Beith Harriers 4.8 Mile New Year Road Race, 2nd January 2015

First of all, Happy New Year.

 

With the 2014 edition of the Beith Harriers races cancelled, I had the honour of holding the McLuckie Cup for just under 2 years before duly returning it to race organiser Susan McIsaac a few days before the race. Sadly numbers participating failed to rise though that could be attributed to an indoor middle distance track meeting the following day at the Emirates Arena. I decided against participating in that, Queen's Park's return to Hampden after being decanted for 14 months due to the Commonwealth Games proving too much for me to resist. Managing to readjust my festive damaged sleep pattern enough, I pulled into Kilbirnie with 25 minutes to spare for registration at the Ladeside Pavilion.

 

Conditions could be best described as changeable as we lined up for the familiar (to me anyway, this being a long standing favourite race of mine) 4 lap circuit of Glengarnock Industrial Estate. We started with hailstones and a harsh cross wind. David Millar (Irvine AC) started very quickly, opening a gap on me by quite a few metres. It was the end of the first lap before I pulled level and it took a concerted effort on my part on the second lap to establish a lead. Thereafter, I pushed on as hard as possible, observing my golden rule of racing of never looking behind, before attempting to up the ante on the final lap as the weather improved.

Above: closing in on the finish. Photo courtesy of Kenny Phillips.

 

I finished a tired winner in 23:17, a single second faster than my winning time in 2013, to successfully retain the 60 plus year old McLuckie Cup. David was hot on my heels in just over 24 minutes. Kara Tait (Kilmarnock Harriers) retained the women's title with my clubmate James Healey  pipping her in a close finish. Eddie Carr (whose son Eamon raced in one of the earlier races) completed the Cambuslang contingent just ahead of former Scottish international athlete and now occasional cyclist Toni McIntosh.

 

The usual excellent spread of soup, sandwiches, cakes, tea and coffee followed at the prizegiving with Susan holding onto the trophy, promising to return it to me with a new base after updating the winner engravings with my 3 victories. I did however take home a bottle of wine.

Above: the Cambuslang contingent. Left to right- Eddie Carr, me, Eamon Carr, James Healey. Thanks to the guy who took this with James' phone (apologies, I didn't get his name but if you're reading, thank you).

 

I was content with my performance since I ran a very similar time to 2013 when I was running very well. Hopefully there are good things to come in 2015. The harsh weather had given me a chill so I saved my warm down for when I got back to East Kilbride and, incase you're wondering, the Spiders scored a penalty in injury time to seal a 1-1 draw on their return home the next day. Happy days are here again.