Pete leads the team home

For the first time in many years the Flitwick 10K was not the annual club championship race this year. However, it is a very well organised local race attracting upwards of 800 runners and so a merry band of twelve LBAC'ers headed over for the race in 2012.

The route is an undulating rural one lap course starting and finishing in the centre of Flitwick. Last year the weather was extremely warm for April and whilst this year there was no sun cream needed a windbreak would have been nice!

There was a fair bit of chat going on at the start as Stuart and Andy tried to persuade themselves that they could live with Pete on his current form while Chris Norman was just hoping to finish injury free and Laurie was reminding us of each individual hill on the route he does regularly as a Flitwick resident. read more

World Indoor Championships

By Gail Duckworth (which is why it's so modest) 

 

World Masters Indoor Championships

Jyvaskyla Finland April 3 – 8 2012

 

Having won the European title last year in the 3000m I was sure I could give a good account of myself in a World event. So, at a late date I decided to not only enter the 3000m but the 1500m as well and travel to Finland to take part.

 

I left home early Tuesday morning to fly from Heathrow to Helsinki. Jyvaskyla is a further 3 hours north so as you can imagine on the cold side! I didn’t have to worry about the snow – which there was a lot of – running indoors, but the first event at these Championships are the 8K cross country races and because of an unusual amount of snow they had for the time of year the course needed clearing! read more

“Christmas” Handicap

Just fifteen minutes before the start of the Boxing Day / Easter Monday handicap race it was looking like it might be a very damp and lonely race for the seven or eight hardy souls who had turned up at Leighton Town FC for the final event in the club championship season.

However, as the 11am kick-off time approached people gradually started to emerge from the woodwork clad in wet weather gear and ready to run and by the time we crossed the road towards The Falcon we were up to a merry(ish) 16.

All the participants were absolutely raring to go around the 5.6 mile historic loop that simply goes along Stanbridge Road, over the bypass to Billington and back in on Billington Road. you could tell when Dave asked people to step up to the start line and most took a pace backwards! The route is not particularly inspiring, but dates back to the 80's before the pypass existed and now it would really mess up Dave's records if we changed it! read more

The Final Stag 2011/12

After the perefct cool conditions of March's Stag race, there was a stark contrast with the damp and breezy conditions offered up by the April race last night. The fairly unpleasant evening did not stop 18 hardy souls from venturing out in the quest for a quick run and to pick up a few points.

Of those 18, 4 were doing their first Stag of the season and two further ones were doing their first ever. Before the race, Pete Mackrell had already sewn up the title but there was a battle going on for the minor places between a number of different people. Most of those individuals were reliant on getting a high points score to improve their current tally. read more

Olympic Experience

This weekend I made history as I was one of the lucky 5,000 runners, picked at random from almost 43,000 entrants, to take part in the National Lottery Olympic Park Run. The five mile run around the Olympic Park passes many of the iconic venues that will be used for the Olympic Games, including the Velodrome and Aquatics Centre, before finishing inside the Olympic Stadium.

After a week of unusually good weather and record high temperatures for March, I woke on Saturday to overcast skies and a drop in the temperature. This made for good running conditions with only the wind on the exposed parts of the course likely to be a nuisance. Having made my way to the park on public transport and queued for 45 minutes to get through security I finally got my first look at the Olympic Park. Walking down Stratford Walk, past the Aquatics Centre, I made my way inside the Olympic Stadium to soak up the atmosphere before the event started. read more

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