Yesterday was my 1st ever National XC Championships. At the ripe old age of (almost) 60, it’s taken me a bit of time to get there! I thought it might be of interest (particularly to the newer runners and the Tuesday Group), to hear a bit about my experience through a race report. You never know, it might encourage you to try out cross country next year….
Scott (Hair), Craig Ferguson and myself were all 1st timers, so it was good to be able to drive to Falkirk with Jason as this gave us time to ask him some questions we all had about the event – so thanks for the advice Jason!
Having arrived at the parking area and as we walked through to the Callander Park entrance, you are immediately met with a view over the park and the tented village which gives you a feel for the scale of the event. Having ran twice in XC (Cumbernauld National Relays and Linn Park West League), this event was of a scale much larger than I’ve seen before. Scott, Craig and I were all buzzing heading down to take in the atmosphere and to find the Harriers’ tent (not easy!).
Walking down, you can see how much work goes in to staging this national event. … and arriving at our tent it wasn’t lost on us that a few club members put a lot of effort into supporting our ability to race at these events throughout the year. It was an early start for the Buchanan family, who arrived early to put up the club tent, supported by Frances who also helped our neighbours (WestEndRunners I think), one of whom had arrived solo - so he much appreciated Frances’ help with erecting their massive tent! Russell as usual was also around, having collected the numbers and handed them out with his usual dose of humour! Alan, Frances, Kenny and Billy have all experienced recent injury setbacks, but all took the time to come through to Falkirk to support the team; and Lorraine felt not well enough to race - so she also took on the role of lead supporter. Kai’s family, Joyce (McPhillips) Susan (Grant), and of course wee Heidi also all came through to support their family and the wider Harriers team. I’ll probably forget to say this later, so a massive thanks to everyone who came to support the runners and offered words of encouragement throughout the course. Scott, Craig and I all said that it HONESTLY makes a massive difference to hear these words of support, and it gives you a real lift when you are maybe feeling a bit flat. It will be nice to see other club members at future races, either as runners or supporters, particularly as the better weather approaches.
Turning to the race(s), the Championships started with the under 13’s. Charlotte Buchanan was 1st off in her 3.4k race, where she finished 34th (out of 155) in a time of 13:41. Remember these results are for best in Scotland, so Charlotte finished 34th in Scotland under 13 Female. Hamish Anderson finished the boys under 13’s race 33rd out of 116 runners in a time of 13:18. Well done to both for a fantastic race and result.
Next off was the senior women (10K), where Alison Lessells was last woman standing after Frances’ and Lorraine’s late withdrawals. Alison unfortunately seemed to get the worst of the wind of the day, which dropped off considerably by the time the men’s race came around. As the course had changed from last year, it’s difficult to benchmark Alison’s excellent time of 54:11, but she did remark that she was short of race practice this year with the recent race cancellations.
Under 20’s were next (7.6k), with Kai Wheeler finishing 56th in the under 20 Men in a time of 33:23, followed by Rachel McPhillips in the under 20 Women in 36:25 (46th).
Next, it was time for the Senior Men, running the same 10k course as Alison, but in much less windy conditions (thankfully). The course was apparently less hilly than last year, and there were no “Linn Park” type hills to contend with! Thankfully, there has been no “Madman’s Gully” the past few years either.
The course climbed up from the start line, around the top of the course and sweeping back down towards Callander House, past the side / back of the House which led into a long snaking section which eventually takes you through the tented village, sweeping up a short(ish) hill before you have a final downhill section taking you towards the finish line (on the 3rd lap).
There were over 600 men at the start line, and all the Harriers took a (sensible) position towards the back of the field. I had noticed that Jason had ran 49 minutes last year, so my race strategy was to hang onto the back of Jason for as long as I was able. When the gun went off, that distance turned out to be around 100 metres!, before Jason ran off into the sunset, so I settled into my race, as did all the others, in an order which would eventually be the final Harriers order; Andrew, Jason, me, Craig, Scott, Kevin and Russell.
My uneventful race lasted 1K, before I almost face planted in the mud! I landed on the ground, but was lucky that I was being closely followed by “The Tank” (Craig) who scooped me up with one arm and we both continued on without either breaking stride!!
You are then across a bridge into the snaking section of the course where we had Lorraine, Charlotte and Alison all offering encouragement. This was a good part of the course as you could see the field stretch out in front (and behind), and over the 3 laps you could get a good sense of how well you were performing in relation to others. I could see Andrew and Jason in the distance, but could also see Craig, then Scott on my tail. As I had played my 2 Grand Prix jokers, I was determined to stay ahead of the other Harriers, knowing fine well I would never catch Jason who had an eventual 3 minute lead on me.
When you leave the snaking section you come back through the tented village, which was busy with spectators, so this is the place where you need to try to look your best!. It was great to have Alan and Frances on one side, and Jack and Victor (Billy and Kenny) offering words of encouragement as you headed out of the village and up the final hill section.
Being pretty inexperienced when it comes to race strategy, I was keen just to feel my way into the race and to try to maintain a steady pace. This worked out quite successfully, and I was pleased to see my Garmin stats showed my pace only varied between 4.54 and 5.03 per km until 9K, with the final 1KM being a slightly quicker 4.46. I will make the point here that Coach Alan’s training really helped me here, and as Alan had suggested I did have enough left in the tank to give a final effort and I picked off a fair few runners in the final km. So thanks Alan for all the 200m Langlands speed efforts (and for the Lickprivick hills which definitely helped me on the hills sections).
I finished my race in a final time of 49:41, which I was delighted with. I think I only missed 1 Brancumhall session this year, and this has helped with my XC since I joined the Harriers last year. Looking back, my 1stXC progression has seen my average pace improve from 5.13/km (October) to 5.07/km (December) to 4.56/km (yesterday, over 10k). Long may it continue….
The other Harriers all finished as follows: Andrew Buchanan 45:24, Jason Grant 46:44, Craig Ferguson (recovering from a bad virus!) 51:47, Scott Hair 52:42, Kevin McPhillips 53:22 and Russell Couper 1:03:47, with Russell managing to finish in front of runners from Garscube Harriers, Edinburgh AC, Wee County Harriers, West Edinburgh, Dundee Road Runners and Larkhall YMCA Harriers. Well done Russell, and to all our racers yesterday.
Hopefully, this report gives Harriers a useful report on our day yesterday, and gives our new runners and Tuesday group a flavour of what it’s like to race for the Club, or just to come to support.
I’ve not added any photos to this report, but these can all be seen from our Facebook page. Please also take the time to take a look at all Kai’s cracking photos. What a talented guy, and he can run (fast) too!
https://www.facebook.com/share/156WYQ242M/
https://www.instagram.com/kai_wheeler_photography?igsh=MWppZDN3a2hkc3hyYg==
Alan's photos
Iain
