The National short course cross country championships took place today at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.
It was a beautiful day, dry, sunny and actually quite warm, especially for November! However, the course itself although relatively flat was very marshy and muddy in parts so they must have had a lot of wet weather in Glasgow recently.
Lasswade at three teams entered in this event, under 15 girls and boys and under 17 boys. We also had one under 20 running in the men’s race.
The first race of the day was the under 15 girls and Lasswade AC had six girls running in a field of just over seventy runners. Lauren Dickson was up with the leaders early in the race closely followed by team mate Sarah Tait, the leading four including Lauren opened up a bit of a gap from the chasing group, the four were all still fairly close going into the last 400m but gaps began to appear as the pace began to wind up on the run in to the line. Lauren finished just outside the medals in fourth place; with team mate Sarah Tait with a strong run close behind in 7th place. One of our newer athletes Keanna McInnes in her first race for the club had a good run finishing in 25th place followed by Caroline McKinlay in 31st, Eilidh Brown in 41st and Lauren Wilkie in 43rd. Brilliant runs by all the girls and a great team spirit!
Congratulations to Lauren, Sarah and Keanna who won the bronze medal for 3rd team.
The next race of the day was the under 15 boys and we had three runners in this race with just under seventy athletes in field. Our first finisher was Jamie Darling, who has been improving with each race so far this winter. Jamie ran well to finish in 26th place. The next Lasswade athlete home was one of our newer members Ben Keay who has only raced a couple of times for us on the cross country so far but has been coming to training regularly and is enjoying the races. Ben ran well finishing in 59th place, team mate Euan McAlister was close behind with a strong run in 65th.
We had no under age 17 girls running so the next race for us was the under age 17 boys race and we had three boys running Cameron Steven got off to a good start and was up with the leaders at the end of the first short lap but faded a bit on the second It was a good run and Cameron still finished just inside the top 20 in 19th place. Next Lasswade runner was Matthew Smith who had a strong finish in 36th place closely followed by Kyle MacKenzie in 39th place.
Callum Clark was our only runner in the under 20 men’s race which was incorporated with the senior men’s race. It was good to see Callum running again as he has been having some injury problems recently. Callum ran well to finish 107th overall and 30th under 20 in a field of nearly 240 runners.
Well done to everyone who ran today, hope to see you all at Alloa in a few weeks time!
