NATIONAL YOUNG ATHLETES ROAD RACE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Six Harriers were out competing in the National Young Athletes Road Race Championship held Rouken Glen Park in Giffnock and were bathed in Spring sunshine weather.  The first to compete were the now regular Under 13 trio of Girls Megan Anderson, Helen Anderson, and Louise Brown and joined today by Hannah MacLeod making her race debut for the club.  The field of 82 girls ran the big loop of 2.5K route within the grounds of the park and all showed their consistency and strength in running over long distances.  First home was Megan Anderson (68) in a time of 11:47, quickly followed by debut runner Hannah MacLeod (72) with 11:55, then Louise Brown (73) 11:58 and Helen Anderson (75) with a time of 12:08.

In a smaller field of 68 runners, next up in the same age category was Drew Gordon who is always up for a race and consistently does his best no matter the challenge did the 2.5K route with a final battle with a Law & District athlete and finished  in a time of  11:56 (66).  Personal / course best best 51 seconds. 

Finally we ended up with only having 1 Under 15 Boy Craig Stewart running and he continued to do well in his first year in this age category.  He ran a 3.7K route which consisted of 1 small loop and 1 big loop the under 13’s did.  As like Drew, Craig had a battle at the end with a Kilmarnock athlete and was award the same time of 14:31 finishing 52 out of a field of 61.

These are good performances and with continued training, more race experience and some of the current u11s and u13s changing categories on 1st September the Harriers will be fielding more teams with experience and talent to improve on times and places for Cross Countries in October and the National Young Athletes Road Race Championship in 2013.  Any of the other young athletes that are interested in competing in these type of events please feel free to ask any of the coaches, Richard, John or Francis & Susan how to get involved. 

Official results on Scottish Athletics website

http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/index.php?p=80&itemType=fixtures&itemId=14276

Thanks to Kenny MacLeod (Hannah's Dad) for the photographs.