West District XC Relay Medallists

Driech conditions seem to be suiting the Harriers' veteran men as for the second week in a row we ran in the rain into the medals. With an almost complete change in personnel from last week's team, Scot Hill, Alan Derrick, Jim Holmes and Andy Henderson, club stalwarts one and all, secured the masters bronze medal in the West District Cross Country Relay Championships at Drumpellier Park, Coatbridge. Once again we had to wait until the prize giving to find out if we had won anything as identifying vets teams in the field was difficult. Indeed most of the team were oblivious to the fact that we were even in with a shout and this probably helped the performances as Jim Holmes for one later stated if he had known he may well have bottled it! Scot Hill ran the first leg in 15:54 handing over to Alan Derrick, chasing a Scotland veteran international team qualifying performance with 14:04 in this the first of two trials for the team, a presumably totally relaxed Jim Holmes on leg 3 (16:02) and Andy Henderson on the last leg drawing on his vast experience of this course since his school days(!) bringing the team home in 16:27. I believe this is the first (masters) team medal the Harriers have won at a West District championships (and possibly the second ever team medal, see Chas' and my comments to this post) .

Scot Hill, Andy Henderson, Jim Holmes, Alan Derrick
and race convener Jim Young

Our ladies reverted to the McEvoy/Beveridge/Maxwell line up and again proved to be a very consistent and well matched team. Joanne shed her pink wellies for leg 1 (17:40) before handing on to Julie who had the added pressure of trying not to tie with George for the third week in a row. Clearly there were two ways Julie could handle this, either go for an absolute flier so far out of sight that George would not stand a chance or take a stroll in the park and capitulate. Julie's time was 17:01.......... Frances ran powerfully and pulled in several places with a time of 17:55, her fastest ever 4k cross country time on any course. Well done to the ladies on another fine team performance.

Our second team was led off by our youngest senior member, Stephen Reilly who ran strongly in his first race for a while (15:25) to remain at the top of the Hill/Reilly household. On leg 2 David Herbertson had journey of the day for the second week in a row, following last Saturday's flight in from Singapore to arrive just before the race, this time he had a car break down on the way to Coatbridge from East Kilbride, requiring a phone call to Mrs H and the kids to come and pick him up and bring him to the race just after the start! After all that, David ran without a watch and so no time yet. The logical solution is that David should fly in from Singapore next week too if he wants to get to the race on time. George Stewart was on leg three and feeling the pressure, so much so that only when he took his jacket off to run his leg did he realise he had left his number in the car with no chance of getting it before David came in! Some very understanding stewards allowed George to run without a number and this he did to complete in a great time of  16:48, so Julie's plan seems to have worked. Graham Lindsay had a rare chance to run a cross country and again performed well to finish leg 4 in 17:15.

Ian Rae led off the third team and proved the team selectors wrong running a very competitive 16:30, handing over to David Wardrope (18:02). Watchless Hugh Simpson did his first ever cross country race (what a muddy introduction) on leg 3 before handing over to Russell Couper, who despite carrying a knee injury, finished very strongly indeed in a time of 20:07. Late addition Richard Lawton ran leg 1 in the incomplete fourth team in a time of 18:57.

Well done to all, it was great to see everyone running very strongly on the finishing hill, proving that our recent strength training has not been wasted. Ladies GP and Scratch championships have been updated. The mens' results await the official times. Thanks to Joanne for providing some photos of the proceedings which are here including a couple more from Frances. Thanks to Eddie and Sandra for supporting us all in rain.
Alan