Halkirk athlete helps team lift national title
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THE first of the national domestic fixtures got under way at Cumbernauld when three local athletes took part in the National Cross Country Relay Championships hosted by scottishathletics.
Halkirk’s Andrew Douglas was running for Inverclyde AC – one of the favourite teams to take the senior men’s title along with Central AC and Shettleston Harriers. Andrew was running the second leg of the 4k course which, by the time the seniors ran, resembled a mud bath in places.
Andrew took over with his team in fifth place and worked well to bring Inverclyde into third, being caught in the later stages by a Central athlete.
He found the second half of the race tough due to an interrupted period of training through injury but showed great determination and a return to fitness in taking Inverclyde into the changeover in fourth place.
The final two Inverclyde runners, Mark Pollard and Craig Ruddy, successfully moved the team through to second and first places allowing Inverclyde to lift the senior men’s national title.
Earlier in the day, the first race to go off was the junior girls with Emma and Oonagh Dunnett, from Shebster, running for the first and third Edinburgh AC teams. Emma was defending the title the Edinburgh "A" team had won for the last two years and, on paper, it looked as if it would take a huge effort on the part of another team to beat them.
However, due to unfortunate issues with team selections, the Edinburgh "A" team finished the first leg in 37th place, fifth out of the Edinburgh teams, while the Edinburgh "C" team finished in 27th place, fourth out of the Edinburgh teams. This left a lot of work for the second runners who brought the teams up to 18th and 15th places respectively.
Oonagh and Emma were faced with fighting it out for the minor places out of the 46 teams competing on the day. Both worked well over the 2.5k course, making use of the hilly sections to gain distance on the runners in front of them.
Oonagh picked off six runners – helped on by various marshals reminding her Emma was closing the gap.
Emma, on the other hand, got caught up in the job to be done and worked hard in the first half of the course, making the second section of the race tough as she continued to catch and pass eight runners. Oonagh took Edinburgh "C" team home in ninth place and Emma helped Edinburgh "A" to finish in 10th which, although not what had been expected, was more respectable than where they had been.
Despite this, the advantage of this event is that not only do athletes get their team placings but they also get their time in comparison to all of the other runners.
Emma, as in previous years, secured the fastest under-17 leg of the day in 10.30 min with Oonagh taking third fastest in 10.40 min – a tremendous effort which demonstrates their potential for the rest of the season.
The next race for Andrew, Emma and Oonagh is the McCain Cross Challenge in Liverpool at the end of the month followed by the East and West Championships in early December.
