Luton
Athletic Club

Luton AC were in action in this Winter’s opening race of the road relay season on Sunday in Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes AC, on behalf of the South of England AAA, at the Open University Walton Hall campus, hosted the race. Conditions were ideal, albeit with a stiff windy on some sections of the courses.

The men’s race was 12 stages of alternating 8 and 5.5 kilometre legs. The women’s was 6 legs of 5.5 Kilometres. For clubs finishing in the top twenty an invitation of entry for the National Championships to be held at Sutton Coldfield at the end of the month. However, a place in the national championships was not really on the cards as both men’s and women’s team were severely hit by injured or unavailable athletes.

In the men’s race the ‘honour’ of the lead leg fell to Luton newcomer Jareck Giviewek. Jareck ran a very strong race to finish in 25.58 and 21^st of the 61 lead off legs. Peter Benedickter took over from Jareck for the first short leg and competed highly commendably. Although dropping down the order to 40^th place Peter ran Luton’s fastest short leg of the day in 20.21. Gareth Suffling proved the star of the men’s team when on the third leg he stormed to a time of 25.44, well over a minute faster than his effort last year, but more significantly raising the team back up to 26^th. It was a welcome return on leg 4 for Jamie Attwood, who had taken a break from athletics for the whole of the winter. Jamie is only recently back in training and struggled in the circumstances finishing his short leg in 23.19 but dropping to 45^th place. Junior James Drinkwater was the next up and performed strongly to lift the team to 39^th, an outstanding effort at this stage of the race as the teams began to get strung out. James finished with a time of 27.34. Another welcome return came on stage 6 when Dan Winfield took to the pavements for his short leg. Dan’s gritty run, finishing in 21.42, lost just 2 places. One of the reliable runners form this winters Chiltern League, Andy Johnson ran the 7^th leg and held station running a time of 30.53. Veteran Richard Hardy was a last minute stand-in on leg 8 and performed admirably, dropping only 5 places and finishing in a time of 23.31. However, Luton still had some class runners to come and Matt Linbourne raised the club 7 places and back into the top 40 on leg 9, running 27.31. This was perhaps a little slower than Matt may have expected but he has been on reduced training forced by working commitments. Another veteran, Paul Jacob, took the 10^th and penultimate short leg, dropping 3 places in 21.56. On the final long leg, leg 11, Mark Ellingham raised the club one more place to 41^st in a time of 30.55 and Dan Pocock rounded off the team on leg 12 bringing them home 43^rd, his time being 22.15.

So it was not to be this year that the men qualified for the national finals as they had done last year but they did, at least, complete a team, something that not all clubs could claim.

The women’s team was in jeopardy even before the entry close date. It was only determination from a core of ladies, most of who are not renowned distance runners, that a team was ever entered. In fact, right up until the Saturday before the race there were only 5 runners for the 6 leg race. It was down to Kara Farmer making a last minute commitment to the event that meant a team would be completed. Kara is on her way back running from giving birth to her daughter last September and when rung on Friday to fill the final place was recovering from a stomach upset.

Star performer for the women was Claire Bassill who ran the final leg for the club in 21.22, 64^th fastest of the 186 runners who took part in the event. On the first leg Becky O’Shea had performed very well to finish the course in 26.14. Becky is another of the clubs young mothers easing their way back into racing. Jane Dixon took the 2^nd leg and finished in 31.21, Kara Farmer ran 3^rd in 27.13, Jan Benedickter 32.29 taak the 4^th leg and Jayne Rasmussen the 5^th in 29.22 before handing over the Bassill for the final leg.

It cannot be stressed enough how good this effort was. The spirit and determination of the team was second to none and they deserved to finish the first Luton AC ladies team ever.