Gala Harriers Back On the Road
March 27th, 2005The cross-country season over, it’s been straight onto the road race season for runners in Gala Harriers. After some encouraging results at Inverness, Alloa and Lasswade over the last couple of weeks, the harriers made their way to Livingston for the National Road Relays.
After the usual bout of call offs and injuries, the club scraped together two men’s teams and one and a half ladies teams. The road relays consist of 6 stages for the men and 4 for the ladies and has produced some great moments for the harriers over the years, none better than the second place for the ladies in 2002.
It was almost an unlikely medal place for the men’s veteran’s team of Graeme Pogson, Alastair Laurie, Davy Darroch, Robin Murray, Malky Gowans and David Hunter. Their efforts, just saw them miss out on third place after running round the cycle paths and pavements of Livingston for nearly three hours. Best performance over the long leg was Al Laurie with 37.45 and much to his delight Malky Gowans who ran 20.33 over the short leg.
The senior men’s team had a little more speed and youth on their side and finished 26th team on the day, which was a little down on last years positions. The team of Steven Gillan, John Cairns, Neil Renton, Martin Clarke, Ron Logan and Euan Jardine recorded an overall time of 2.40.59.
Fastest long leg time went to Euan Jardine with a very nippy 31.59 and it was a welcome return after injury for Ron Logan who ran the fastest short leg with a time of 18.13.
The ladies team finished a very creditable 7th overall in a time a few seconds over 2 hours. Sally Barr ran a very strong first leg in a time of 19.34, which was good enough to finish in front of both the men’s teams starters.
Katy Anderson took over from Sally and produced another fine run, completing her leg in 38.43, before handing over to Fiona Dalgleish. Fiona held her position and form well in what was proving to be a good race between the ladies and the men’s vet’s team and finished in 21.21.
Eileen Nicol took off over the last leg for the ladies and recorded a very respectable time of 40.36 to claim 7th place.
The other ladies team of Karen Renton and Lorraine Wright completed their individual legs but not surprisingly declined to go round again to make up their team.
Junior training starts officially this Thursday at the Tweedbank track. Any junior over 8 years old can come along, registration is from 6.00pm with training starting prompt at 6.30, cost is ‚àö?¬¨£1.00 per session.
