National Road Relays - The Frozen Few!

The trend of record entries in recent national championship events seemed to be reversed today with only a very small field lining up for the National Road Relay Championships in Livingston. The clash with the Easter holiday weekend was clearly the very predictable reason for this. It seemed that there were more ladies' teams than men's teams running today, which would also be a first and very encouraging to see.

However, Calderglen fielded only men's teams today; an M50 team of 4 with a strong chance, an M35 team of 6 and an incomplete M35 team of 2. The M50 team was led off by Martin Duthie on the 3.1 mile leg. Despite just coming back from a calf injury and arriving 5 minutes before the start (plenty of time!) Martin had a great run (18:24), bringing the team home in 3rd place and within sight of 2nd place Fife AC, with Cambuslang a little further ahead. Davy Watt had a stunning run on leg 2 (5.8 miles), finishing in 33:47 and pulling the team through to a 150m lead. Andy Henderson had a cold the previous week and perhaps did not need to be put under such pressure on his first race back. Further pressure was added by not being fully stripped off to his shorts when Davy appeared in the home straight! However Andy was moving very well indeed once he got going, despite some rough breathing, slipping down to 2nd place behind Cambuslang in a time of 21:33 . Finally, the oldest member of the team, Charlie McDougall, launched himself enthusiastically into the final 5.8 mile leg and was only overhauled by Fife AC in the final stages to bring the team home an excellent third in this fiercely competitive national championship. Charlie's time was a stunning 36:40. Well done to the M50 team! Disappointingly, national championship medals were given out to the winning M50 team only.

George Stewart led off the M35 team. Despite a 45 minute hill run in Fife the day before, George ran well, finishing in 21:32. He did admit to lacking race sharpness, not having done any road races this season yet but would have been in contention for an M50 team place but for the hill race the day before. Alan Derrick also made his road race debut for 2013 on leg 2. A cold and still tired legs from the Algarve training camp of a week ago took its toll, with a substantial personal worst of 35:47 for the 5.8 miles. However, a few places were gained in the men's race and George had left me plenty of ladies to pass! Richard Lawton is usually injured at this time of year and had never run at Livingston before. He covered leg 3 in a very encouraging 23:48, so next year he gets a shot at the long leg. Gerry Mullen is well into his marathon training and is running very well at the moment as a result. Gerry completed leg 4 in 39:47 and would also have been in contention for an M50 team place. Billy Buchanan had been warned that despite the fact there was snow on parts of the course, he could get away with shorts this week and this he duly did, completing the 3.1 mile leg in 21:30, also laying claim to an M50 team place! Finally, after a long day hanging about in the cold, Jim Holmes was set off in a mass start (of 8 remaining teams) and put in a polished performance (at least I think he said something about a shine), covering the distance in 40:10.

Colin Banks has had a long time off with injury and as this was his first race back, he was given a first leg to help him judge the pace in the incomplete M35 team. Colin said this was just what he needed and was happy with his time of 23:24. Russell Couper got the long leg for the third year in a row (you have to be cruel to be kind) and ran much better than last week, completing the course 8 minutes faster than the Grangemouth 10k in 49:42 despite the course only being 0.4 miles shorter.

Well done to all.
Alan