West District Cross Country Champiosnhips, 2004

Girls Heading for Exciting Climax but Pat is Left Fottering About!

Conditions at the West District Championships were as expected; wild, windy and wet. In other words, they were superb and Westies took full advantage to (mostly) put in some great performances.

Performance of the day came from Ana, who soared away from Muffy in the women's 4 mile race to finish just outside the top 20. The fact that Muffy had a great run too but finished almost a minute and a half behind Ana says it all. Disaster struck for Pat who managed to maintain the club tradition of missing the start of major races. However, to her credit, she still managed to overhaul several runners, despite despite her donation of a 1 minute start . Only at the end did she reveal that she had turned up with 2 left shoes. This would have been OK of course, had the trail been anti-clockwise. However, as luck would have it, the course ran clockwise, therefore Pat ended up having to run backwards!

In the men's race there were some exciting head-to-heads between the Westies men. From the gun, Chris tried to keep up with Nigel, to no avail, though Nigel did lose a bit of ground in the final lap. Further behind, Steffen caught up with Gibson, but as the latter said "I knew Steff was struggling 'cos he was looking back too regularly!". There speaks an old trouper! Meanwhile, in the last lap, Steffen had to head off a late challenge from John Donnelly, who had caught up a considerable distance in the last third of the race. Steffen had to use his superior sprint finish to make sure of his points. Donald also was slowly catching up a guy from Ayr Seaforth who was 3 times his size and only a third of his age. The effort came to naught, but was symptomatic of the hard work put in by every Westie on the day. Further behind, even Drew was keeping up with Ian for the first lap, before fading in the last couple of miles.

The club's efforts were rewarded by a 7th place in the Women's team event and 12th in the Men's, where the only Dunbartonshire club to beat us was Vicky Park. And all that without the young renegade McColl!

The Westies Winter League is looking really exciting as far as the women are concerned. There are all sorts of possibilities, but basically if both Ana and Muffy run the final two races(The Nationals and the Balloch to Clydebank) and Ana finishes one place ahead of Muffy in both events, then both will be on equal points!

In the men's league, Nigel remains on top, but others can still win, particularly if Nigel gets crocked, which is always a strong possibility. Gibbie and Steffen are in the best place to take advantage should that happen.

Results (from SAL website, adapted)

Women

1 A Higgins 28:04

22 Ana 33:20

27 Muffy 34:40

44 Pat 42:50

46 finished

Team 7th

Men

1 R Quinn 35:25

2 J Reid 35:28

64 Nigel 41:27

68 Chris 41:50

107 Gibson 44:32

120 Steffen 45:09

121 John D 45:17

160 Donald 49:13

184 Ian 55:53

? Drew (not in results, but after Ian)

Team 12th

Vet's Team 13th

Posted by Dave Calder on Sun 11 Jan 2004 | 1 comment

Category winter league