The Bedford Harriers A.C. hosted Bedford Half Marathon has established itself as a highly popular end of year race, with its capacity of 2000 entrants reached weeks ahead of the closing date. Starting from the village of Wootton, the one lap course incorporates mostly quiet country lanes which undulates in a generally upwards direction until around nine miles before runners are treated with nearly four miles of steady descent, before a sting of a climb to the finish in the final half mile. The race is well known for its excellent organisation and generous memento, which changes each year. This year runners were presented with a rugby shirt. Runners also enjoyed excellent weather conditions, on a cold but dry morning..

Any suggestion that our seven members who took part in the race were winding down for Christmas was blown away when four of them returned with new personal bests. First home was Stuart Hopkins who ended a season dogged with niggling injuries on a real high with a new PB of 1:16:39, earning him sixteenth position overall. Our next three finishers: Mark Hall (1:33.04); Mike Crust (1:46:08) and Rod Goodwin (1:48:44) all netted new PBs. Mike Cahill, John Woodrow and Stewart Fenton completed a successful day for the club - as a team we finished 29th from 52 teams scoring.