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This is the week that was…LFR’s Birthday!
…LFR’s birthday! Picture the scene. 14th February 1983. Valentine’s evening. In a Leighton Buzzard pub. It’s cold. It’s dark. A group of men meet up to celebrate the day and their passion…for running. Leighton Fun Runners was founded there and then and here we are today. 36 years later. A club of over 300 members. Who still enjoy going to the pub. And what were our 300 members up to this week…. We had our usual week day club runs with a couple of visitors from Ampthill and Flitwick trying out LFR's Fartlek; members were out all week and weekend on training runs, rides and swims, parkruns; other members in the gym or eating scones. Great work, LFR. Shout outs this week to Kelly and Laura who ran their furthest distance to date this week in training for their first half marathon. You’ve got this ladies! We also had members out at various events... Peter was at the Windsor Half Marathon. Jason, Jane, Claire, Chris, Katy, Gill, Julie, Jane and Chris were all at the MK Winter Warmer 10K on Sunday. Katy was trying out her fried egg outfit. She’ll be wearing this at the London Marathon in April attempting a Guinness World Record to add to LFR’s list (ask Chris T for more details)! Cross country season is not quite over for Team LFR who were out taking on the mud, river crossings, mud, bog, hills, more river crossings at the Hardwick XStream. Great running, team! And to remind ourselves why we love running mud and water so much, have a read of Captain Dan's blog post all about the latest cross country season: Mud Glorious MudThat’s all for this week… See you all at the AGM on Friday!
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This is the week that was…
….a busy weekend of runs! The calendar is filling up with many races and events with LFRs everywhere showing off the red and black. David, Fiona and Jo were at the second Stoke Winter Trail Run. Julie came third in her age category at a wet Welwyn 10K. Mother and daughter duo Stephanie and Annis bagged their first medal of the year dashing for doughnuts at the Phoenix Doughnut Dash Half Marathon. Medals look tasty, ladies! And the trail loving ultra-heroes were back in action at the LDWA Devil’s Punchbowl. 30 miles of mud and hills from Helen, Wes, Emma, JK, Ian (who had man flu) and Paul. Superb efforts on a challenging route and day. This all followed a cracking week of club runs, parkrun and training runs from our members including Charlotte and Emma back running completing 19 miles of windy trails on Saturday; Jane, Jason, Barbara, Glynn and Caroline running the Leighton 10 route; Ceila being the furthest LFR away at the East Coast parkrun in Singapore; and Becs and Sandra trying out the fitness equipment at Astral Park. Look out for the next one! It’s a free workout for your cross training needs and a great way of meeting other club members. Shout out this week to Andrew Heale. He was awarded two medals from last months’ cross country championship race (the below also received medals) AND he won the cake night raffle taking home a bottle of wine. Sounds like a great night! That’s all for this week. Happy Running, LFR!
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This is the week that was….snow!
The small flurry of snow we had this week caused schools to be closed on Friday, our own Friday morning run was called off, parkruns everywhere on Saturday were cancelled, the Watford Half Marathon on Sunday was cancelled as was the club’s recce of the new 10K route. It was incredibly icy out there! This made for a very busy Rushmere parkrun on Saturday with many of the other local parkruns cancelled. A massive 41 LFRs made their way for their parkrun fix in the snow. Tough going, I hear, but beautiful around the trees. There were plenty of snowy adventures over the week and weekend: James and his Bearded Buddy were like big kids in the snow; the LFR ladies incorporated parkrun in their long run; the two Pauls, the two Marks and Verity made their way for 13 miles around Wendover woods – they even had time to build a snowman; JK, Fiona, Caroline, Christine, Stephen and David all had a social run around Rushmere (with some continuing to get their long runs in); and there were some massive distances put in over the weekend with marathon and half marathon training in full swing. Excellent running, everyone. Some events were not cancelled due to the ice. Gill made her way to London for the Cancer Research 10K Winter Run and had a superb race, beating her time from last year by four minutes! Ian was flying solo with a fantastic effort at the Grizedale Trail Marathon in the Lake District: -4 degrees. 1312m elevation. Brilliant running! Earlier in the week we had our usual club runs – a shout out to Clare who is taking part in the coaches’ 5-10K course in training for her first 10K (at LFR’s own Leighton 10K, obviously). She ran her furthest ever distance so far! Keep going, Clare! All those members not down to volunteer, why not join her at our 10K – we are open for LFR entries…! Enter now here: Leighton 10K ! That’s all for this week! Stay safe. Happy running, LFR!
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This is the week that was…the final race of the Cross Country Season!
