The Final Flourish

By Adam Haylock

Day 6 already, and the ultimate race of The Brian Graves Tour of Milton Keynes. For the final time I rush home from work, pack my stuff and make my way from Aylesbury through the rush hour traffic towards race HQ. The week has taken its toll and instead of bouncing out the door like before this time it was more of a weary shuffle. However, I was still excited to arrive at the Sports Pavilion at Woughton on the Green and meet up with the rest of the guys and race one final time.

It was great to see everyone wearing the white tour vests, I felt proud to wear mine and was ready to crack on seeing what I had left in my legs. There were quite a few exhausted looking athletes standing on the start line ready to take on the 6.4 miles and any personal battles for positioning. I was knackered but not ready to give up on finishing the tour in 7th place, though that would require taking sixteen seconds off Andy Kirschner from Shenley Striders which would be tough. read more

Almost There

By Adam Haylock

The week is flying and it's the penultimate race of the tour already.  This time we headed over to a familiar Chiltern League location at Campbell Park.  There was still a buzz at the start but a definite feeling of lethargy. Everyone seemed organised today and were kitted up ready to go, I decided to have a warm up run to stretch the legs and managed a high five with Elliot who was warming up in opposite direction.  Tim was sporting an original Blue LBAC vest and was poised to protect his MV40 position.  Richard gave us some tips on the course so we knew that we had 0.9 miles from the point he was marshaling.  Time to head over to the start, line up and get in position however there was still time to discuss tactics, compression socks and last night’s bake off. read more

Tonight was a Killer!

By Adam Haylock

When I first looked at the race schedule for the tour I was most excited by the opportunity to run a mile on the track and least excited by tonight’s hill race.  I arrived a bit late as I wasn’t too sure where I was heading, but luckily I bumped into Tim who was also driving in the wrong direction. We turned around and soon found Brickhill Woods and parked up on the verge.  It is a nice woodland area and there was definitely a crisp although warm feeling to the evening. read more

MK Tour – Day 3: Rest Day!

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. read more

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