West XC League Race 3 - Bellahouston Park

The final race in the West XC League took place in Bellahouston Park on Saturday afternoon. Although there were only a relatively small number of Harriers running, we were represented across a wide range of age groups from under 11 to masters. The course was mainly quite firm under foot thanks to the relatively mild conditions, with only the racing line on some of the corners turning a bit muddy by the end of the senior/masters race. The seniors/masters competed over 8km, comprising 1 small lap and 3 large laps of the quite flat and fast course.

The league is purely a team event with no individual rankings or prizes. The great thing about this league format is that every Harrier who turns out for the club makes a difference to the team position, either as a counter for one of our teams or by generating penalty points for incomplete teams fielded by other clubs. Following the excellent performance of our teams at race 2 in Kilmarnock, our slight lack of numbers in some teams in this final race did count against us. However, we did do well in the senior ladies event, despite being one runner short of a complete team of 4. Karen Allen, Alison Lessells and Julia Petchlof were our three competitors, completing the 8km course in 10th, 18th and 23rd position. Unfortunately being one runner short incurred a 37 point penalty which pushed us down to a still impressive 4th position behind Ayr Seaforth AC, Victoria Park-Glasgow and Cambuslang Harriers. One more senior lady may well have given us second or third place.

Although Frances Ferguson was our lone masters runner in the ladies race, adding Frances to the 4 senior ladies gave us a complete combined senior/masters team of 4 which finished in 6th position in the combined ladies competition (14th, 27th, 30th and 34th) with no penalty points. In the masters competition (teams of 3), with only Frances running, we accumulated 2 sets of penalty points for the 2 missing runners and finished 9th team (10th position for Frances plus 56 penalty points).

For the men, our masters team (teams of 3) was complete with Davie Watt, Gerry Connelly and Gordon McInally combining to a total team score of 68 (10th, 14th and 44th) and 6th position behind EKAC, Cambuslang, Shettleston, Bellahouston RR and Ayr Seaforth. Russell Couper was our 4th masters runner and by competing for the club, contributed 1 extra penalty point per missing runner in each of our competitors' teams. Martin Howell did well to even be here today but was struggling and dropped out half way through.

Andrew Buchanan and Jason Grant were our only senior men competing and consequently the team was incomplete (4 for a team) and accumulated 120 penalty points. However Andy and Jason's 36th and 43rd positions combined with the penalties placed us 12th senior male team. In the combined senior/masters men competition (4 per team) we finished 10th (Davie 39th, Gerry 53rd, Andy 55th and Jason 81st) with no penalty points.

Our juniors were racing in the U11 boys (Callum Lloyd), U13 girls (Zoe Hutton and Holly Lloyd) and U17 (Emma Hutton) categories and gave their absolute all around a very good course for juniors. As we had two in the U13 girls class, we were only one short of a complete team and finished 13th team in a very competitive field of 56. Well done to all our juniors.

Although the West XC League is finished for this year, hopefully our results at Bellahouston and Kilmarnock have demonstrated that we can be competitive at this true team event but we do need to absolutely flood the field with Harriers to be in with a chance in the league tables and we should certainly target the 3 events that make up the league next year.

The event also incorporated the Lanarkshire XC championships but I have not seen the Lanarkshire category results yet.

Following the race, Karen and Jason continued their marathon training with an easy run back to Cambuslang, a very useful double session for the day!

Some photos from the senior/masters races in this album.

Alan