On a cold, cold Sunday morning, 27 LFRs made it to Wootton to finish the season in style! We had the best turn out we’ve ever had this season resulting in the Ladies team finish 6th, the Mens team 8th, with an overall team position of 7th. The best ever for LFR! Well done everyone who took part this season. We could not have done it without you. We even had a trophy with Chris winning her age category. Fantastic efforts, Chris. A big thank you to the support team of Claire, Max, Tracy and Steph who made it race by race to cheer everyone through the mud. Another thank you to Will for all the great photos of each event. These are on our Facebook Group under Albums. For the last two seasons, LFR have been hosting the league which means we were in charge of organising everything: the numbers, scoring, dealing with all the clubs, all the runners….everything. And the website – thanks to Chair Rob for being our Web Magician. Jane is our XC Coordinator and a massive thank you and well done goes to her for all the hard work she has put in the last two seasons. It is not an easy job. And a thank you to Tam who helped Jane with the huge amount of work that went into making the season another success. The hosting duties now pass to another club for the 2019/20 season. We just need to run! What a fantastic end to cold week where we had a new club run doing loops round Appenine Way; Emily running herself a 9 second PB at Wendover Woods parkrun (after running her longest run to date the previous day!); Jason, Gill, Jane, Kirsty, Clare and Julie becoming Vikings for the day at the Viking 5K in Milton Keynes; James in Warsaw; Emma spending a day at the movies running another marathon; Glyn Wainwright bagging; Mike flying the LFR multisport flag at the Ashridge Duathlon; Michelle, Chris, Dawn, Barbara, Paul L, Elle and Adam all completing the first of the Gade Valley Training Runs; and Andy winning photo of the week with this work of art: And on top of that we had runners out on all their long and short training runs in the cold, in the sun and even some hail. What a week! Happy Running, LFR!
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This is the week that was…
Our pace groups returned on Tuesday with everyone enjoying their runs about the town and Ian’s headtorch run through the woods. Shout out to Gavin’s 09.30 min/mile group creating a chicken map on their run… Pace group leaders – I challenge you to beat this at the club’s next group night (Tuesday 29th January). The excitement is too much. Janice was leading the Fartlek Fun on Wednesday, James took the Improvers up “The Hill of Pleasure” (Eden Way) on Thursday and Peter led a social trail run with the boys on Friday followed by some amazing coffee and cake. A big thank you as usual to all our pace group leaders and run leaders during the week. We are always looking for more run leaders, so if you’d like to lead a pace group, be in charge of Wednesday’s Whistle of Pain, help improve the Improvers or fancy showing the Friday morning gang one of your social routes, let the Captain or Vice-Captain know! On parkrun day we had members running at Milton Keynes, Houghton Hall, Kingsbury Water, Buckingham, Tring, Exmouth, Wendover and Len still flying the LFR flag in Canada at the Richmond Olympic parkrun. At home in Rushmere we had a massive 28 LFRs running round with Doug, Richard and Katharine bagging themselves PBs! There was racing aplenty at the weekend, even in the cold and ice..... Fiona, Celia and Sally made their way to the Beautiful Stowe Winter Trail 6K. 07.30am. -3. Wow. Claire, Jane and Nikki were taking on the cold and the hills at the Fred Hughes 10 Mile Race. The biggest LFR event of the weekend was of course our Watchless 5! For anyone who doesn’t know by now, you predict what time you'll run 5 miles and the winner is the closest to finish at 11.30am. No watches allowed! Our winner was the amazing Katy who came in at 11.29.30! 30 seconds quicker than predicted! Superb. A massive well done to all who took part – we had a fantastic turnout. You can view the full results (together with the results from previous years) on our website here: Watchless 5 Results. A HUGE thank you to our Captain Dan for organising and the volunteers for giving up their Sunday morning to stand in the cold. It was bitter! And finally….the ultra runners were at it again on Sunday running 30 miles around the Surrey Hills in the cold, but getting some incredible views. JK, Verity and Ian took on the LDWA Winter Tanners with just under 4,000 feet of ascent. JK was suffering with a sore ankle, but Ian and Verity were his nurses for the day. They always stick together. That view. Isn’t it ridiculous. That’s all for this week. Happy Running, LFR!
