Although the conditions appeared to be favourable, many of the harriers' times were down on last year, no doubt due to the slippery leaves and large puddles to be avoided. Given the catalogue of illnesses and injuries which Davy Watt has experienced this year, he did well on the first leg to record a time of 17:51, the fastest M50 of the day and second fastest veteran time overall. Thrown in at the deep end, Andy McCaffery (or maybe we should refer to Andy as Mary's brother given the blog tradition set by George when referring to Julie's sister in an earlier series of posts) arrived with good running credentials and fully deserved his place on leg 2 of the A team. After a very enthusiastic start, Andy eased back and put his local knowledge to good use to record a time of 18:56. Martin Duthie had no traffic problems this year and arrived in plenty of time for leg 3, thereafter recording a time of 18:33. Having spotted a Cambuslang vet take off about a minute before Martin finished, it seemed that we were destined not to win this year. However, a strong 4th leg by Alan Derrick of 17:54 (third fastest vet) seemed to cement second place. It was not until we were announced as winners at the prize giving that we realised that the Cambuslang team was not a vets team, adding Calderglen to only a select few clubs who have retained this trophy.
Karen Sturgeon made her first relay appearance in a Calderglen vest leading the ladies off in a time of 22:58 and enjoyed the close competition on the first leg. Frances Maxwell was only slightly down on last year's time finishing leg 2 in 22:39 (8th fastest vet) and having taken the opportunity to play a joker, jumps into the lead of the Grand Prix. Julie Beveridge took the third leg this week, finding the race a little too short for her liking but still setting our fastest time of 21:18 (10th fastest senior lady) to extend her lead in the club championship.
Scot Hill had been suffering from a cold and like several other Harriers, is doing the vets half marathon on Sunday. Despite this he set a good time of 20:44 to extend his lead of both the Grand Prix and Club Championships.Brian McDougall is making a good return to form (21:07) with Andy Henderson one of several Harriers who had just flown in for this race (from Philidelphia) finishing in 21:00. David Herbertson won the furthest travelled prize, stepping off a plane from Singapore at 12:30 and coming straight to the race to record a great time of 21:18. George Stewart did not travel as far but did demonstrate his ever improving form to record an identical time of 21:18, 1:30 faster than last year. Spookily, George Stewart recorded an identical time to Julie Beveridge for the second week in a row! If its three in a row next week, Julie gets to keep George. Gerry Mullen was also a big improver taking 1:17 off last year to finish in 21:12, completing a very tight grouping of Brian, Andy, David and George. David Wardrope was another improver setting a time of 22:56 (13 seconds faster). Hugh Simpson warmed up with a 23:07 at Strathclyde parkrun this morning and so did well to set a reasonable 24:30 in the relay this afternoon. Russell Couper improved by 22 seconds despite finding the conditions tough, finishing in 25:33 his fastest time since 2005.
Well done to all. The updated Grand Prix results are available using the menus on the left.
Alan
2 comments:
Well done to our A team another fine performance.
Well done to everyone. Some fantastic performances in testing weather conditions.Wish I could have been there with you all.
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