PB’S AND NEAR PB’S FOR CRAIG AND MARK, PLUS 6TH AT NATIONAL VETERAN RELAYS FOR KILLIE MEN

On Sunday Jan 21st, new member and fast improving Craig Ferguson joined yet another inform Harrier – Mark Alexander – in taking the short trip up the M77 to compete in the Nigel Barge 10K, one of the oldest races of such distance the country has to offer.

Both athletes had excellent runs, as Mark clocked his second quickest time ever by running 36.35 on an anything but flat course. All this bodes fantastically well as he starts to think about his next big challenge – training for April’s Virgin London Marathon.

Craig had an outstanding run, as he knocked chunks off of his personal best 10k time which he set at Ayr on Boxing Day when he ran 37.21, which in itself was a huge pb.

Craig dipped under the 36 minute mark for the first time on Sunday, rightly was delighted with his performance, and again there is no reason that this will not improve further in the coming months as a number of athletes are now seeing some rewards for some great recent Winter Training.

Also on the same day, and in what is rapidly becoming one of the year’s most popular races, the Scottish Veteran Road Relays took place at Strathclyde Park on Sunday. This was shown in the pre entries for the event with 80 teams registered, numbers which were very close to being a record.

With unfortunate injuries meaning that there would be no women team from Kilmarnock taking part for the first time in a number of years, there were however 2 strong Men’s teams who would set off in teams of 4, with each competitor taking on a full circumference of the lake, totalling 3.7 miles per athlete.

First off for Kilmarnock A Team was Richard Mair, and in his first race on the course clocked the second fastest time of anyone on the day, an effort bettered by arguably one of the top veteran performers in the UK, Robert Gilroy.

Putting his team into an early lead, the remaining trio of Robert Lindsay, Gordon Reid and Scott Martin on anchor all had decent runs to give Kilmarnock an excellent 6^th place finish in an extremely high calibre field.

An extremely strong B Team was led off by Connell Drummond who once more set off by example to leave his teammates to finish in a position just outside the top 30, an excellent sign of the strength in depth of the Club in a National event.

Special mentions must go to Douglas Dickson, with his run of 28.02 being a remarkable 3.21 off of his time from 12 months ago on the same course, and a surefire sign of recent improvements.

Killie Times were –

A Team (6^th) Richard Mair 18.54, Robert Lindsay 20.44, Gordon Reid 21.00, Scott Martin 21.02

B Team (31^st) Connell Drummond 21.15, Jim Connelly 21.29, John Tougher 23.12, Douglas Dickson 28.02

Well done to all competitors on a great weekend