Gala Hosts Winter XC Race
December 19th, 2004Cross country runners are a hardy lot and they needed to be on Sunday when 100 young and old turned out in shorts and vests to run round the Gala policies and Southern Upland Way. The arctic blast on Saturday night, left the hills and course looking like a snowy picture postcard, fine for a winters walk but very tough if you’re trying to run through it.
Lewis Paulin from Eyemouth continues to impress and he made very light of the conditions to win the junior event and ensure that ACE took the team honours for the third race in a row.
Gala Harriers had a good turn out of seven juniors, with the prodigiously talented Alice Haining coming in 10th overall, 1st girl and 1st harrier, reversing the finishing order of the Duns race two weeks ago. On that occasion the Selkirk duo of Euan Lindores and Cammy Fair got the better of Alice but they had to be content with 11th and 12th spot on Sunday.
Danny Martin had an excellent run on home soil to finish 13th, with James Haining also improving to 16th spot. Cameron Gowans found the steep climbs and burn crossings hard going but finished a creditable 26th with Claire White working hard all the way round, completing the Gala turnout, finishing 32nd.
The senior race attracted 15 harriers, with John Borthwick keen to repeat his success at Duns in round two. John had to be content with 2nd place behind Dunbar’s Colin Menzies in a close hard fought race, finishing in a time of 23.41. Rob McCrirrick had his first run of the series and finished a creditable 11th in 25.44, with Martin Clarke making up the last counting team place in 14th spot in a time of 26.00, placing the harriers 2nd team behind Norham RC on the day.
Ross Hope running for the harriers in his first competitive race for many years ran strongly to finish 21st in 27.27 and he was followed by a host of harriers tightly packed in the finishing order. Tommy Knox had a great run in 23rd, with Paul Morris back to good form in 24th, Jim Langsdale in those new xc shoes at last, finished 25th, ahead of Davy Darroch for the first time, who came in 27th.
Malky Gowans was on time and at the same start as everyone else but had to be content with 28th place, with Rachel Fagan just behind in 29th, finishing 2nd lady in a time of 28.24. Alan Patterson must have caught the cross country bug after his efforts at the Ladhope race a couple of weeks ago and he did well finishing 32nd ahead of 3rd lady and 1st female supervet Leanne Haining, who finished a step behind in 33rd.
Alan Gordon completed the senior harriers turnout, finishing in a battling 44th place but 3rd in his age category in a time of 30.55. Many thanks to John Scott in the Hollybush estate for allowing the harriers to use his fields and to the staff at Gala Swimming Pool for giving access to runners.
