg time as her 12:38 gave the team a total of 37:31 and 11^th place overall in the field out of 52 teams.

The final part of the evening involved a debate about the merits of Chinese over Fish & Chips and whether there was a point to test cricket! This coincided with a trip to the pub on the way home for six of the team.