Posties Park, in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock (photo below), played host to a small 4 x 4 kilometer cross-country meet for competing clubs in the area.
The site of the relay can be seen to the right of where the River Leven empties into the Firth of Clyde on the west of Scotland:
Since the Garscube men's team was the defending champion, there was a strong motivation to field our best squad and retain said championship. On a mostly flat, slightly boggy (for Scotland anyway), not quite 4 km course, our team of Stephen Mulrine (12:32), Lindsay Cunningham (12:36), myself (11:56), and Euan Mackay (13:14) were successful in over-coming an early lead by Victoria Park of Glasgow and remaining the top harrier squad in Dunbartonshire.
Scottish National Relay Championships:
Cumbernauld - the oft voted runner-up as 'crappiest place to live' and champion in the category of 'most derelict town center' played host to last weekend's Scottish National Cross-country Relays. Behold the lovely Cumbernauld shopping center:
An afternoon walk down main street:
Exiting one of the local markets:
Cumbernauld: the perfect place to raise your neds
The cross-country race itself - another 4 x 4 km relay - was made equally lovely by the atrocious weather conditions, with high winds and heavy rains turning Cumbernauld's 3 acres of green space into what was, for all intents and purposes, a muddy cattle yard. Due to the weather conditions, I did not bring the camera and thus have no photo documentation of the runner's sliding up and down muddy slopes, drudging through mucky suck pockets of pure muck.
As this was a national level competition, our Garscube Harrier squad was something of an underdog. We (Stephen, Euan, Joe, and I) finished 26th place overall, myself only managing a 16:15 for the 4 kilometer loop. However, congratulations go to the Garscube ladies vet's team (Ali, Kristy, and Mairi) for winning the ladies vets title!
No comments:
Post a Comment