East District Cross Country League
Deans, Livingston, 4/2/06There were fine performances from Portobello runners at the Livingston cross country on Saturday, 4 February, reports Gerry.
Global warming is a reality. The conditions at Livingston were excellent for the final East of Scotland cross country league meeting of 2005-06. Almost summer conditions with a clear blue sky overhead and conditions on the ground were good though Livingston still presented a testing, and somewhat hilly course.
First Porty runner up was Kerry Costello in the women's race. Her first go at the country. She performed excellently well. In a quality field of over 100, she came in 66th in a time of 26 mins 35 secs over a course of 6.4 km. Well done and encouraging to hear afterwards that she enjoyed the occasion and we hope to see her again in the cross country action along with other females from the clubs.
The final event of the day was the men's event over 8.4km. Two laps of a varied course, with a couple of uphill stretches, a pleasant and generally uphill trail through the woods with an almost negligible amount of boggy ground. It was difficult to believe that you are only a short distance away from the busy M8 motorway.
As ever in a quality field the pace at the front was quick and with 220 in the race, and starting in the middle of the field, I had to be patient early on to work my way forward without knocking fellow competitors out of the way.
After the first mile or so I expected to recognise a face or 2 (or backs of) runners that are of a similar ability to me but there wasn't anyone to see. This triggered a reaction of whether I was going too fast but I felt fine so I kept on going. After around 2 miles one guy went by me whom I recognised so I could relax, well not really, as I wanted to keep with him.
Into the second lap I could feel tiredness setting in but with excellent support and shouts from the crowd this kept me going. Once into the woods for the second time I intended to keep with those I was running beside and hope at some stage to make a break from at least a few of them - there were quite a few folk all within a few seconds of each other. I managed to do so going up the last part of the final hill and then over the last couple of hundred metres tried going after one or 2 more competitors. In the last 100 metres I heard the race commentator mentioning 2 runners going for a sprint finish and very soon realised these guys were going past me. I couldn't match their finish but was pleased with my performance, 73rd position in a time of 30 mins 38 secs.
Well done to John Pickard, both for his effort in taking part and his performance, timed at 34 mins 28 secs (157th). This will have helped towards his training for the London marathon in April. Well done to Paul Ewing in his first cross country race for the club, timed at 37 mins 26 seconds (198th), here's hoping the experience of this race will encourage him back for more and of course well done to reliable as ever John Forker finishing in 39 mins 27 secs (215th).
It was good to hear positive comments from all at the finish and I hope this will lead not only to those noted above taking part again but to others in the club giving the cross country a go next year.Full results (men) here
Women hereReport Gerry Scullion
