From Watford to London

By Elliot Hind I’ve entered the ballot for the London marathon for the past few years and been unsuccessful; it is something I’ve really wanted for longer than I can remember.

I’ve only run one marathon (Brighton 2014 in 3.28) and had made it my 2015 goal to qualify for London on a ‘Good For Age’ time of under 3.05.  I entered the MK Marathon and the Kent Roadrunner marathon and was feeling confident that with training I could get under that time.  Unfortunately, disaster struck in December 2014 as a tackle on the football pitch destroyed my ankle ligaments and put an end to my marathon dream; I was crushed.  I was at a real low for a long time and in all honesty I wasn’t nice to be around. read more

Stag Trophy Heating Up

Five races into the Stag trophy season and we are starting to see some moves around the top of the leaderboard. There are two races left and each individual’s five best scores are taken into account so from next month potential contenders will be dropping their lowest scores. What this means is that there can be big shifts in the table with one good performance.

As it stands after the February Stag, technically there are still 21 people who could win it, although there are five slightly more clear favourites. read more

January Sunshine

I may be about to put a curse on it, but considering the Southern Cross-country championships are always at the end of January it’s amazing how often it’s a glorious day! In the middle of whole load of wet and windy weather there was a break again this year and last Saturday saw wintery sunshine spread over the Heath in Hampstead for much of the day.

This was a great relief to the thousands of runners and spectators who make an annual pilgrimage to this home of cross-country running for either the Southern champs (2 out of 3 years) or the national champs (1 out of 3). It isn’t the hilliest, longest or muddiest cross-country ever, but it is one of the longest and one of the muddiest on a pretty hilly course. In the world of cross-country that Leighton Buzzard lives in, it really doesn’t get any tougher. read more

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

By Kas Gardner

I’ve never run a 15 mile race before so at least at the Folksworth 15 I was guaranteed a PB, even if this race has the reputation of being the hilliest in Cambridgeshire.

The Folksworth 15 is put on by Yaxley Runners and HQ is a primary school with proper changing rooms and toilets. Plus they’ve put out a shed load of portaloos in the community centre grounds that’s about 50 metres away.

We had to park around half a mile away (some had to park even further away) but Yaxley Runners had organised cars to ferry you from the car parks to the race HQ and were waiting by the race HQ to whisk you back there after you’d finished. read more

Cheating on the Leighton 10

by Jo Sharples

Anyone who knows me, knows my love of the Leighton 10. But after hitting ‘a wall’ 10 miles in on my last couple of half marathons, I decided I also loved 10 mile races. So even though it felt a little bit like cheating, I entered the Fred Hughes 10.

I was a solo LBACer at the Fred Hughes 10 on 24th January. I would say the race offers an undulating (some may say hilly) and scenic route around St Albans. The race being hosted by St Albans Striders always gets their quick runners out and this year it was also the Hertfordshire county championships, so it proved to be a competitive field. read more

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