Harriers take on the best of the East at Dunfermline
October 17th, 2006Gala Harriers took eight teams to Dunfermline on Saturday to take part in the East District Cross Country Relays.
In the junior girls race Alice Haining ran the performance of the day to clock 9.39 in the opening leg of the 2500m course. Emily Douglas and Gillian Inglis ran strongly in the 2nd and 3rd legs respectively to bring the ‘A’ team home in 8th place overall, the highest placed Harriers team at the event.
Running for the first time at this level, Martha Douglas, Claire White and Gillian Sandie did themselves proud to finish 21st for the ‘B’ team within a field of well-experienced and talented runners.
Dylan Howell, Andrew McCrirrick and Craig Frater were running together for the first time in a junior boys competition and did well to complete the course in 20th place. Dylan in particular had a great debut run, finishing 11th over the first leg in a time of 10.45.
Gala’s senior ladies ‘A’ were led off by Tish Affleck, followed by Katy Anderson and Rachel Fagan over the 2nd and 3rd legs respectively. Tish, making her first competitive appearance since the early summer, ran a tactical first leg to pass over to Katy in 10th place. After a steady second leg by Katy, Rachel then went on to record the fastest leg of the day for the Harriers ladies (16.20), bringing the team home in 10th place. Karen Haldane, Nicola Meikle and Karen Renton all ran well to finish in 26th place for the ‘B’ team, from the strong field of over 35 teams.
The senior men ran with two and a half teams, the latter being made up to its full compliment by Graham Murdoch and Euan Lindores, who evidently found the 4km course too easy, and ran for the ‘A’ and ‘C’ teams respectively before racing again to make up the numbers.
The men’s ‘A’ team finished 20th from over 60 teams, a solid performance for the first cross country outing of the season. Euan Jardine ran a quick first leg in 13.35, to hand over to Graham Murdoch who ran a strong race over the 2nd leg in 14.21, to set up a very respectable position for final leg runners Fergus Johnston and John Borthwick to maintain.
Martin Clark, Rob McCrirrick, Alistair Wright and Alan Goodson finished 38th for the ‘B’ team with Euan Lindores (x2), Will McDermott and Graham Murdoch (x2) making up the ‘C’ team, finishing 42nd overall.
The competition was set alight by some outstanding performances from international and district representative athletes, but the Harriers finished strongly, delivering some quality individual performances, giving the teams confidence leading up to the National Championships at the end of the month.
