Gala Harriers hosted their own 10km Road race at the weekend in glorious sunshine with an equally popular junior race over 3km. With a healthy entry of home runners, there were high hopes for some strong performances over the Tweedbank course.
Getting things underway were 85 junior runners who took to the paths around the housing estate. First home in the boys race was Gregor Collins in 8.32 who was well clear of Ewan Christie in second and Thomas Macaskill of Teviotdale Harriers in third. In the junior girls race, Gala’s own Eilidh Forbes was the first past the post with an excellent run (9.55), finishing just ahead of Iona Jamieson (Teviotdale) and Isla Taylor (Chirnside).
In the senior race, the lead pack took off at a quick pace with David Limmer (Portobello), Gavin Bryson (Edinburgh AC) and Marcus D’Agrosa (Gala) doing the early work. As the race developed, David Limmer built a gap and eventually ran out winner in 33.49, followed by Gavin in 34.31 and Marcus in 34.47. In the ladies race, Jenni Forbes outlined her improvements yet again with a well judged race to take the ladies title in a time of 38.44 holding off the challenge of Corstorphine’s Kristian Macruary and Gala’s Kirstin Maxwell. In the vets categories, Gala’s Craig Mattocks took first place with a good run of 36.45, winning from Moorfoot’s Darin Dougal and Gala’s Wayne McIntosh. In the ladies vets, it was a clean sweep for gala Harriers with Jenni Forbes, Fiona Dalgleish, Kate Jenkins, and Lindsay Dun filling the first 4 positions. Such has been Lindsay’s progress over the last few months that she also finished first LV50 with Yan Horsburgh taking the mens equivalent age category.
It wasn’t just the clubs own 10km that attracted members this weekend. On Friday night, Darrell Hastie and Kirstin Maxwell took part in the National 5km Road Race Champs in Edinburgh. Darrell continues to impress, running a huge personal best to finish in 15.19 (23rd place). Kirstin also ran well with a time of 18.27 for 20th place female.
Saturday saw Dianne Lauder run the Edinburgh to North Berwick 20 mile road race and into a testing head wind, she finished first female in a time of 2 hour 15 mins. On the same day, Dave Nightingale was running the Glen Lyon Ultra, 32 miles of testing but beautiful scenery through Perth and Kinross.”