This seasons cross country season got underway with the East District cross country championships which took place at Livingston on 12/10/2019. These relays are a great event and fun way to start off the cross country season. The weather conditions were good it was dry and sunny. The course looked good although some parts were very muddy as a result of the recent wet weather.
Lasswade AC are regular participants in this event and this year was no exception with Lasswade entering nine teams (two young female teams, two young male teams, two male teams and three womens teams).
The first race of the day was the young females and the two teams were Abbie Foster (u13), Amy McLaughlin (u15), Olivia Meikle (u15) and Eloise Scott (u13), Skye Foster (U15) and Abby McGlone (U17). The girls attributed themselves with our first team led home by Olivia Meikle finishing just outside the top 10 in 11th place with Abby McGlone leading our second team home just outside the top 20 in 21st place.
In the next race of the day, the young males, we had a late call off and were unfortunately unable to find a replacement. As a result we only had one team in this race. The team was Rowan Taylor (U13), Ross Wolfenden (U15) and Alastair Scott (U15) and the boys ran very well to finish just inside the top 15 in 14th place. Rowan Taylor was 8th equal fastest leg of the day for U13 runners.
The senior women were the next race of the day and unusually for us we had eight runners almost three complete teams – fantastic! The teams were Amy Frankland, Keira Gora and Sarah Tait in the first team, Ailsa Innes, Amy Smith and Niamh Shaw in the second team and Cathy Dickson and Rachel Fagan in the incomplete third team. Amy Frankland set the first team up with a great run finishing 3rd on the first leg handing on to Keira Gore who ran strongly to pull us up another place passing onto U20 Sarah Tait for the final leg. It was always going to be hard to hold on to 2nd as Sarah was being chased down by Annabel Simpson of Fife AC (who ended up running the fastest leg of the day by 25 seconds!) however Sarah ran very well and brought the team home comfortably in 3rd place. Our other athletes also ran very well with our second team inside the top 20 in 18th place. Our masters ladies also did well we just need some more female masters to complete the team.
Sarah, Keira and Amy – Bronze Medal Winners 2019!
Congratulations to our bronze medallists, having spoken to Dave Hand we believe that this is the first time our senior women have ever won a team medal at the cross country relays.
The final event of the day was the men and we had two teams entered, Magnus Tait, Christian Graham, Euan Hood and Andrew McGlone were our first team and we had a complete masters team, Scott Dickson, Dave Scott, Peter Ness and Derrick Brydon.
Magnus flying towards the finish!
Magnus Tait led off our first team with a strong run to come home and hand over in 9th place to team mate Christian Graham who ran very well to pull back a few places setting Euan Hood off in 6th place. Cross Country is not Euan’s favourite event but he was happy to come an run and make up a team. Euan dug in and handed on to final leg runner Andrew McGlone in 13th place. Andrew one of our fastest masters ran well to bring the team home in 21st place.
Christian in action in the East Relays
Our masters team did very well to finish 58th overall and 15th masters team.
Well done and congratulations on your performances to everyone who took part.
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Looking forward to the National Relays in a few weeks we definitely have opportunities for teams to be competitive and fighting for medals it’s just getting everyone we need to be available at the same time.
