A fantastic turn out from the Harriers today at Cumbernauld, fielding 1 and 1/3 women's teams and 3 and 3/4 men's teams. The course was in surprisingly good condition considering the recent rain but the sting in the tail today was the wind which was biting cold and gusting strongly, meaning that overall the conditions were a bit tougher than last year.
The ladies were off first and Julie handled her established role on the first leg well, running a time of 18:00 in 34th position in a very competitive field of 88. The experience of Frances Maxwell was called upon on leg 2, pulling us up one place in a time of 19:05, handing on to Joanne McEvoy for the last leg. Joanne has plenty of speed just now but is lacking a little strength and so found the hills a bit tough, finishing in 19:08 in 35th position. As Karen Sturgeon is relatively new to cross country racing, the first leg in the ladies second team seemed a good chance to give her a more conventional race experience with plenty of runners around her. Karen also found the going very tough but has now set a benchmark of 19:28 and is definitely in the mix for first team selection.
As this event was also the National Masters Relay Championships, we fielded 2 mens vets teams, a mixed senior/vet team and an incomplete vets team. Andrew McCaffery was on the first leg for the men's vets A team and once again, in his second race for the club, was the man with the local knowledge, having grown up in Cumbernauld and trained in this park. Andrew ran a very competitive 15:57 in 65th position out of a field of around 130 men's teams. Returning from injury, Eddie Reid was glad to be racing again and really enjoyed leg 2 finishing in 16:46 in 69th position and only 12 seconds down on last year. Martin Duthie was instructed to chase and this he did, bringing us up to 62nd in 15:44, again only slightly slower than last year. At this point we reckoned we were maybe 8th or 9th vets team and so it was going to be a tall order to get in the medals. However Alan Derrick gave chase on the last leg and had a fun run (until the last 1km when it was really painful) passing loads of people to bring us up to 41st position in a time of 14:34, a full 2 seconds quicker than last year but only 7th veteran team this time compared to last year's 4th.
The vets B team was lead off by David Herbertson (just flew in from LA, so he had no problems getting to the race on time this week) in a time of 17:51, which was just enough to pip George Stewart on leg 2 (17:55) and Andy Henderson on leg 4 (17:52). Jim Holmes was not a well man and probably should not have run. This was reflected in his time of 18:04 on leg 3 but completing a very well matched team who are driving each other on to better performances each week.
Continuing the recent Harriers' tradition of forgetting something important just before the start, Stephen Reilly on leg 1 for the C team left his trail shoes in the car and did not have time to go an get them. This meant running the course in trainers, so his time of 16:08 was particularly impressive. David Wardrope ran strongly on leg 2 to finish in 19:24, only 11 seconds down on last year. It is great to see Graham Lindsay making most of the races this season. Graham was on leg 3 completing in 18:45. Colin Banks made his first Grand Prix appearance of this year on leg 4 finishing in 20:10.
This was Hugh Simpson's fist time on this course and only his second cross country. A back twinge early on in leg 1 impeded him a bit but he completed in 20:42. The official times are the one's that count and so both Richard Lawton and Russell Couper on leg's 2 and 3 are shown as beating Hugh! However, we must admit that the official times are 1 minute out and so Richard and Russell's times are in fact 20:14 and 21:15 respectively (so Richard does in fact beat Hugh for the first time).
Shock, horror, George Stewart now leads the men's Grand Prix. Just shows what some consistent training and motivation can do.
Well done to all on great performances in difficult conditions. Thanks to Joanne for the following photos and more especially the Calderglen Harriers decorated cup cakes, the only cups we picked up today! More photos here. Photos from Kenny Phillips have now been added to the album.
Alan
1 comment:
Well done to all, Stephen would have had is shoes, if??? and tell George "I'LL BE BACK"
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