The National Cross Country Relays were once again at Cumbernauld on 19 October and Lasswade AC had a number of teams competing in all age groups. It was a mild and beautiful sunny day although the course was quite muddy and wet in sections with the recent wet weather.
The first race of the day was the young females and hopes were high after our young females recent performance in the East District Relays championships where they won gold, however there was a change to the team for the National Relays as Freya Brown was unavailable as she was away on holiday.
Our u13 runner Isla Madhra got the team off to a flying start finishing 2nd on the first leg behind Emma Nicholson of Giffnock. Under 15 Cerys Wright was on our second leg going off a few seconds behind Lucy Tonner of Giffnock but she quickly pulled that lead back and ran an outstanding race to hand over to our third leg runner u17 Bethan Kitchin with a lead of 55 seconds. Bethan made sure she didn’t go off too hard and paced her race perfectly to bring the team home in 1st place to win gold! An excellent start to the day. Our other girls team of Esme Scott, Darcy Esson and Beth McWilliam finished in 50th place.
The second race of the day was the young males and Lasswade AC we were down to one team as one of our under 15 boys was ill so had to withdraw on Friday. Our lead off u13 runner was Fraser Houston who ran well handing over to Struan Milne our second leg runner in 32nd place. Struan had a good run and was 20th quickest u15 of the day to set our final leg runner Charlie Copp off in 29th place. Under 17 Charlie running strongly pulled back another five places to finish in 24th place out of 55 teams.
Next to the start line it was the turn of the Ladies and Lasswade AC had one team with u20 Olivia Meikle leading them off. Olivia a little nervous going off first had a solid run to hand over to second leg runner Amy Frankland in 32nd place. Amy set off on a mission and had a great run with the 4th quickest time on the 2nd leg she tore through the field pulling back 19 places to hand over in 13th place. Our third leg runner was Cathy Dickson V50 who ran well to keep the team just outside the top 20 in 21st place, still in the top third of the field of 73 teams. On the glory leg was Claire Houston v40 who ran well to almost maintain our position finishing in 23rd place. A great effort by the team with a lady from each age group.
The final race of the day was the senior men and we had two teams. I’d hoped to have one team of u20 only but unfortunately we were one short as our fourth u20 was on holiday. I was keen to see how far up the field the boys could get so ran the three u20 men first with Innes Wright leading them off with a fine run coming home in 15th place to hand on to Rowan Taylor. Rowan had a good run to pull back a couple of places and hand on to 3rd leg runner Andrew McWilliam in 13th place. Andrew looking strong ran the 5th quickest time on leg 3 to pull the team inside the top 10 and hand onto final leg runner Gareth Fleming in 9th place. Gareth had a solid run and kept us inside the top 20 bringing the team home in 19th place.
Our second team made up primarily of masters finished 73rd of the 115 teams. Scott Dickson V50 finished 91st on first leg to hand on to Ken McWilliam. Ken v45 ran the quickest leg of the runners in the second team and pulled back 13 places to hand on to Steve Brown v55 in 78th place. Steve ran well to hold the position and hand on to final leg runner Euan Hood. Euan coming back from injury managed to pull back another five places to finish in 73rd place.
Lasswade athlete Harry Henriksen ran well for Edinburgh University on the third leg pulling them up from 6th to 3rd place and running the 2nd quickest time on leg 3. It was also good to see Alastair Scott running for his university Stirling.
For full results please click here
Congratulations and well done to all the athletes. Thanks to Megan for bringing the tent and club flag today and everyone else for their help and support.
Hope to see you next week at Kirkcaldy.
Photographs courtesy of Neil Renton and Bobby Gavin
