The penultimate day of the Tour saw our four brave boys tackle a tough 4.9 mile cross country race in Potterspury. The course was a real challenge, featuring all manner surfaces and hills, a few stiles, several fallen trees to steeplechase over, and the infamous knee-deep muddy ditch which had to be traversed three times. Cross country is certainly a discipline that divides opinion, comments afterwards included "that was fun", "that was horrible", and "what on earth possessed me to sign up for this stupid six day running challenge anyway".

The start of the race signalled the usual mass charge away from the line, in this case immediately up the first hill. The runners soon settled into an order resembling the overall standings, and it was apparent there were lots of separate battles going on with people now fully aware of those close to them in the overall standings. At the end of the first lap, Chris Norman led the way amongst the LBAC four, with Pete Mackrell hot on his heals. Pete passed him at the halfway point but the two remained closely matched and finished just 12 seconds apart, Pete in 31:18 and Chris in 31:30. They finished 4th and 7th amongst those runners doing the whole Tour, which kept them both in 4th and 7th overall. The problem for Chris was that the person in 8th place overall finished 5th in the race, gaining 8 precious seconds to close the gap in the standings to just 5 seconds. Those two are set for a good battle during the final race.

Alex Britt appeared to enjoy his jaunt around the Northamptonshire countryside, the university student showing no aversion to a bit of mud and grime. At one stage he showed his academic acumen to slide under a low fence when the others were queueing for the stile, thus making up several positions. His time of 38:06 saw him slip one place to 31^st overall, but he is only 3 seconds behind his closest challenger. It occurred to us later that night when looking through the results in the pub that Alex is currently leading the under 20 category, well done Alex! Richard Inchley is continuing to show good form, he made his way round in 41:19 to move up one place to 38th overall.

The end is now in sight and the runners are just one race away from claiming their deserved Tour t-shirts!