With the Brighton and London marathons just around the corner, we thought it was time to do a bit of a profile on each of the ten participating members this year. There may be the odd "fact" that is not strictly accurate but we're sure you won't notice!
First Up, The Brighton Lot.......
On a perfect weekend for running a few people made it out and about to participate in a range of races around the country. With the London Marathon now just three weeks away, Pete Mackrell and Amy Inchley did their last really long runs on the undulating roads of North Bedfordshire in the Oakley 20. With over 700 people taking part in the race from Amy's home village, it has become a traditional pre-marathon run for many athletes and leads in to the most joyful word – tapering!
The cross-country season finally came to a close last Saturday with the English Schools Cross-country at Wollaton Park in Nottingham. On what was a lovely March day, the top youngsters from all over the country descended on Nottingham for the annual running of this very high quality event.
LBAC had four representatives across two races with Jordan Clay in the Junior boys and Billy Mead and Stephen Fuller in the Inter boys. The schools competitions are deliberately set-up so that the two-year age groups don't match the club structure. This means that every year youngsters are top year for either club or school. Each of 42 counties selects eight team members for each age group and the top six make up the scoring team.
The summer season sees LBAC getting involved in a few different relay events in the area and here are some basic details about each of them:
Name: ROUND MILTON KEYNES RELAY
Date: Sunday 29th May 2011 Location: Start and finish in Stony Stratford with changovers in Woolstone, Bow Brickhill and Bletchley(ish) Who?: Absolutely anyone. It is a fun event where we try to make the teams as even as possible so standard is irrelevant as long as you can run the distance. Team must all have at least one lady in. There is likely to be 10-12 teams. How Far?: The four legs are 10.3, 5.6, 9.6 & 6 miles. Will I Need to Recce Them?: Yes. The levels of complexity vary, but unless you've run them before you should check them out. Written descriptions of the legs are available (Andy rewrote two of them last year after getting lost on leg 3) and maps are available via MapMyRun. Plenty of people have run before to give a guided tour and make transport from start to finish easier. What do I need to do?: E-mail Andy_inchley@hotmail.comLast Saturday saw Rod Lopez taking part in his first road race since joining the club by heading off down to Dorney Lake in Windsor for the Maxifuel half marathon. The conditions were perfect at about eight degrees and no wind at all on a very flat course around the Olympic rowing venue. the only issue was that it was 4.5 laps!
He started conservatively as it was really a fitness tester for his upcoming half Ironman, but as the race progressed Rod decided he felt pretty good and came home just eight seconds outside his PB in 1.32.10 and in 56th place out of 359.
