“Bloody hell. Now THAT is real rain,” said Nikki as she stared out the window of the conservatory that doubled as a breakfast room.

The owner of our quaint little B&B in the Cumbrian village of Cleator Moor was pouring our coffee and spooning out a healthy serving of homemade porridge. I followed Nikki’s gaze outside. A howling north-easterly was making the roof vibrate, and the lashing rain on the glass meant the visibility was almost zero. We looked at each other and smiled wryly – welcome to the Lake District. read more

Last Sunday, ten LBAC members travelled to Tring to participate in the 32nd edition of the Ridgeway Run. This challenging event over approximately 9.5 miles is run mainly on footpaths and bridleways, which in many places were saturated and slippery following over 12 hours of solid rain. Starting on the outskirts of Tring, the course ascends into Ashridge Forest, past the Bridgewater Monument, takes in a stretch of the famous Ridgeway Path, before descending back along quiet paths into Tring and finishing at the Cricket Club. It is a very attractive route which normally provides stunning Chiltern views, but not when there is low cloud cover and heavy rain! It was a highly successful morning for the club. Since joining several months ago, Glen Turner has embraced our ethos by entering lots of races and drinking lots of beer. Sunday was no different and he finished in a highly impressive 2nd place out of the 536 finishers. His time of 57:14 represents 6mm pace over the hilly and demanding course, which emphasises the strength of his performance. One place behind Glen in 3rd was Pete Mackrell, continuing his fine form after the Berlin Marathon. The next club finisher in 7th was Tom May – this may come as a shock to many but for our older members this is not a surprise, since Tom regularly finished races in such lofty positions (and even higher) before injuries and other commitments got in the way. This marks a welcome return to form for El Capitano. Behind Tom was Chris Norman, our other Berlin Marathon hero; he felt the recent marathon effected his performance so he was disappointed to be ‘only’ 11th. The event had a men's team award based on the first four finishers and with Glen, Pete, Tom and Chris finishing in the top 11, LBAC comfortably won this with their score of 23 points being comfortably ahead of Gade Valley Harriers (59 points). Jordan Clay warmed up for the upcoming cross country season – where he will only have to race over around 3.5 miles – by placing 15th overall over the 9.5 mile course. This is highly impressive for someone less accustomed to racing over longer distances. Behind, Dan Webb and Chris Williams made it into the top hundred by finishing 74th and 97th respectively. Two of the club’s V60s also completed the taxing course, with Roger Seldon finishing 193rd and Richard Inchley in 372nd. The club’s sole lady representative was Nikki Elvin, who continues to work herself back to fitness and she finished 354th (77th out of 188 ladies). The productive morning ended with beers in the bar whilst the victorious men awaited the prize giving for the team prize and various individual awards. Perhaps just as important, it enabled all the runners to re-familiarise themselves with the mud ahead of the start of the cross-country season next weekend. Cross country is a team event and we need as many people to run as many fixtures as possible to give us every chance of improving last year’s league placing, we hope to see you all at Watford next Saturday.  

On Sunday 29th September, four LBAC members made the journey to London, to run the second Ealing Half Marathon, along with nearly 6000 other runners.  The weather was mild and dry, perfect running conditions to tackle the route which takes in the beautiful parks of West London, and the streets (some quite hilly) of Ealing and Hanwell.   The atmosphere was fun and friendly and, although not a cheap race to enter (£27), it was well worth the effort.  The streets and parks were virtually all lined with cheering spectators, and the water stations well manned at the churches in the borough.  Organisation of the whole event was excellent, and rather good looking medals for the finishers too.   This was Lorraine H-M’s second time at Ealing, with trainer Tom May attempting to pace her, along with Mark Haynes, around in under 2 hours.  The 4th member was Joe Hurley, but no-one saw him for dust!   Nerves were a little frayed at the start line. Lorraine was carrying a couple of injuries from early Summer and she had had her pelvis manipulated only a few days beforehand. Meanwhile Mark was full of a heavy cold…pills were being popped whilst lining up!   The first few miles went exceptionally well, and then Mark managed to overcome his illness and took off to leave Tom and Lorraine well behind.  Meanwhile, Lorraine was struggling with heavy legs after about 8 miles, and was finding it hard to breathe and run at the same time – usually a necessity during a race. With constant effective coaching from Tom,  a couple of energy gels and sheer determination, even though looking more than a little worse for wear, Lorraine managed a PB in a time of 1 hr 56 mins, shaving a massive 17 mins off last year’s time.   Mark also triumphed with a PB of 1 hr 52 mins, and Mr Hurley an impressive 1 hr 29 mins – faster than he’s run for many years! (Or so we thought at the time, but apparently he did 1 hr 27 last year.)   So all in all a great result for the slightly more senior LBAC members.