Under 11 Boys storm to 4th place in Lanarkshire Road Relay's

On a wet Saturday 21st October was the Lanarkshire AAA annual road relay held in Drumpellier Park in Coatbridge.  Despite being at the start of the school October week it is a popular event with the Lanarkshire based athletic clubs and this year was a welcome return of the junior Harriers,  last competing there in 2014.  This year we had recruited 6 young athletes to form an under 11 boys team and an under 15 girls team.

First out was the boys contesting against clubs like nearest neighbour EKAC, Cambuslang Harriers, Cumbernauld and local club Airdrie Harriers. The task was to each run 1.2k distance around the park on an out and back route as quickly as you could. New to competition running Francis Santangeli ran the first leg with everyone at the start applying his best pace management amongst all the club the other runners. Frances competed strongly and crossed the line in (5:17) in 9th place.  Next up was Ben Buchanan, last competing in the Great Scottish Run, taking on leg 2 responsibility. Ben had a great run managing to claw back 2 places finishing in 7th with a time of (5:06) and last leg went to experienced runner Kai Wheeler who ran a time of (4:52, 4th fastest in his leg) and pulling in a final 3 places with the team finishing 54 seconds adrift in 4th place.

Despite being the most cruel position for any athlete missing out on a podium position in 4th place, a fine performance by all the boys who all showed good team spirit and grit to get to 4th place out of 13 complete teams.

Next up was the under 15 girls with sisters Brooke & Renee Conneff & Freya Kane flying the flag so to speak. All 3 girls were enthusiastic & excited about competing but showing a little pre-race nerves before they started asking twenty questions to Coach Richard about race protocol.  Brooke was on first leg duty for the team running the 2.4k out and back route coming in 6th place in (11:23). With no sister rivalry Renee was on the second 2nd leg and despite running a good time of (11:04) the team dropped back to 7th place leaving 3rd leg runner Freya Kane to pull back places. Freya competed while matching Renee's time of (11:04) and bringing the team back to 6th place.

Well done to all and there is was alot of pictures taken by Cameron Newall from another club.  See link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/camerons_pics/sets/72157687385868171