by Sam Dear

Adam's blog appears to have only lasted 2 days of the 6 as he has asked me to fill in for him for today's. He just doesn't have the stamina!

Day 3 of the tour. My legs were already a little tight after Sunday's 11k in Tattenhoe and of course the 5 mile cross country yesterday did them no good, especially going over on my ankle a little in one of the ploughed fields, so I was a little apprehensive about the mile run at Stantonbury. It was my first run around a track since school and my first run ever on a proper athletics track as well as my first ever mile race. With that in mind I had no idea what to expect…except I knew it would be tough.

I arrived after most of Team LBAC and soaked up the atmosphere while the other runners caught up with their rivals from the previous races, did a few warm up laps or completed their stringent pre-race ritual.

The runners are separated into several 'heats' based upon your current position in the tour. First up was the fight of the fastest and it was no surprise that we had some Buzzards competing in there. Adam, Elliot, Jordan and Chris Norman lined up ready to show us all how it was done and after the deafening start gun, they shot off. The first lap seemed to be done at a ridiculous pace with a few different runners taking the lead including Chris and Jordan.

With the sound of the bell it was clear that Jordan was still on for a good time and with the others behind trying to keep up. In the end Jordan finished in 2^nd, but the winner isn't taking part in the whole tour, so with a 7 second PB and a time of 4:47, congratulations to Jordan on being the fastest on the tour mile.

Elliot continued his strong run of performances in 7^th with a 30 second PB closely followed by Chris in 4:55, who can barely breathe standing up with his cold, let alone running at full pelt. Adam struggled to keep up with the ridiculously pacey folk in his heat but still finished with a fast time of 5:05.

Tim was up next in heat 2 and stuck to his task in the middle of the field before finishing strongly and moving into 3^rd in 5:18.

I was plopped in heat 3 and with my inexperience decided just to stick to the man in front of me. This proved fairly successful and I was able to then overtake him round the final bend to finish in a time of 5:36. Pretty chuffed with that!

Fred ran home in under 7 minutes in his heat whilst Fiona channelled Jo Pavey around her last lap and she made up a few places on the back straight to finish in 7:15.

The current standings after half of the races can be found here: http://mcs.open.ac.uk/mkac/14mktour3.htm.

All in all a very enjoyable evening and nice to be on a nice flat running surface. Next up….. the dreaded hills!