Gala Back in the Running
December 14th, 2002After a disappointing start to the first race in the Eastern Borders Winter Cross- Country Series, Gala Harriers got back to winning ways in Round 2.
On a very wet and ‘driech’ day down at the seaside, 68 hardy souls lined up at the start of the Cocklawburn Beach XC race, hosted by Berwick Harriers. The sand dunes and beach always make for a tough, energy-sapping race but Neil Aitchison made light work of the conditions to finish an excellent 4th, by just holding off a determined challenge from Lauderdale’s George Runciman.
Jack Knox still beats good athletes half his age and was in good form to claim 7th spot, with Alistair Laurie completing the third counting team member for Gala, finishing 12th and giving the harriers a 23 points winning total over Lauderdale (2nd) and Norham (3rd). Alistair was followed in by the rapidly improving Dave Nightingale (14th), who just nipped past Martin Clarke (15th) on the line to also claim first spot in the MV45 section of the race.
Other harriers running on the day were; Rob McCrirrick (17th), Graham Capper (19th), Robin Murray (22nd), Paul Morris (28th), Laura Howie (34th) also 1st Lady Vet and David Hunter (50th).
In the junior section Gary Alexander continued to impress by finishing 2nd overall and first in his age category, with Kirsty Thomson (16th) and third in her age category and Amy Capper (32nd) and third in her age category making up the other junior Gala runners.
On Saturday Selkirk’s Steven Laurie competed for the East District team in the Reebok Inter-District Cross-Country Championships, held at Holyrood Park in Edinburgh. Despite feeling less than 100% fit after recovering from a tummy bug, Steven still ran well in a top class field. Suzanne Carson was also supposed to compete for the East District but delays in her BA flight from Johannesburg meant that she missed the race.
