Wild and Windy in Cumbernauld

The weather had to break eventually and you could bet it would happen at Cumbernauld. The club tent was a necessity here despite the fact it was in danger of taking off in the blustery conditions. The club were well represented by an M50 team of 3, and M40 team of 4, a mixed team and Russell on a solo leg. The team with the strongest chance of a medal was our M50 team. Martin Duthie was our fastest runner of the day and took the team out to 6th M50 team on the first leg in a fine 16:03. Andrew McCaffery got the worst of the weather on leg 2 as the rain joined the 20 mph winds and the field became more spread out. All the same, Andrew ran a very competitive time of 16:26. Eddie Reid certainly did not have this weather on holiday in Spain the other week and, in his first short race for a while, kept the team in a fine 8th place with a time of 17:19.

Our next team was entered in the M40 category run over 4 legs. Andy Henderson was out on the first leg despite being several age categories beyond M40 and in his first race since a hamstring injury, he ran a cautious 18:23. Jim Holmes has been well raced recently and is coming into good form, finishing in 18:02. David Herbertson is just back from India, so could be excused for not being totally fresh for this one. However, David reverted to his old habit of tying with someone else in the club, finishing in exactly the same time as Andy Henderson, 18:23. Finally, Alan Derrick continued his attempted come back to form on a relatively lonely final leg in 16:24.

Andy Buchanan was on first leg for the mixed team and would have had a really competitive run in this strong field. Unfortunately, the mysteries of Cumbernauld's road network defeated him and he never quite made it to the course. Nevertheless, everyone shuffled up one place and got a run. After the race we found out that Grand Prix leader Hugh Simpson had actually been sick for 4 days and this explains why he was walking up some of the steeper hills, finishing in 21:46. Definitely not his usual self but taking the lead in the Grand Prix none the less. Richard Lawton was trialling new trail shoes which seemed to work well for him, finishing in 19:48. Jim Mearns was using this as a training run prior to a significantly tougher ultra next weekend and was a welcome addition to the team at the last minute, grabbing some useful Grand Prix points to finish in 19:42. Russell Couper had a solo first leg and admitted to really struggling having come off night shift. Russell finished in 25:03 which was considerably faster than last year.

A tough day on a great cross country course. To add another positive to the experience, the course was about 0.1 miles (40 to 60 seconds) longer than last year, there being an extra excursion down into a muddy corner compared to last year (the GPS does not lie) where we cut straight across the corner. So everyone need not be so disappointed to be down on last year.

Some more photos here (not a day for taking photos really). Our juniors were also in action and you can read a report on their performances here.
Alan