The World Championship of Chatelherault 2018

In the midst of our Scottish Summer (4th June 2018) the annual Chatelherault World Championship took place in blazing sunshine. The event is the only occasion where we run the 7 mile lap of Chatelherault Country Park as a race rather than as a controlled training run. It is something to look forward to and fear in equal measure as a well paced lap can be exhilarating but go too fast early on and it can be a painful experience.

An impressive turnout of 20 Harriers set off en-masse along the narrow riverside trail leading to the first severe climb after only a half mile. To make sure everyone was really enjoying themselves, Eddie Reid had positioned himself at the top of that hill to take photos. Fortunately it was a bit dark under the trees and the photos are a bit blurry so it is difficult to see exactly how much enjoyment is being had!

From there the Harriers were off into the depths of the country park for a good 40-50 minutes of hard effort before they returned to the finish line. Clear winner was Andy Buchanan in an excellent 49:22. Five minutes later, Stephen Phimister crossed the line (54:52). Thereafter the finishers were a lot closer with Martin Howell (56:13), Chris McCarron (56:41), Jim Holmes (56:50), Frances Ferguson (57:24) and Richard Lawton (58:11) all within sight of each other in the final mile or so. Alison Lessells led the next group in, sneaking under the hour (59:57) with Robin Ramsay (60:26) and Billy Buchanan (61:06) following on with his second trail race in two days. Kirsty Wilson had also been racing at the weekend (Alloa Half Marathon) and was just at Chatelherault for a "recovery" run (63:23) but still enough to keep returning to fitness Jim Mearns behind (63:58). Gordon McInally is carrying a persistent injury which this run will not have helped but got round in the clear (66:14) and Russell Couper ran his fastest time for years (69:35). In the best tradition of the Tour de France, the peleton streamed in together and were all classified with the same time despite Lorraine Buchanan leading out the sprint for the line (70:56) over Sharon Gregg, Julie Thomson, Seonaid Cruise, Davie Searil and Geo Ferguson. Meanwhile George Stewart and Morgan Beaton combined a shorter lap of the course with supporting duties.

Well done all for providing a colourful evening of enthusiastic running. Thanks to Eddie for on the course support and photos. All the photos are in an album here.