Last Saturday seven club members made the trip up to Berry Hill Park in Mansfield for the English National Cross-Country Relays. Having taken part for the first time last year in the mens race, three of that team made the return trip and took a team of three ladies with them for the first time ever.

The event is extremely well organised and offers athletes of all ages and abilities the opportunity to race against some of the top runners in the country over relatively short distances. From the U13's upwards, the event attracts clubs from all over to compete in teams of three and four. read more

A mild November evening saw the second race of the winter Stag Trophy season starting from Parsons Close. Twenty-four people turned up for the race as well as a couple of hangers-on and those that did were rewarded by a tail wind down Grovebury Road that lead to 11 out of the first 12 people all recording personal bests.

First home on the night, and beating last months time by 47 seconds was the fast improving Steve Orlando. His 25 points gained on the night, combined with the 21 from october have give him an early lead in one of the club's most presitigous events. Nearly all the way he was accompanied by Lynne Grimshaw who will undoubtedly be looking to duck under 18 minutes in December to continue her improvement. read more

As some of you will know, since the dawn of time the club has been allocated two places each year in the London Marathon. These have been given to club members on a fairly specific basis of criteria. However, it was based on members being rejected from the ballot, but with the advent of online entries the ballot is often closed before some members have had the chance to enter so the criteria for 2011 and onwards has been changed;

1. You must have been a member of LBAC before the marathon of the previous year. Ie. Anyone wanting a 2011 place must have been a member since last April at least. read more

Having entered the race months ago, Ann Hirst made the trip over to sunny Ireland last weekend, for the 31^st running of the Dublin marathon. This was to be her debut over the distance and she had mixed fortunes approaching the race. A few weeks of not running made Ann consider not attempting the distance that is more punishing to the unprepared than any other. However, a few solid runs either side of her injury encouraged an apperance on the start line on the Irish bank holiday Monday.

The weather was set fair, if a little chilly and Ann made good time until the 12 mile mark, when the knee that had stopped her training properly started to play up once again. Having gone through the first half in 2:04:44, it was really a case of battling through and making it to the finish and that first pint of Guinness (I am assuming!). Ann felt that she "didn't just hit the wall, she crashed into it!", but although she slowed in the second half, it was far from disastrous consider the knee and she covered the second 13.1 miles in 2:18:16 to give a finish time of 4:23 and a shiny new medal. read more

Last Saturday Amy and Andy decided that it was finally time to give the Milton Keynes Parkrun a go. It is half a mile from home at Willen Lake and is a free, accurately measured 5K that takes place at 9am every Saturday morning. It has only taken 41 weeks for them to make it.

There are 49 different races around the country so you are rarely likely to be too far from one. They are all 5K and very informal, but necessarily all on Saturday morning so check the details for each one individually.

They would highly recommend it to anyone who fancies a FREE low key race on a Saturday morning. All you have to do is go to the website www.parkrun.com and follow the instructions to print out a barcode before 6pm on the Friday. Then just turn up with the barcode at any Parkrun and it will be scanned at the end so the results are recorded. Results are then sent out by e-mail about an hour after the finish and they are really comprehensive. They track how many you have done, your times, give you an age grading and all sorts of other stuff. They even take your photo and put it on the website too as long as you are not Andy (Think the lens may have broken at that moment). read more