Hugh Wilson Memorial 10k

Eleven Harriers lined up in a field of around 140 for the 21st annual Hugh Wilson Memorial 10k at a foggy John Wright track this afternoon. Although most of the Harriers had been racing at Brampton one week earlier, there were no signs of tiredness with many fine performances.

First Harrier back was Martin Duthie in 9th position and first M40, a prize he has won many times over the past 5 or 6 years. Martin's time was 35:52, around 10 seconds quicker than last year.

Frances Maxwell is showing the

benefit of a few months injury free training and racing and was the only Calderglen woman out today, finishing in an excellent new PB of 43:44 and 3rd veteran woman. This is an improvement of over 1 minute and gives Frances a Gold PB standard to start this season with.

Not that far behind Martin, Alan Cullie was 2nd M40 in 11th position with a time of 36:29, confirming his continuing return to form by running two and a half minutes faster than last year and extending his lead in the Grand Prix and Scratch championships. Eddie Reid did well to record a time of 38:38 off of a minimal warm-up having arrived straight from work 10 minutes before the start. This was an improvement of 16 seconds on last year. Andy Henderson managed to keep his various aches and pains under control to record an excellent time of 40:05. The pressure of being Number One did no harm to Stuart Waugh as he finished first M60 in a time of 40:59. Jim Holmes hasn't had the benefit of club training sessions for a while but has raced himself fit over the past few months. This time he crossed the line in 41:25. Likewise, David Herbertson has not managed many Monday rep sessions recently but is on the way back to form too, recording a time of 42:28. Just over a minute further back, David Wardrope recorded his fastest 10k of this

year by a long way, finishing in 43:38 and a carefully considered double joker takes him up to 2nd place in the Grand Prix. Richard Lawton set a massive new 10k PB (2:06 improvement) of 47:49, giving him a Gold PB standard to add to the bronze PB standard he set for 5k in a recent Glasgow parkrun. For the second week in a row, Russell Couper got himself close to eight and a half minute miles, finishing in 53:10, a huge improvement on his form of only a month ago.

The performance award scheme is proving to be a real motivator and with this being one of the first qualifying races of this season it was good to see many Harriers put a standard performance in the bag. In addition to the PB standards mentioned above, the following performance standards were achieved: M Duthie (M45 Gold), F Maxwell (F45 Bronze), A Cullie (M40 Bronze), E Reid (M45 Bronze), A Henderson (M55 Silver) and S Waugh (M60 Gold).

Well done to all! Next GP race is the West District XC next Saturday.

Alan