With the cancellation of last year’s West District cross country championship it was great to be back on the hilly course at Balloch country park. In one of the most successful ever district championships for the club, Fionnuala Ross took the women’s title and Lachlan Oates the mens’s along with plenty of medals and great results for the Shettleston runners. To add to the interest any athlete finishing in the top dozen stands a chance of selection for Scotland West.
Here’s how everyone got on….
First race off was the under 13 girls and Imogen Millar just got the better of Kate Monaghan.
28 Imogen MILLAR 13:11
29 Kate MONAGHAN 13:13
36 Daisy GILDEA 13:34
59 Hannah BLACK 15:44
5th team
In the under 13 boys Mark and Lucas had an equally close battle with Mark just 12 seconds ahead.
55 Mark CLIFFORD 13:31
57 Lucas MILLICAN 13:43
Katie Woods had a great run and just got into the top 10 of the under 15 girls aver 4km. She has a great chance of being selected for Scotland West to run in the inter counties in Stirling in the new year.
10 Katie WOODS 16:38
45 Katie BURNS 20:31
49 Ava MILLICAN 21:40
5th team
Like the under 13 boys there was a close race between the under 15 boys with great runs by Joseph and Adam both finishing in the twenties. Joseph was awarded joint 26th place on exactly the same time as a Whitemoss runner.
26 Joseph REILLY 16:02
28 Adam CLIFFORD 16:05
Iman was our sole runner in the under 17s girls race finishing an impressive 23rd. Great running.
23 Iman DJOUDI 29:18
The under 17 men also had a lone Shett and David also had a great run to finish 25th.
25 David WOODS 24:07
As well as taking individual gold Fionnuala led the senior women’s team to a gold medal. A fantastic run by the Irish international finishing 16 seconds ahead of Catriona MacDonald from Bellahouston Road Runners. Kayleigh, Ruth and Avril all finished top 20 to help secure the team win. Avril also won the M40 bronze medal. Great to see all the ladies finishing in the top 100 with Arlene cutting it fine!!
1 Fionnuala ROSS 29:48
7 Kayleigh JARRETT 31:45
14 Ruth JOSS 33:07
15 Avril MASON 33:14
33 Holly MORRISON 36:15
70 Kirsty MANN 40:17
86 Rachel CUNNINGHAM 42:45
100 Arlene MCKENNA 43:40
1st team
Ruth just gets the better of a battling Avril up the last hill
An impressive 22 senior men lined up for the club for the last race of the day. Lachlan lived up to his favourite tag and managed to come away with a comfortable win by 38 seconds from Jonathan Glen of Inverclyde. Fraser Stewart of Cambuslang (training partner of several club members) finished 3rd a repeat of his bronze at Balloch in 2019.
The men couldn’t quite repeat the team gold of the women but took silver by 7 points from Cambuslang. Along with Lachlan it was Peter, Daniel, Chris, Jethro and Tom who collected the points for the club. In the masters category Jethro secured M40 bronze (inspired by Avril), John C 3rd M50 and John Oates 1st M60. Jethro, Tom and Iain B secured 1st masters team.
1 Lachlan OATES 25:33
6 Peter AVENT 26:57
11 Daniel BRADFORD 27:47
16 Christopher MCGARRITY 27:58
29 Jethro LENNOX 29:12
34 Thomas OWENS 29:25
38 Lucas CHESKIN 29:44
48 Harry PULHAM 30:13
49 Calum OATES 30:17
52 Adam PETERS 30:18
54 Michael PAXTON 30:19
54 Iain PENDER 30:19
62 Iain BURNS 30:57
74 John CONNAGHAN 31:18
97 Daniel LOWE 32:26
100 Paul SORRIE 32:30
108 Andrew TAYLOR 32:58
112 John OATES 33:14
120 Andrew ROCKETT JACKSON 33:28
132 Johnj DUFFY 34:02
221 Richard MILLAR 38:57
1st senior and 1st masters team
Sadly the eagle eyed readers will have noticed there are only 21 men listed above. Brian McGarrity fell on the very slippy course with a suspected dislocated shoulder and had to drop out. The club wish him a speedy recovery.
Final shout out for club member Jamie Burns who finished just behind Peter Avent in 7th place running for Glasgow University.
Full results here
Scottish Athletics race report here
