Big Chill at the East District Cross-Country Championships
January 11th, 2003Running on the frozen parkland around Corstorphine Hill in Edinburgh might not be everyone’s idea of a fun afternoon but several hundred athletes from around the district turned out on Saturday to brave the icy conditions. Amongst them as usual was a large harrier turnout.
Ron Logan was once again the first harrier home, finishing 49th from the 240 starters in a respectable time of 33.52, followed as ever by Neil Renton who had a disappointing run by his standards, finishing 105th in a time of 36.52. Battling it out for the other counting team places, were the Selkirk trio of Alistair Laurie, Martin Clarke and Robin Murray.
As usual they had a good race between themselves for the first of the three laps at least until Robin (three bellies) Murray had to concede defeat to his two friends who had obviously not eaten anything over the festive break. They managed to pull away from him to finish 117th, 128th respectively, with Robin coming in 141st.
Making up the final counting place in the team was Graham Capper who finished 155th in a time of 39.05. Other runners taking part were David Nightingale 167th, Colin Christison 178th and David Hunter 222nd. The men’s race was won by local policeman Steve Cairns (Hunters Bog Trotters), who is running at the top of his form at the moment and was following on from his success at Portobello on New Years Day.
The women’s race had a good entry with over 60 runners lining up at the start of the 6.4km course. Despite missing a few regulars in the ladies team, the girls still put on a good show with Sally Calder, running for the harriers for the first time, finishing top amongst them in 18th place in a time of 26.00. Laura Howie ran well to finish 27th with Angela Foss making up the third counting team member, finishing 43rd, to put the women’s team 10th on the day.
The remaining four ladies running for the harriers all performed well on the day, with Ruth McCann chasing Angela all the way to the line finishing 46th and Eileen Nicol running steadily picking off the runners in front of her, finishing 47th just behind Ruth. Nicola Alexander worked hard for her 51st spot finish but not as hard as Kate Grimsditch who ran a tremendous first lap and was well up in the field but paid dearly for her efforts in the closing stages to finish 52nd.
As the cold and the pace of the race took its toll, Kate was overheard to confessing to feeling ‘tired’ or words to that effect! The women’s race was won by European Hill Running champion Angela Mudge, running for Carnethy, who also lifted the team prize.
In the junior races Kirsty Thomson continues to show much promise for the future, finishing 17th in her u13 girl’s race, while Gary Alexander should be satisfied with a creditable 15th place finish in the u17 boy’s race which he will surely improve on next year.
Another runner who can look forward to improving on his finishing position is Shaun Desport from Hawick, who runs for Harmeny AC and finished just out of the medals in 4th spot.
