It was a good day for the club and indeed for all competitors and supporters at Irvine for the District Championships. I was a bit late getting there partly because it was an 80 mile journey, partly because of the traffic but mainly because I only allowed two hours for the journey. The result was that I missed both Under 13 races but I did speak to the runners and their parents as well as other club members. The girls did well - Roisin McShea had a first class run to be twelfth, Rachel Busby was not far behind in distance and Kirsty Alexander had a much better run than last week at Maryhill. She said she felt better and reports were that she had a good run. David Campbell in the Under 13's race finished with a flourish but one of the club members I spoke to, and his mother agreed, said that he had started a bit too slow and had a bit too much in hand at the finish. It is probably just inexperience and it is likely that the more he races the better he will get. In the Under 15 Girls race Claire Reid ran well to be well up in the first third of the field and for a while there was a wee duel between Diane Nicholson and Kirsty Alexander before Diane moved off to finish clearly ahead of her club rival. In the Under 15 Boys race Tony Dolan ran well with David Newton having a solid enough run behind him. The Senior Ladies race had twice as many runners as any championship race this year: Marina had a first class run (she really is getting better with every outing) looking strong and aggressive right to the end. Kath Scott also ran well but the lack of cross country races this year so far showed and although at one point within catching distance of Marina fell away towards the end. The cure is more of the same! If Kath gets a run in the Hannah Cup and the club championships she will be a lot closer in the Nationals. The bad news is that the rest of the women chose not to run and the girls had no team.
The Senior Men looked better than for some time. The mix of hard racing Seniors and promising Under 20's was really encouraging. Michael Diver led the team home with the best run I have seen from him for some time - he looked like a real athlete, strong and fast and relazed all the way. Behind him was Paul Carroll working hard as usual and giving nothing away to the opposition with Gerry Montgomery chasing hard behind - had Paul eased up anywhere, Gery would have had him. Gary Dick worked hard and although he injured his leg on the last lap held on to be the club's fourth counter. Ryan Savage was the club's first Under 20 to finish with David Brown not far behind. Peter Rudzinski running his twenty sixth District Championships provided the back up in case any of the others dropped out. Phil's ambition of having four Under 20's running for the club next winter looks near fruition - the two who ran here plus Ryan Nelson plus........................
Peter Bowman who ran a very well judged race in the Under 17 Men's race to be tenth at the finish of a very competitive event. I was out in the middle of nowhere but where I could see the runners four times in every lap and Peter really worked hard out there where he thought no one could see him. At first he was running with a boy from Kilbarchan, he got away from him and caught the next group; he got away from them and headed for a VP runner and caught him too. All the way he was chasing the guy in front and not worrying about runners behind him. It was a quite excellent race and in a couple of years time he will be really hard to beat. It was a good day!
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