We usually try to keep the faster senior men on a relatively low profile on the website, because we do try very hard to keep the club as welcoming as possible to all, with every member who contributes to the club being as valued as the next, however, I am about to make an exception.

The Chiltern League is the one event in the year where the whole club gets together to compete and is therefore a vital part of the club's make-up. Down the years we have won lots of awards, but the reason we have thrived in recent times has been due to getting lots of people out and packing the senior men together. However, we have not had anyone in the leading places of division one for a very long time.

Yesterday Pete Mackrell came home 15^th out of 378 in the race and 12^th out of 234 in division one. This is an absolutely fantastic effort by someone who didn't really think they were much of a cross-country runner two years ago and really hasn't been running all that long at all. It also represents 223 points for the club which were very badly needed yesterday. The question now is whether Pete can retain this sort of form for the rest of the season.

The rest of the men's team was looking like being under a lot pressure after five of last month's top ten didn't make it to the start line, even with a couple of new additions in Ian G and James Bell. There was not too much to fear though as those present really steppd up to the plate and put in some solid runs to support Pete. Of particular note were Ian Grimshaw coming back from a summer injury, Tim inchley with his best run for a few years, Joe Hurley who tried diving down the hill instead of taking the regulation run, and Nick Clay who had been looking after juniors for three hours before strapping on his own spikes and getting into the club top ten.

After the last race I worked out that 20 of our 21 runners took points of other clubs by finishing ahead of their scoring runners and once again, having sixteen out will have made a huge difference. The result of this is that the senior men finished 7th out of 14 clubs on the day and gave us a strong base from which to pick up points.

Exactly the same can be said of the women's team who once again had six runners out on what was a pretty miserable day. Kate Johnson continued her fine form on the baking front but did join Joe on the casualty list after a tumble on one of the deceptively flat parts of the course! In front of Kate, Fiona had another long day out, helping with the juniors before strapping on the spikes herself and ran round the course strongly.

The main inter LBAC battle was going on just ahead with Nikki Elvin trying her best to hunt down Katie Haylock in the final stages and finishing in 84^th and 85^th places. Katie, who was spikeless has now scored for the team in both her first two cross-countries ever and is proving a vital member of the ladies team.

Lynn and Amy were the leading two on the day with Lynn coming home in 61st and Amy in an excellent 45th place that represented a big improvement on last month at Watford. The team on the day were 11th, but only 20 points behind 9th so this is a great effort with so many people out injured at the moment.

This CCCL saw a very rare occurrence indeed, there was only one Mead to be seen! Charlie was once again present in the U17 boys with Jordan Clay. Charlie came home in 40^th place and Jordan had an excellent run to finish 18^th. What you have to remember in this event is the standard. Just about all of the lads in the race run to a high level and will do very well in the seniors when they progress next year.

In the U15 girls race, Sarah Plummer was a little disappointed with her run, but still led the team home, followed up by an excellent race by Megan Westrope as they finished in 34^th and 39^th respectively.

We also had fantastic number sinn the U13 girls, with six making their way over to Horspath for the event. Ellie Rabbits put in probably the junior performance of the day to finish in 28th and score a really healthy number of points for the club while Melissa Chapman also had a strong run not far behind. McKenna Keefe, Jess Hawes, Amber Finley-Day and Elspeth Eley made up the rest of the team.

In the U11's boys race, Dominic Grimshaw is clearly following in the steps of his parents as he stormed around the course to come home in 15^th place with invaluable support from Max Rose and Harry Bell who had their own intra-club battle. Katie Green and Millie Hawes were the only two LBAC runners in the girls race, but both put in good performances to finish 73^rd and 50^th respectively.

On the day as a club, we didn't have quite such a strong result as at Watford as we finished in 11th, but were less than 100 points behind 9th so haven't lost too much ground, but we do need to ensure a really big turn-out in MK next month. It's only up the road so there really isn't any reason why we can't achieve that.

As it stands, after two fixtures we lie in 11th place overall, with Wycombe Phoenix and Watford being the main targets for the rest of the season, while Headington will be looking to catch us.

Full results are available here; http://www.chilternccl.co.uk/results.htm