Twelve Harriers plus supporters descended on Baillieston's tented village on Saturday afternoon for the annual Allan Scally Road Relay. Disappointingly, the field in this once blue ribband event on the Scottish winter racing season continued its recent decreasing trend with perhaps only around 30 teams lining up on the leafy start line. Despite the small field, there were however a relatively high percentage of Olympic athletes present, with Eilish McColgan on duty for Dundee Hawkhill. Irrespective, the Harriers continue to support this event, especially as the new course provides an interesting and safe challenge to the runners both male and female and an ideal race in terms of distance and surface 2 weeks ahead of our Brampton assault. The new club tent was resplendent in the Autumn sunshine and provided a comfortable base and good publicity for the club.
Frances Maxwell was our only lady competing today but this would help even out the already close Grand Prix and Scratch championships. With such a small field, even the first leg was a lonely place to be and Frances came in relatively isolated in a time of 34:05 for the 4.8 mile leg. A good warm-up for the South Side Six, 16 mile race the following day!
The vets A team were mostly quite evenly matched on paper and it was going to be interesting to see how the times compared on this longest race of the season so far. David Herbertson took on the first leg and ran strongly, maintaining very good form to the finish in a time of 31:23, 2 seconds faster than last year. However, Stephen Reilly was leading out the B team and arrived back first in a time of 29:38, giving Stephen the happy situation of leading both the Grand Prix and the Scratch Championships. John McBride had his first time on the first leg of a relay and the first time at this event. However, John did not get the usual first leg advantage due to the lack of teams, so it was still very much a solo effort to finish in 35:31.
Leg 2 for the Vets team was assigned to Andy Henderson, who was trying to close an almost 2 minute deficit to our B team. Andy finished in 31:52. However Stuart Waugh is an optimal road runner rather than cross country and so improved on last weeks situation by finishing only seconds down on Andy in 32:04. A not well Russell Couper had what he described as his worst run ever to finish in 43:11.
On Leg 3, Eddie Reid still had a job to do to close the still close to 2 minute gap to George Stewart. Afterwards, George commented that all the young guys were flying past him and by the finish line, it was clear that one of them was Eddie, who overturned the deficit to finish in 30:34, also 2 seconds faster than last year, compared to George's 34:10. Hugh Simpson was returning from illness and looked to be back to his usual self, finishing in a well paced 36:59.
Jim Holmes was on the last leg and felt he had a good run but was disappointed with his time of 32:22, which was around 40 seconds down on last year. David Wardrope still has a lingering, heavy cold and the resulting missed training is having some impact. David finished in 35:04, but only around 15 seconds down on last year.
In the final results, the Vets A team were 4th vets team, this being quite a competitive category in the small field.
Thanks to all our supporters for their presence on a cold afternoon and for the team effort setting up and packing away the club tent. Further photos of everyone
here.
