Senior Race Roundup 12th October 2022

Hard as it is to believe, the winter season is now upon us! After a somewhat sketchy week weather
wise, the sun came out on Saturday for the first XC meeting of the season – the West District XC
relays held at Kings Park in Glasgow. The organisers managed to fit the 4k route into a relatively
small area, which made for a tricky little course with lots of twists and turns and one or two (!) hills.
Considering the weather we have had, ground conditions were actually reasonably good which led
to some really entertaining racing.

The ladies got the best of the going on the extended course with their race going out first, and we
had 2 senior/U20 teams representing. Prominent in the first leg was our A team runner Laura
Haggarty who came through the line in a very strong 15 th place in 15:48 (and 29 th overall), handing
over to Jennifer Beattie who completed in 18:10 dropping the team down to 18 th . However, a strong
run by Lynsey O’Connor in 16:36 (47 th overall) clawed back a couple of places for the team to finish in
16 th overall. The B team led out by Amanda Bryden (18:08) progressed steadily up the leaderboard,
with Bethany Ross running 18:25 and Sasha I’Anson anchoring the team with a solid 18:29 and
moving up a couple more spots for the team to finish in a very credible 34 th place overall out of 63
full teams competing. Great effort ladies!

The men’s race was extremely exciting at the sharp end, with only 17 seconds separating the top 3
teams in the end up. Our men’s A team of Martin Brown (13:04 and 25 th overall), Craig Ferguson
(13:18 and 37 th overall), Charlie McNulty (15:00) and Jonathon Downey (13:28 and 42 nd overall) made
a fantastic team effort to finish 10 th overall from 75 full teams – great running from all and brilliant to
see our teams mixing it with the bigger clubs. Next to complete was our Masters Men’s team of
David Sherrington (14:41), Robert Lindsay (15:25), Connell Drummond (16:18) and anchored by Scott
Martin (15:57). This was good enough for 42 nd overall and I believe 9 th Masters team. Hot on their
heels were the men’s B team of Jamie Nix (14:26), Ross McNaught (15:39), Neil Todd (16:19) and
Brian O’Connor (16:14) finishing in 44 th overall. Unfortunately we were 1 man short to field a
complete final team, but Nick Carter (17:06), Russell Duncan (18:20) and Stewart McAllister (19:06)
all had great runs to round up our senior men’s teams. All athletes who took part on the day will get
7 points in the winter league tables which will be available shortly.

Sunday the 9 th took us to the other side of the pond, where John Speirs took on his second marathon
in a week at the Chicago Marathon. Despite running a PB at London just the previous Sunday, John
incredibly took over 2 minutes off of this to finish in a fantastic 2:47:48 (also 3 rd British V45 in the
race). Huge congratulations to John for smashing the 2:50 barrier! No rest for the wicked though, as
John is on the start list for Ayrshire XC relays this weekend…

Speaking of Ayrshire relays, we still have a couple of spaces available to run this event if you are still
on the fence about it – speak to Jennifer/Robert ASAP. You don’t have to be an SA member and it’s
only 4k. It’s at the AAA this Saturday (15 th October) and even if you don’t want to run it would be
great to see some club members out supporting their teammates or giving a hand. The following
week is National relays for which entries have already closed, the next available event is the
National Short Course XC at Kirkcaldy on the 5 th of November link to national short course entries.
Entries for this from Seniors/U20s should be done individually (follow the link) and must be in by
5pm on Thursday the 20 th of October. There is a cost for this one of £8.50 which is payable by the
individual athlete.

One final piece of admin – if you are still to submit your Parkrun or Half Marathon times for the
summer points you have until the 16 th to do so – don’t miss out!