McAndrew Relays

The McAndrews are the traditional start to the cross country season and have been held over several different trails since I first ran in it in 1958. We used to have a trial that was run on the Tuesday night before the race to pick the team: it started in Second Avenue just along from Kilbowie Road and went right down to the bottom and swung round to come up Hawthorn Street past the High Park to Kilbowie Road, left across Kilbowie Road to where the roundabout is now and then along the Boule to Drumry Road. Over Drumry Road to finish outside the Provost's house (the one with the lamp post) just before Clarence Street. The club had many good teams out and several outstanding runs. In my time in the club we have twice has had two teams in the first twelve twice and several times we were in fourth. The best individual position was in the very recent past when the club was second in 2003. Graeme Reid had won the National in February and moved to live with his friend from America Peter Riley in Lancashire because that was where he could get a job. He came back up for the race and brought Peter with him. The team was made up with Allan Adams and Mark Rudzinski.
Allan ran the first stage and handed over a 24 second lead to Mark. Mark, a former Scottish Junior 10K Road Race Champion, was ahead of some of the very best in the country and although he lost one place to AC Muir of Mizuno (whose name had now become Favorit AC) he kept all the others at bay. Peter Riley was next up and as well as running the second fastest time of the day gave Graeme a slight lead over Glen Stewart for the last stage. Glen was in very good form and we all know that the guy behind, so long as he is not far behind, always has a slight advantage in that he can see the opposition and judge when to go for it. The result? Second to Favorit AC in a team time of 53:04. The third team was almost four minutes behind. (Mizuno had lost their sponsorship and were subsidised for a short time by an Edinburgh cafe called the Favorit Cafe). The second team had Brian Gallagher (36th), Derek Halpin (26th), John Hanratty (20th) and Bobby Young (21st) for an aggregate time of 75:06. Can the team this week do better than 75:06? There's a challenge. There was also a composite team of Scott Hughes, Jolene Ennis, Aileen Scott and Peter Rudzinski. A good day for the club but - here's the question - how many of the dozen will be racing this year? Any bets?