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| Senior Men's 12k Gets Underway |
The start line had been turned through 90 degrees so that the runners started off parallel to the front of Callendar house before turning left and taking a longer, diagonal route up the usual first hill and back down again more or less as before. This was the the firmest part of the course on grass. At the bottom of the hill we turned back towards the house and then swung left along the edge of the tarmac drive before crossing down to the edge of the pond. This part was extremely muddy and on an adverse camber with a real risk of slipping into the pond. Thereafter for those wearing rubber studs, it was possible to pick out the firmer, ash path amongst the flowing mud and to make quite good progress around the pond. However, instead of turning off the path up the usual quagmire of a hill, we instead continued around the pond on the path to the back of Callendar House, briefly dropping into a very muddy section of the Antonine Wall ditch before emerging around the side of the house to climb the hill where the club's "tented village" added some colour to the dreich day.
At the top of this hill we turned right rather than the usual left turn and made an immediate descent again before doing a U-turn back up the hill and running along the flat top past the high rise flats parallel to the main road. This whole section was incredibly muddy and there were runners spread all over the place trying to find some traction. The lap doubled back from there to follow the usual route parallel to the main road back to the red ash drive heading back to the house. The hill on this back straight was particularly impassable and were it not for the fact that I was suffering with the effort, it was almost comical watching others (and myself) trying to get up this hill without sliding backwards or sideways.We had two ladies running in the senior women's race over a distance of 8k (2 laps); Frances Maxwell and Joanne McEvoy making a very welcome return to racing. The ladies did most of their warm-up in the car with the heater on full blast which was parked nearby; a very sensible decision. Both Joanne and Frances are running strongly right now and this meant that they coped with the conditions very well indeed. Joanne finished in 37:01 in an excellent 132nd position overall with Frances not far behind in 37:45 in 138th position out of 226 finishers.
Despite a few last minute call-off's we still had 8 men contesting the 3-lap, 12k senior men's race which was the last race of the day. Although the course was already destroyed by the time the men started, we did at least get the best of the weather as the rain stopped and the sun almost came out. Apart from that it was a struggle from the beginning with no good running anywhere on the course. Andy Buchanan continues his good form although was perhaps not fully recovered from his 12.5km road race last weekend, feeling a little stale. Andy literally ploughed through the mud to finish in 45:34 in 111th position. Next in, a long way back, was Alan Derrick in easily his worst National XC performance ever (although nothing about it was easy!) in a time of 51:11 (305th). Andy Henderson had a great run and must have finished well up in the M60 standings (age groups not available in the results) to cross the line in 55:07 (412). Kenny Leinster is showing no signs of his early season injuries, finishing in 58:22 (480th) having broken away from Jim Holmes on the last lap. Jim crossed the line in 58:58 (494), a few places ahead of David Herbertson who just slipped over the hour to finish in 1:00:04 (502). Richard Lawton declared this to be the toughest race he had ever done but paced it well and kept his form to finish in 1:05:11 (552). Finally, a re-motivated and ever improving Russell Couper came in after 1:10:33, finishing 566th out of 571 finishers. I am sure there would have been quite a few non-finishers on the day, so well done to all the Harriers for sticking with it. Full results are on the Scottish Athletics web site here.
A huge thanks to Andy Henderson, Kenny Leinster and Jim Holmes for manhandling the club tent to and from the course and all who helped put it up and take it down again. The tent was much needed on the day. It was fantastic to have the support of Stuart and Maud Waugh (and grandson), Sandra Reid and Sandy Hayden. A big thanks to Sandy for braving the conditions to take all the photos, the rest of which can be found in this gallery.
Scottish Athletics have produced videos of the event on YouTube and are looking to convince the TV companies that this event is worth televising in future years. You can help them achieve this ambition by watching the videos as the number of hits will be used to show the popularity of the event. The full message from Scottish Athletics and the video links are below.
Alan
Dear Club Secretary
The National XC event at Falkirk was a hugely popular event with the finisher numbers – at close to 1600 – the best the championships have known in 21 years of Men and Women competing at the same venue on the same day across the various age groups. There were 797 athletes finished in the Senior races.
It was a remarkable response from our clubs and scottishathletics fully appreciates that commitment to competition and support from all concerned.
Now we have a series of race videos from the event on Sunday which capture so much of what happened at Callendar Park in difficult conditions.
We would like you to use this footage in any way you see sit across any club platform – be that website or social media – as we seek to maximise the impact of the National XC.
These are only being hosted on the scottishathletics YouTube channel and therefore we are able to secure an accurate measurement on the number of views (which may help us in future years in terms of seeking to televise the event).
This link takes you to the overall highlights package of the National XC 2015 (six minutes) – with clips from each of the races and some captions on team results:
This link takes you to the scottishathletics YouTube channel ‘Playlist’ for the National XC 2015 – with ten videos in total.
Thanks
Peter Jardine, Communications Manager, scottishathletics
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