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Gala Harriers travelled up to Livingston to take part in the National Road Relays on Saturday. The relays consist of two courses one long, 5.8 miles and one short, 3.15 miles.
In the men’s race, runners have to run six stages, alternating between a short and a long leg, while the ladies run four legs. First off for Gala was club captain Ron Logan, his time of 17.27 min’s was good enough to leave the harriers in 17th place from the 62 teams starting. Ron handed over to Martin Clarke to run the first long leg, despite running well Martin handed on to Neil Renton in 40th place with a time of 35.45 min’s.

Neil pushed hard and clawed back nine places in his running time of 17.45 min’s before handing over to Ron Logan again to run the fourth leg. Ron was getting some extra speed training in due to the shortage of numbers in the Gala team and still ran the fastest long leg time of the day, clocking 35.11 min’s.

Bryan Bailey took off in the fifth stage lying in 32 place and determined to run well in his first competitive outing for the club, he picked up one place in his time of 19.59 min’s and left it up to Robin Murray to anchor the team home. Robin ran well to complete the course in 36.09 min’s and bring the harriers home in 32nd place overall, four places behind Teviotdale Harriers who finished in 28th place.

Gala ladies would have to run out of their skins if they were to emulate their fantastic 2nd place finish in last year’s race. All of last years silver medal winning team were unavailable due to work commitments and injury so it was up to Laura Howie to lead off for the ladies in the A team, with Nicola Alexander starting for the B team and Marion Facchini for the C team. It was a great achievement for the Gala ladies to turn out three teams when there were only three other clubs, from the 16 teams that lined up at the start, that managed more than one team.

Laura handed over to Sally Calder in 10th place, having run 20.58 min’s with Karen Renton taking on the 5.8 mile second leg for the B team after a good run of 22.22 min’s from Nicola Alexander. Rachel Bailey ran her first race for Gala Harriers in an excellent time of 41.15 min’s and put the C team in front of the B squad after Karen’s time of 44.07 min’s.

Sally pulled back 3 places with another excellent time of 37.47 min’s and gave Angela Foss the platform to pick up another place with a gutsy run of 21.01 min’s. It was up to Gillian McCrirrick and Jo Highton to battle it out between the B and C teams in times of 24.19 min’s and 23.08 min’s respectively, to leave them in 13th and 15th place at the end of the third leg.

Leanne Haining had the near impossible task of trying to catch last year’s lady winner of the Gala Harriers Centenary 10 Km road race, Janette Stevenson of Falkirk Victoria Harriers. Janette ran the second fastest time of the day by a lady but also pulled Leanne along with her for some of the way to give Leanne a time of 38.01 min’s and 6th place for the A team.

Ladies captain Eileen Nichol is running into some great form, prior to her London Marathon and showed her strength and speed by picking up four places for the B team in a time of 41.07 min’s to give them a respectable 11th place finish. Ruth McCann anchored the C team home in 44.45 min’s for a 14th place finish.

Next race for the harriers is the Dunbar ‘Belhaven Best’ 10K next Sunday.

Posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2003 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Race Reports.
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