by Johanna Sharples

This year saw LBAC using the John O’Callaghan Memorial 5 mile as the club championship race, having used the Blisworth 5 the last few years. Club races always attract those serious about the overall club championship standings (*ahem* Tom Inchley) and Sunday was no different, with there being a decent sea of purple and gold on the start line.

Starting just outside the grounds of the Luton Hoo at Venue 360, the course was 2 laps and headed straight out and back, looped a playing field and then repeated. This meant 2 things: firstly you did have a 2 way stream of runners for the majority of the course which I found helped with motivation, however, once you had done one lap you had to face it all again and for what should have been a fairly quick and inoffensive course, I found it challenging. I think this was partly because of the monotony of the 2 laps and partly because it was a lot more undulating that I had expected.

First home for LBAC and 3^rd overall was Pete Mackrell in a time of 28.05, followed by Glen and Billy (aka James!). Next was Chris George, Tom Inchley and Sam Dear who all finished under 30mins. I was next to finish and 5^th lady overall, closely followed and paced for most of the race by Stuart Dimmock and Dave Killick. We then saw the rest of the lovely ladies home each with brilliant runs, Amy F, Kas, Fi, Nikki, Kate, Alex and Susan. Kate in particular, ran a blinder with a 2min PB and was hunting down Nikki.

Overall there were some very good individual runs from the club but I think it would be fair to say we all found it a fairly mundane course although I think the race conditions did not help as it was a very humid day. However, with such good all round performances we did take home the mixed team prize and some wine thanks to contributions from Pete, Glen, Billy, Amy and myself. I’ll drink to that!