Nine Harriers made the short journey through to Baillieston today for the 46th annual Allan Scally Road Relay. This week presented a significant step up in distance compared to the first four relays of the season, each leg covering 4.8 miles of an undulating and complicated route around the residential streets of Mount Vernon. Conditions were fine and mild for the time of year, certainly much better than last year's stormy weather.
Andy Buchanan guaranteed a performance by taking a lift to the race today and was well rewarded with an impressive 10th position on the first leg, finishing in 27:15. Also on first leg duty and leading our vets team off was Alan Derrick who had a bit of a struggle from start to finish, dropping 30 seconds on last year to finish in 18th, just behind the leading Shettleston vets team in a time of 28:57. Russell Couper made a slight improvement on last year on the first leg for our incomplete 3rd team, finishing in 45:06.
Martin Howell had not run here before and his exploratory run around the leafy streets resulted in an impressive 31:41 on the A team second leg. Eddie Reid has not had many races recently and had a hard task on the second leg for the vets team, trying to pass the leading Shettleston vets team and whilst also trying to catch Martin who was about 1:45 up the road in front of him. In the end, Shettleston's 2nd leg runner opened the gap and caught Martin whilst Eddie ran an almost identical time to Martin, finishing in a painful 31:44. This meant that the A team still had a 1:45 or so lead over the vets team when Colin Banks took off on leg 3 with Jim Holmes chasing for the vets team. This time Jim managed to catch and comfortably pass Colin but slipped a place down in the vets race. Colin finished in 37:48 with Jim running a strong 32:37, a good 23 seconds faster than last year. Finally, David Herbertson headed off for the vets team, making up several places and pulling the team back into second place vets team with a strong 32:45 culminating in the fastest sprint finish of the day. Hugh Simpson set off for the A team and was fully recovered from last weekend's illness having one of his best races for a long while, covering the lap in a lonely 37:30.
So no team prizes this year but the club continues to excel at raffles, with Jim Homes winning the top prize, a unique bottle of Allan Scally Memorial "Islay Mist" whisky; very appropriate given the Harriers' and Jim's connection to Islay!
Once again the field was down in this famous old race. The expressions on the faces of the Harriers as they cross the line confirm that this is a hard race and really that is what the relay season is all about, putting yourself on the line and learning how hard you can push yourself so that your next race can be even closer to the limit. I get the impression that not many people want to do that nowadays so I am glad to see that Calderglen Harriers are still a club with a significant number of members who are out and out racers who do push their personal limits.
A huge thanks to Frances for bringing the tent through and orchestrating its installation before launching into full supporter and photographer role.
More of my photos here and Frances' photos to follow.
Alan
No comments:
Post a Comment