Livingston-Aviemore-Jedburgh Reports
October 20th, 2008A packed weekend of action saw harriers of all ages representing their club up and down the country. On Saturday, the first meeting of the East District Cross Country League took place at Livingston where 7 youngsters were competing, some for the very first time at this level.
In the Under 11 girls, Fionn Brown took a very creditable 5th place out of 20 in 7 minutes and 5 seconds, while Rowan Marr, a veteran of 2 seasons took an impressive 3rd place in the boys’ U13 in 10.07, having led for much of the early part of the race.
The U13 girls saw Alison Brown and Skye Shiel coming 13th and 17th in their first league race in 12.10 and 12.21 respectively, while in the U15/U17 girls’ races Hannah Jones had a good run to come home 7th in 17.58 with Charlotte Brown 11th in 18.25. Gillian Ingles came through in 8th position in the U17 category in the same race, with her former team mate Laura Goodson having come second.
Only one senior Gala woman was competing but Katy Anderson flew the flag high for the harriers by storming through in 9th position out of 73 runners in 25.47. The senior men were represented by Graeme Murdoch, Gregor McAneny, Magnus Inglis and Alastair Wright and first into the showers was Graeme Murdoch in an excellent time of 31.27, giving him 14th place from 178 in the field. Gregor, Magnus and Alastair ran solid races and their times were 36.00, 38.35 and 40.30 respectively.
On Sunday there was a half marathon at each end of the country and it was north to Aviemore that 3 of the club’s most loyal and consistent runners travelled to try their hand at one of the most scenic routes in the race calendar.
Over 1,100 runners gathered on a blustery but bright day for the 13.1 mile route through forest tracks and cycle paths, with former internationalist Tish Affleck returning to her winning ways with a victory in the supervet class in a course record of 1 hour 35 minutes for her age group. Not far behind her in the same age category was Margot Crosbie who picked up 3rd prize in 1.39, while relative youngster Eileen Nicol split the two runners and was equally pleased with her time of 1.39.
The Jedburgh Half Marathon was run in extremely windy conditions and the last climb to the A68 at the 11 mile mark against a headwind must have been hard for all the runners, including Graeme Pogson, Malky Gowans, Carol Fortune, Fiona
Shepherd and Dawn Grant. (Results not up yet.) Wheelchair athlete John Hunter took on Dame Tanni Grey-Thomson in the 10K race and again, we await the results!
Graham Pogson: I hour 34 mins and 35 seconds
Malky Gowans: 1.37.49
Carole Fortune: 1.37.55
Billy McCulloch 1.40.37
Billy McBain: 1.45.22
Fiona Shepherd: 1.46.05
Dawn Grant: 1.56.48
Bill Elliot: 1.58.27
Next outing for the Harriers is the Scottish Athletics’ National Cross Country Relay Championships at Cumbernauld, starting at 12.30.
Graeme Murdoch Says:
Fair Play to Gregor “Mo Farah” McAneny in his one black/one white running spikes combo!!! I’m looking forward to the black/white compression sock look for next weeks national xc relays. I’m currently digging out the crampons to avoid making it 3 falls in 3 weeks!!!!
Gregor McAneny Says:
As all of today’s major sporting personalities know its not just about how you perform but how good you look while you are performing! Just look at Phillips Idowu…he’s rubbish but I bet he thinks he looks the mutts nutts.
Like the idea of the contrasting long socks. Unfortunately my white shoe is no longer white after Sat.
Gregor McAneny Says:
If anyone fancies looking at photos of Sat’s race have a look at www.roadrunpics.com
rosi capper Says:
Good pics - thanks Gregor. Sorry, don’t think you managed to source the technical T shirt on Thursday - I have a few days off next week and plan a stock take over at Tweedbank so will try to locate it then - if nobody else got it first! Rosi