Mud glorious Mud (or lack of it until this week!!!

I feel sad today as my favourite events have finished for another year, Cross Country is the best thing ever, there’s a run, there’s tea, there’s rolls, there’s cake but most of the amazing team spirit and great fun that LFR bring to each and every race.

We were by far the noisiest team attending the Three Counties Competition even though we were outnumbered by the Athletics Clubs and uber serious runners.

We saw in excess of 25 turnout at each Three Counties race, a dozen at the County Championships and a boat load at Hardwick Xstream.

We didn’t get wet apart from the water crossing at Wellingborough and felt let down by the lack water at Hughendon Park where apparently it dried up months ago! They need to learn to build a Dam like Wellingborough did to make sure it was deep enough. Then quite a few of us took on Hardwick for the first time, where just the five proper river crossings including one where you held a rope to get across, were on the route!

This year we travelled to Dunstable for race 1 and took on Heartbreak Hill from the opposite direction (which totally confused me) and the great disappointment at only seeing 1 burnt out car! What is going on, is the Town becoming more upmarket! On a personal note, I was injured and limped home (nothing gets in the way of XC).

Race 2 took us to a new HQ at Wellingborough but the same old streams and challenging hilly course, but as ever we gave it everything.

Race 3 was the usual pre-Christmas turkey sandwiches and mince pies at Standalone Farm, where we enjoyed more success and from what I recall was a rather dry course littered with LFR’s in santa hats.

We travelled to Hughendon Park for the County Championships on the first Saturday in Jan (with plenty of additional weight under those belts thanks to Christmas). It was dry but great fun cheering everyone on and stuffing down cake.

Ampthill Great Park saw the charge of the LFR brigade taking on the brutal hills and technical woodland areas of race 4 in the Three Counties league, they sure know how to hurt us but they never broke us!

The final race was at Wooton with just the one small hill (twice) and very slippery technical wooded areas (yes I slipped over but never lost a place!) was a fabulous way to finish the league.

Then came Hardwick Xstream, a corker of a local race, plenty of water, a bog, a hill and great views all in one REAL cross country race. It was all worth it for the Horse brass, to see Graham and Fiona cross the line together and Jane (with hat) actually running through mud and water. If you only run one race next year, make it this one.

Thank you to all those clubs for hosting the events this year, we loved nearly every minute of it. If it wasn’t for these people it wouldn’t have even happened

Thanks to Jane and Tam for organising the whole Three Counties League for the 2^nd year running and to Rob for his magic on the website.

Thanks to Max, Claire, Tracy and Steph for looking after us and ensuring we were in the right place at the right time and for counting us back with a smile and a cheer.

Thanks to Will for the evidence of how much pain (Matt) or joy (Celia, Sally, Anna and Lorraine) running actually bring us.

We stand and applaud you all for making the whole thing possible.

I know we do it for fun (and CAKE) but there are always a few bits of bling about to remind us of our achievements:

Three Counties

Chris Ayers 1^st FV65

The Ladies came 6^th Overall which compared to last years 11^th place is just phenominal

The Gents came 8^th Overall which compared to last years 12^th place is just incredible

The overall team rose up from 12^th last year to 8^th this year!

County Championships

Mens Veterans Team were 2^nd (Dan, Steve, Kevin, Andy, Chris, James)

Andy 3^rd MV50

Dan 3^rd MV40

Paul Thomas 1^st MV70

Janice 2^nd FV50

Chris 1^st FV65

It was such a fab season and I hope you’ll all be with us next year (when we may even be hosting a race again) to show once again what a club we are

GO LFR