Four of our ladies were in action and the first team of Julie Beveridge, Joanne McEvoy and Karen Allen finished an excellent 19th out of a record field of 60 complete teams. Julie set off tracking her sister Louise for the entire lap to finish in 17:37 and handing over to Joanne in 23rd place. Joanne had a good run, making up a further place in 18:49. Finally, Karen stormed round in 17:43, around 1:45 faster than last year and bringing the team to 19th. Frances Maxwell had a solo run in the second team and enjoyed the nicer than usual conditions to finish in 18:54, meaning that all of our ladies improved on last year's times.
The men fielded a two and a quarter vets teams (M35+) and M50 team and a mixed senior/vets team. The vets A team was led off by Martin Duthie, just back from a holiday in Hawaii, so perhaps the good weather at Cumbernauld was not quite as good as he had become used to in recent weeks! Martin finished in 15:47 (only 3 seconds down on last year) to hand over to local "boy" Andrew McCaffery who made his cross country debut at this event last year. Andrew joined the Russell Couper school of pb's by improving by 3 seconds on last year, finishing in 15:54. Eddie Reid is still on the comeback trail after a quiet year of racing and was pleased to get back into hard racing action, finishing in 16:51, only 5 seconds down on last year. I then took off rather nervously on the last leg, nursing a doctor's surgery worth of injuries and illnesses but in need of a race. After a cautious start I was starting to fly past people a mile in but then I was struck down by an injury not on my pre-race list when my right hamstring twinged and then locked up completely, bringing me to a halt and immediate withdrawal from the race. Very embarrassing having just flown past various runners who now left me standing stationary! Scotland selection jinxed me again. Two weeks to get over that injury (and the others).
For the first time there was an M50 team category over 3 legs and with a national medal for the winning team. We have a lot of depth in the M50+ category and in this case deployed Kenny Leinster on the first leg (18:03), handing over to Andy Henderson who had a great run in 17:45 before handing over to Stuart Waugh who brought us home in 8th place in 18:59.
Our mixed team was given a great start by a very unwell Jim Holmes who nevertheless took 30 seconds out of last year's time to finish in 17:29. David "The Man of Many Jackets" Herbertson was next up and relatively jet lag free judging by his time of 17:31, also a significant improvement on last year. George Stewart did not continue the trend of improvement but did lay claim to a place in the M50 team recording 18:31. Finally, Stephen Reilly lowered the average age and average time of the team considerably to finish in 16:02.
Another team of vets was led off by David Wardrope who set a time of 20:27, reflecting heavily interrupted training recently. However Richard Lawton on leg 2 is in good cross country form and set a course best of 19:36, a 40 second improvement on last year. John McBride made his cross country debut (not an easy course to start on) and finished in 20:13, handing over to Chas Steven who had a solo run around to finish in a good 22:21. First to finish though, was Russell Couper who had a team all to himself but struggled with fatigue after very little sleep to finish in 23:11.
A great team effort on the course and an even greater team effort from all those who helped set up and pack away the fantastic, new club tent which kept the cold wind off us all.
Well done to all. A whole load more photos courtesy of Frances are here.
Alan
Note that the above times have reverted to our own, self-recorded times except in those cases where our own time was missing. This is because, on closer inspection, the official times contain a catalogue of errors affecting just about every one of us and cannot really be trusted.
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