IT WAS A FINE DAY FOR A RUN

13 Harriers made their way to Houston for the George Cummings road relay. It was a dry cool and sunny day, just about perfect for running. Missing a few of our ladies who are away to Chester for a marathon we still had four ladies running.
Our complete ladies team was led off by Kay Conneff who had a good first leg chasing Richard Lawton round the course to hand over to Sandy Hayden in a time of 18.27 and in 20th place. Sandy took up the challenge to try to keep that position and after some good training in the last couple of weeks she didn't disappoint only dropping 2 places in a time of 21.07. Alison lessells had the responsibility of the anchor leg with the teams now starting to spread out and continued on recent improvements running 19.00 and bringing the team back to 20th place in a high quality field.
Allison Johnstone was in a mixed incomplete team with Russell Couper with Russell running the first leg in a seven year best time of 21.03 handing over to Allison doing her first run here and with the second half of the race being tougher managed great pace judgement to finish in 23.52.
Our mens A team were led off by Mark Saez who has enjoyed some injury free running lately and it shows bringing the team at the end of the leg to 36th place in 15.27 handing over to Jim Holmes who is very experienced round this course and pacing it to a fine 18.07 and 46th place. Charlie McDougall took up the reins for the third leg and after just entering a new age category has been rejuvenated running a great time of 19.24 for 50th place and handing over to Davie Watt. Davie had his work cut out with 49 teams to catch. Well he made a great attempt catching 10 places in a time of 15.17 our fastest of the day and a 40th position for the team and 6th masters team. Our B team was led of by Richard Lawton and having now done this race a few times knew exactly how to run the first leg and not get caught up with too fast an early pace and it paid dividends with a 28 sec course best in 18.09 handing over in 58th place to Alan Cullie. Alan still getting back to race fitness found this tough but still ran a great time of 18.38 picking up two places to 56th. Jim Mearns ran the third leg and a somewhat shorter race than Jim has been doing lately but handled it well to finish in 18.40 and maintaining position. Anchor leg fell to Gordon McInally who has been a bit out of sorts for a while now but still manages to pull it together reasonably well in races. Gordon ran 20.38 to bring the team home in 52nd place and 10th masters team. Jim and Richard managed to smell out the free soup they were handing out at the Fox & Hounds after the race and quickly scoffed the lot. They never miss a freebie. Thanks to Martin Howell and Marion Oconner for coming out to support it was greatly appreciated by all.