A relatively small band of Harriers headed south to Irvine Royal Academy for the West District Cross Country Championships, the last Grand Prix race of 2009. It was great to see some of our juniors in action and the most notable Harrier performance of the day came from Craig Ferguson who finished in 11th place in the U13 boys' race. Check the blog for a full report on the rest of our juniors' performances.
Frances Maxwell was once again the solo performer for the Harriers in the ladies 6.6km race and even then Frances was lucky to make the start following some slight blog induced uncertainty on the race start time . Still, the 10 minute panic warm up seemed to do the trick and Frances had a strong run, despite only realising that it was not a 4km race on reaching the 4km point! Frances finished 19th vet in 43rd position overall in a time of 29:44.
The senior men had 3 laps of the course to complete in their 10km race. Despite recent heavy rain, the sandy soil had drained well and there were only a few genuinely soft stretches to tackle. The lap was a variation on last year's course, still incorporating the two hills on each lap which were a stern test for most.
Alan Cullie maintained good form throughout the race, finishing in 71st position in a time of 38:09, extending his lead in the Club Championship. Eddie Reid wasn't quite firing on all cylinders today but managed a constant pace on all laps to bring himself home in 96th position (40:19). Ian Rae is short of regular training but started his comeback with a battling performance to finish in 42:21. Jim Holmes (43:52) had been ahead of Ian in the early stages but perhaps over committed at the start and fell back behind Ian and was unaware of a very fast finishing David Herbertson (44:04). David Wardrope (48:20) is finding the cross country races tough but is having no such problems with the Grand Prix and a further double joker declaration takes David clear in the men's Grand Prix. Chas Steven and Russell Couper had a bit of a tussle on the first half lap but Chas judged the pace better to finish in 51:26 ahead of a hard working Russell (56:54).
Well done to all. Further photos from the senior men's race are here.
Alan
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