Final League Match

The last Men's League Match was held at Grangemouth on Sunday with a good turnout of athletes and there were several personal best performances as well as some surprising debuts and a comeback. The revelation of the day was the running of Ross Cannon in the 400 metres hurdles and the steeplechase. He had run neither of them before but following his 63.98 seconds in the hurdles for third place he won the A string steeplechase in 10:54.5 - more than a whole lap ahead of the second placed athlete. Superb. Two of the youngest athletes there on the day - Andrew Cusick and Cameron MacLeod - covered four events each including all three jumps. The Under 17's gained most points in the Triple Jump with Andrew's 11.34 metres being fifth A string and Cameron's 10.72 winning the B String. In the Long Jump, Cameron was fifth in the A with 5.53 metres and Andrew fourth B with 4.76 metres. Cameron cleared 1.50 metres in the high jump. The other Under 17 athlete, Peter Bowman, was third in the A 800 metres in 2:01.89 and in the 1500 metres Ryan Nelson was just outside his personal best with 4:53. Former Scottish cross country champion (2003) Graeme Reid accompanied Gary Dick in the 5000 metres. He would have made two of his former self but made his was round to finish over a minute behind Gary who ran 18:07. Graeme is promising to run in as many of the short relays as he can starting with the George Cummings in September as a start to making a comeback!

The sprinters all performed nobly as well. Johnathan Farrell, protecting an injury ran only the B strings in the 100 and 200 where he was second in the 100 in 11.43 ands first in the 200 in 23.10. Mark Doris had a hard working day starting with the A 100 metres run in 11.45, ran in the 400 metres in 55.34 and finished with a run in the 4 x 400 metres relay. Cameron MacLeod and Alan McColl took part in the guest 100 metres where they were second and fifth respectively in 12.45 and 12.75 seconds. Both relay teams finished fourth of the eight taking part. The 4 x 100 quartet of Andrew Cusick, Cameron MacLeod, Alan McColl and Johnathan Farrell ran a time of 46.55 seconds and Ross Cannon, Mark Doris, Camerin Macleod and Peter Bowman clocked 3:45.50.
It was a good day with what we think was the best league placing of the season but the result was not available when we left. The making of a good team are there with most of the members being quite young (ie U17 and U20) and returning athletes like Alan McColl and Graeme Reid needing only a good winter's training and racing to get them fit for next summer's campaign. A huge debt of gratitude is due to Donald MacLeod for his organising of the team in the face of a multitude of call offs over the summer.