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This is the week that was…
...still 2019 and our first full week of club runs following the festive period. We had a huge turnout for our first 5caKe night of the year with some great runs and happy runners. Shout out to Claire who ran her first sub 40-minute 5K! Karen led the first Fartlek of the year, Captain Dan put on a taster session of all things Improvers on Thursday and Karen was back leading again for the Friday morning run. On parkrun day we had LFR parkrun tourists everywhere at Bedford, Milton Keynes, Northampton (where Chris and Dave were made famous on Facebook!), Linford Wood (where David ran a new PB!), Houghton Hall (where Adam feeling good ran a parkrun PB and Coach Matt was 2nd overall and 1st in his age category!), Kingsbury Water, Fulham Palace, Maidenhead, Exmouth, Great Denham, Jersey Farm and all the way over in Canada, Len at Richmond Olympic! Phew....I think that's it! At home in Rushmere, Andrew, Jamie and Jim all finished in the top 10 in 2nd, 4th and 9th respectively. Captain Dan ran a Bear in the Buggy PB and Matthew and Richard also ran themselves PBs. Great work, fellas! All weekend we had runners out doing their thing from Laura running solo loops at Astral Park getting a 5K PB to the trail kings, JK and Ian, meeting the Gruffalo out on their Saturday run around Wendover Woods - 1300ft of ascent over 9.7 miles. They do love their hills! The week ended with Race 4 of the Three Counties Cross Country League at Ampthill. We had 29 runners. The Ladies finishing 6th in the league, the men in at 9th and overall we're 7th! Excellent! Massive thank you to the organising team (for the whole league I should add) of Tam, Tracy, Steph and Max (and Jane - even though she had to miss this week, she's still the XC Champion!) The final race of the league is on Sunday 27th January at Wootton. If you'd like to join in the horde of LFR running the final race, it's not too late to join in....email Jane with your date of birth and she'll get you registered so you can run! And a huge well done to all our runners on what looked a really tough course. Check out these faces of pain... That's all for this week. Happy Running, LFR!
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This is the week that was…
2019! New Year's Day began with a parkrun at Rushmere. Jim was completing his 250th parkrun - he's been running at parkrun since 2012. 250 parkruns in that time - incredible. Also celebrating at NYD parkrun was Keith who was volunteering for the 50th time. We even had some NYD PB's from Nic and former LFR Grace. Great running, guys! New Year's Day also saw Karen lead her annual run around Ashridge - a windy, but wonderful run. A big well done to all those that did both parkrun and the club run (including Karen herself!) and all those who did the parkrun double! By Wednesday we were club runs as normal with Vicky leading the first Fartlek of 2019. Captain Dan put on another Beep Test on Thursday to test runners' fitness at the start of the year. He'll be putting another test at a future date to test again and you can measure your progress over time. JK ended the week leading a beautiful trail run around the woods in Rushmere. On parkrun day we had runners at Milton Keynes, Linford Wood, Houghton Hall, Kingsbury Water, Exmouth, Wendover Woods and Rushmere. At a busy Rushmere, Gavin was running his 50th parkrun, Sam was 2nd lady, Emily and Nicki both ran a new PB, Samantha was also running her 50th parkrun (thanks for the cake!), and Chrissy was running her first ever parkrun - she loved it! I'm certain she will be back for more. Saturday saw the return of the County Cross Country Championship where Team LFR had some fantastic results: 1st V70 Paul Thomas3rd V40 Dan Green3rd V50 Andrew Heale2nd V50 Janice Lamont1st V65 Christine Ayers2nd Vet Men Team Great work runners! Also racing at the weekend was Nolan at the Victoria Park Half Marathon running a fantastic 6 minute PB and his first sub 1:50 half marathon. Well done, Nolan! All week and weekend, LFRs have been out on their training runs and ride. Great work for the first week of 2019. It has been a great start to the year! Happy New Year, LFR!
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This is the week that was…
...Christmas! We swapped our usual club runs for the Christmas week with various runs out and about. On Christmas Eve, Ian and Jen took two groups out for a trail run starting from Little Gaddesdon. A beautiful day for a run followed by a drink in the pub to set us up for Christmas Day. We even saw Ronnie Wood popping to the shop for his Christmas snacks! Christmas Day arrived which didn't stop some of us from getting runs in. Sparky was out running in Bristol. Emily got in a Christmas Day parkrun at Aylesbury running a 35 second PB getting under 25 minutes. David and his brother-in-law were also parkrunning in Exeter and he also ran a 5K PB! And Tam, Tracy and Carrie made their way to Linford Wood parkrun for their Christmas Day parkrun fix. Boxing Day we had Tam's annual 10K trail run. No one lost any shoes this year! Also on Boxing Day we had an LFR visitor back for a run - Gordon! He went out with Michelle, Louise and Sera for a 4 mile trail run from Tiddenfoot. Captain Dan put on some intervals in the park on Friday to help us burn off the Christmas pudding. Hard work, but worth it! Also on Friday Rob, Paul and Ian took part in a Christmas handicap race in Mursley. Paul bagged himself a podium finish and Rob ran the fastest time on the day. Ian was just happy to finish. An event to look out for next year...following the run, there was a mobility scooter race.... Saturday saw the cycling division head out for a Christmas themed Wrong Ride. Another great day on the bikes with baskets full of twinkly lights, tinsel and Christmas jumpers galore! On parkrun day we had LFRs at Milton Keynes, Markeaton, Linford Wood, Houghton Hall - where Smiffy popped is parkrun cherry, Aylesbury, Edinburgh, the Sugars were at Kesgrave - where Julie was 3rd overall and 1st in he age group, Tring, Salisbury, Exmouth and of course Rushmere. Speaking of parkrun - Jim will be running his 250th parkrun on New Year's Day at Rushmere at the usual parkrun time of 9am. Why not come along to support Jim? There is enough time to both parkrun and get to Ashridge for Karen's run if you fancied both! Glyn spent the festive period doing what he does best - bagging Wainwrights! He got to his 100th this week! Well done Glyn. Still more to come....! Emma was getting her marathon fix running the Phoenix Running Ice Bird Challenge. Emma has completed all four Phoenix Running marathons and was awarded the most amazing bling for doing so! Emma has also been running every day in December. To run a marathon in the middle of it....well done! A huge well done for everyone getting out there this week. It's always tough when the call of Christmas films and chocolate could be too much. Whether you were running, cycling or swimming, a huge well done for your efforts! A big shout out to everyone for another awesome year of LFR madness. Congratulations and kudos to all those who have achieved their goals whether it was to run 100 miles, 600 miles, 874 miles (Michelle!) or 1000 miles. However far you've run, whatever you have achieved for yourself, you are incredible for getting out there and doing it. Happy New Year, LFR! See you in 2019!
