The first Chiltern Cross Country League meeting of the new season took place last Saturday in Wigmore Park, Luton with LBAC having to face the stiff challenge of following up their best ever year in division one of the league. Whilst there were a few people around running pretty well, there were also a number of last season's regulars missing from the senior ranks and so there was a slight lack of confidence around.

Nevertheless, the juniors made a big effort for the day and had an excellent turn-out with Chloe May and Sadie Towell leading the way in the U11 girls race. The two youngsters finished in 36^th and 58^th place respectively and they charged around the open parkland on what was a fairly breezy day. They were followed out onto the course by Becky Mead who was making her debut at cross country and came home in 88^th place in the U13 girls. Alison Gosbee also did an excellent job of representing the female side of things as she finished the U15 girls race in 75^th place and pick up points for the club.

On the boys side of things, LBAC fielded two complete teams in both the U13 and U15 boys as well as two in the U17 event. The U13 went off first with another three debutants in the rank of runners. There were nearly 100 finishers and at his first attempt, Sam Nicholas finished in 25^th place and was chased home hard by Owen Drabnell in 32^nd. Henry Mead and Patrick Clay had a nip-tuck battle all the way around the 3K course, but Henry eventually just pipped Patrick as they closed out the team. This resulted in them finishing in 7^th place out of the 14 clubs in division one.

The U15 lads have been a mainstay of the clubs efforts over the last few years with them consistently contributing great points to the overall effort. On this occasion it was Jordan Clay who lead the team home with a strong run in 17^th position, followed by Tom Boozer and Charlie Mead in 27^th and 30^th respectively out of the division one runners. Joe McGarry completed the team in 32^nd and Jake Irvine chased them all home in 36^th place which gave the boys an overall team placing of fifth in the division.

Following on from their two PB's in the Stag on Wednesday, Billy Mead and Brian Foulger took on the other leading U17's of the area and Brian had a storming run to come home in 26^th place just pip Billy into 27^th. Between them they gained 35 points for the club which will undoubtedly prove vital come the end of the season.

However, before the U17's were doing their stuff the ladies of the club had a 6K course of their own to complete and there were five of our female members who turned out to make up a very good team. Our resident European champion, Gail led the way around the course in fine style as she made her way through the field to finish to finish 10^th in division one and first F55 by two and a half minutes. Despite arriving earlier than ever, Jane Sauer missed the start of the race and so did very well to catch up the field to finish in 45^th with Lynn Boddy running very strongly in 53^rd. Fiona Towell completed the scoring team in 79th with an excellent debut run by Mandy Clay adding great strength in depth to finish 83^rd. All of the ladies have missed big chunks of training over the summer months, so the result of ninth place out of fourteen teams is a fantastic effort.

The final race of the day saw the senior men of the club out to get the season off to a good start despite having a number of last years regular scorers absent. As with all the races, the more runners you have out representing the club the more likely you are to do well as even though those outside the first ten do not score direct points they take points away from other teams and can push on their team mates in front and on this occasion, Chris Dimmock, Chris Williams, Jon Hull, Richard Inchley and John Adam all made a significant difference to the team as they finished between and 160^th and 219^th in what is a very high quality field, so please remember that every single runner counts hugely.

Having had a few weeks out visiting family in Brazil, Rod Lopez followed up his Stag victory by claiming the final scoring slot just in front of Chris in 150^th place. Possible run of the day went to Joe Hurley, who started very steadily and charged through the field in the second half of the race to lead home a small pack of buzzards including Warren Rose and Nick Clay. The battle of the day though went to Mark Field and Chris Norman who both just sneaked into the top 100 places as Mark edged past Chris on the final straight to be fourth and fifth home.

In front of the Chris & Mark, Pete Mackrell ran a really strong race to come home in 62^nd and pick up over 150 points for the club. Ian Grimshaw was closing quickly on the fading Andy Inchley as they finished 53^rd and 48^th respectively, but the lead man home was Ben Corfield who had travelled down from Sheffield to lead us home in 37^th place.

So, all of this means that the senior men finished 9th on the day, but the contributions of the women and juniors pushed us up into eighth overall after the first fixture. This is a tremendous effort by all concerned, but there are not many points to all of the teams behind and with a number of the key personell missing for the December race it is absolutely vital that we continue to get everyone out.

Next up is Watford on saturday 12th November – Put it in your diary.