The Cross Country Season got underway last weekend with the East District Cross Country Relay Championships taking place on Dechmont Law, Livingston. Lasswade Athletics Club were well represented with one young female team, two young male teams, a ladies team and a men’s team.
The first event of the day was the young female race and our under 13 runner was Sarah Tait who was up amongst the leaders early on in the race leaving the start/finish area to go out onto the course. Sarah ran a great leg and handed over to Lauren Dickson in first position with a lead of 11 seconds. Running out on her own Lauren Dickson ran another great leg and pushed on to extend the lead to seventeen seconds going into the final leg. Our final leg runner Sophie Miller only just returning to fitness had some strong cross country runners chasing her down. Sophie put in a great effort on the final leg and finished 5th.
The next race off was the young males and our first leg runners for the boys were Magnus Tait and Lawrie Wilson. Both boys got themselves up amongst the leaders early on and not to be outdone by his sister Magnus had a great run to lead the boys home and pass on a twelve second advantage to our next runner Cameron Steven. Cameron suffering from a bit of a cold ran well to slightly extend our lead to fourteen seconds. On our last leg was Iain Lawson who ran a strong final leg and put in a great effort to try and hold on for a medal but just missed out finishing 4th. Meanwhile our other team were also performing well with Lawrie Wilson running well to finish inside the top 10 in 9th place. Jamie Darling took over and ran a solid race to hand over to Kyle MacKenzie in 17th place going into the last leg. Kyle ran well to bring home the team in 22nd place.
A couple of points worth mentioning for these two races. In the same event last year we did not have a young females team and in the young males we were 12th and 23rd. This year 5th in young females and 4th and 22nd in young males. Fantastic improvement, well done to all our young athletes for their efforts.
The next race was the ladies event with Linden Nicholson leading off the ladies with another solid performance to hand over to Debra Murray in 32nd place. Debra ran a strong race nursing a bit of a niggle in her calf she still managed to pull us up to 24th place to hand over to Sarah Robertson for the last leg. Sarah drafted in at the last minute and used to running much longer distances ran a strong race to finish in 32nd place.
The final race of the day was the men’s race with Peter Avent on the leading leg and getting us of to a great start to come home in 10th place, only to tell me he could have gone quicker! Next off was one of our under 20 athletes Rowan Marr who ran a great leg to keep us in the top 10. John Murray was our third leg runner and he put in a solid run to hand over in 11th place to our final leg runner Paul Bellamy. Paul put a great effort in on the last leg to maintain our 11th place.
It was a good day and there were many highlights, it was fantastic to see the young athletes so far up the field and in fact leading for most of the race in both the young females and males. Looking at all the girls times for the day ( U13, U15 and U17), Sarah Tait (U13) and Lauren Dickson (U15) deserve a special mention as both their times were in the top 6 fastest of all the girls times for the day!
Well done and thank you to everyone who took part and came along to support the athletes. Thanks also go to Stuart Steven for donating the new club tent and also to Stuart Tait who is looking after it and bringing it along to these cross country events. It was great for the athletes to have somewhere to leave their kit and keep it dry.
I hope to see you all at Stirling next weekend for the first league match.
For full results please click here