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This is the week that was…
....almost Christmas. The annual LFR Christmas Quiz Run fell on Tuesday...as did the rain. Still 28 runners came out to pair up and head out to answer the questions! We had a tie breaker for the win between Matt and Ash and Dave and Kevin. Matt and Ash came out on top! Coming in last place and getting a wooden spoon and a 2018 LFR Calendar signed by the Captain were Kelly and Laura....I want those prizes. A big thank you to all those who took part and all the organisers and markers. Another great quiz run! Mistress Janice was in charge of the Festive Fartlek on Wednesday with the runners showing us all how we should be dressed in the dark. Just check out their awesome reflective gear. Andy led the Improvers for some hill reps on Thursday where he rewarded everyone with mulled wine and mince pies. And Alan was leading the Friday Morning Run, finishing off with a cuppa in the Picture House. On parkrun day, we had runners at Milton Keynes, Linford Wood, Houghton Hall, Exmouth and a massive 35 LFRs at Rushmere. At Rushmere: Chris ran himself a brilliant 40 second parkrun PB; Paul was running his 50th parkrun; and former LFR Grace returned to Rushmere to run a new Rushmere PB! Out running this weekend was Andrew and family at the nice and muddy Hastings Christmas Pudding Dash.... And that's it for this week! We had lots of runners and riders out in the rain and mud all week and weekend, including these mad four who went out on a sunset mountain bike ride in the rain this evening.... Just look at that mud! Merry Christmas, LFR!
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This is the week that was…
The Captain set us off on a new out and back route on Tuesday taking a tour of Leighton Buzzard and Linslade to see the Christmas lights with the occasional hill thrown in. Sparky was out running again on Tuesday running his furthest yet since coming back - excellent work, Sparks. Running her furthest EVER distance was new member Claire on the out and back - 6.1kms. Great running! Karen took charge of a Ladies Night Fartlek on Wednesday with JK crashing the party. Coach Matt was leading the Improvers to the chippy on Thursday - there was running too - one mile reps and Tom was on fire again getting the Strava record! And Friday we had Karen leading the Friday Morning Gang on a lovely 5 mile run. The weekend ended with our annual Christmas do of course! We had the official Christmas do at The Oliver and Hare. A huge thank you to Max for organising a wonderful meal and sorting us all out. There was also the unofficial Christmas party out for a curry and we all met up at the pub following the meals for the usual LFR shenanigans - no reports this year of drinking the pub out of jager or falling off chairs after one drink. Do you think we've grown up? Can you guess who was at which party from these photos... The Christmas night out didn't stop us from getting out and about at the weekend.... On parkrun day we had runners at Bramhall, Linford Wood, Houghton Hall, Tring, and of course Rushmere. Andrew still managed the top 10...just....following a Friday night of curry and beer. David, also full of curry, ran himself a new PB! Sam came in 2nd lady. Colin was running his 50th parkrun. And Graham was running his 100th parkrun and his 50th at Rushmere! What a great day! Sunday was the Christmas Cross Country at North Herts. Another great turnout from LFR and we're still 7th in the league! Fantastic! Shout outs to Claire, TC, Jane, Tam and Will for all your organisation, support and photos! The next cross country race will be on Sunday 13th January 2019 at Ampthill. If you've not signed up for cross country but want to be a part of either the final two races, email Jane with your full name, date of birth and email address and she will get you signed up. That's all for this week. Happy Running, LFR!
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