Masters XC - Forres

Photo courtesy of Danielle Glendinning on Facebook

For once a "clean" cross country! Three Harriers made the long journey north for the Scottish Athletics Masters Cross Country Championships in Forres on Saturday. Russell Couper and Stuart & Maud Waugh made their way up on Friday and stayed locally overnight. I was delayed in Sweden with work and didn't get home until 10:15 on Friday night and so my options were reduced to a leisurely drive up on race day. The scenery was at its winter best on the way up the A9 with the snow-capped Cairngorm mountains particularly spectacular. A snow covered B road over the moors provided my final challenge before dropping down into a beautiful, sunny day in a snowless Forres.

Russell had already picked up the numbers and with a few hours until the race there was plenty time to run a complete lap of the course to try to get the legs and lungs working. To my surprise, the first 1.5 km on grass was firm under foot and completely mud free before climbing onto a network of woodland trails very much like Chatelherault. I even managed to keep my road shoes completely clean during the warm-up, the course was that good. So no excuses there!

The ladies and M65 plus race was off first over a distance of 6km (a partial lap within the park and then the full, woodland lap). A very competitive race ensued, eventually won by Edel Mooney of Lothian, winner of our trail race last year. Then it was time for our race, two full laps totaling 8km. The flat grassy start promised a crazy initial pace. However, when the start gun went, I couldn't go with it anyway, crazy or not, there being no power or spring in the legs and I was going backwards. Last week I had plenty of power in the legs but just lacked fitness; this week I lacked everything! However, it was one year ago at this event that I allegedly suffered a defeat at the hands of Russell on account of a technicality so I had to keep going to the finish this year. It wasn't until the final quarter of the race that I was able to pick up some pace and pass some people, managing to open up gaps on those who had been around me throughout, even managing a sort of sprint finish to make up a further place on the line. I finished in 32:19 in 49th position (12th M45), somewhat disappointing given my overall top ten finish 2 years ago. Stuart ran well and could have been even better had he gone for trail shoes rather than fell shoes; the course really was firm.  In a very competitive M60 field, Stuart was 6th in a time of 37:14. Russell would have preferred mud but even so was comfortably ahead of the Hunters Bog Trotters duo in 46:14, who then proceeded to congratulate him on running well for a 55 year old! You never know if Robin Thomas is serious or not.

There were plenty of supporters around the course which was so professionally set out and marshalled by Forres Harriers. We were also pleasantly surprised and delighted to hear the very vocal support of former Harrier Neil Green who moved up to Inverness about a year ago. Neil passes on his regards to all the Harriers and it is great to know that he keeps an eye on our activities via the blog. A big thanks to Maud and Neil for their support on a cold day. The event will be back here in a few years and I would thoroughly recommend this as a potential Harriers weekend away. If you need further tempting, check out the local catering facilities!

Alan