The East District Cross Country Championships took place last weekend in Dundee on a cold afternoon with a light covering of snow on the ground.
There were a number of Lasswade athletes competing and hopes were high for a few medals based on performances in the league matches so far. The athletes did not disappoint with Sarah Tait leading the way in the Under 13 girls and picking up a well deserved silver medal with team mate Caroline McKinlay running well to finish 25th. The next race was the Under 13 boys with Sarah’s brother, Magnus, improving on his bronze medal of last year to win the race this year, he was closely followed by team mate Rory Ferguson in second place, and our third counter was Lawrie Wilson in 29th. The boys picked up the silver medal in the team race. It was a great start to the day!
In the Under 15 girls, Lauren Dickson, last year’s under 13 winner ran well to finish in 7th place with team mate Lauren Wilkie finishing fast in 33rd place. Our Under 15 boys team hit by injury and illness only had one runner, Jamie Darling who ran well to finish 35th.
We are struggling in the Under 17 age group for cross country runners and had no boys or girls competing which is disappointing.
Amy Frankland was our only representative in the Under 20 women race and she ran strongly to finish 6th.
In the Under 20 men we had hopes of a team medal as we had three Under 20 men. Unfortunately, it was not to be as Callum Clark who has been running well had to withdraw due to a back injury and Ross Henderson dropped out with a groin injury that has been bothering him for a while. It was left up to Rowan Marr who ran a good race to finish just outside the top 10 in 12th place. Looking at the team placing there were only two complete teams so at worst we would have got a bronze had the team been complete.
In the women’s race there was an air if excitement as Freya Murray Ross (former Lasswade athlete) and older sister of Keira was running. It was a good race with Freya and Morag McClarty and Freya ended up finishing second. Keira ran very well finishing in 8th place.
The final race of the day was the men’s race, unfortunately we had a few of our key runners, Peter Avent, Barney Phillips, John Murray, Owen Miller missing for a variety of reasons and the team was incomplete. Martin Gore returning from injury led the team home with a strong run finishing 46th, next home was Paul Bellamy in 142nd followed closely by Scott Dickson in 151st. New recruit Doug MacDonald finished 176th and Derek Wilkie nursing a leg injury finished 227th.
Well done to everyone who took part and represented the club. It looks like the club will have good representation once again at the Inter District match in Holyrood park in January, congratulations to those athletes selected. For full results please click here
The final league match is at Broxburn on 18 January 2014 and we really need everyone to make every effort to compete if they can so please put the date in your diaries.
