East District XC relays
Saturday 10 October saw bright sunny intervals, better than the forecast, at Dechmont Law on the north side of Livingston for the traditional start of the cross country season at the East District relays. There’s a short loop of 2.4km for the juniors who race in teams made up ideally by an Under 14, an Under 16 and an Under 18, and an extended 4km lap for the seniors and masters where the women race in teams of three and the men in teams of four. Central was represented by multiple teams in each of the categories.
The Junior Females race came first and the selectors seemed to have their wits about them with the A team finishing in 32:56 and bringing together the fastest three club athletes on the day in Annie Arnott (10:23), Lila Robertson (10:40) and Nicole Taylor (11:53). They were pursued throughout by the B team (39:21) of Olivia Weir (13:21), Charlotte Clyde (12:41) and Ella Tanner (13:19). The Junior Males race followed shortly after and we had four teams, the fastest of which finished in 27:34 through the efforts of Harris Robertson (9:27), Sam White (9:45) and Finlay Sharp (8:22). They were followed closely in 29:33 by the second team of Alexander Robertson (10:59), Thomas Arnott (9:41) and Sam Nicholson (8:53). We had two more teams in the race, each incomplete, where in one our runners were Jack Morrison (11:11) and Finlay Gallagher (10:24) and in the other Hamish Gallagher (11:11) and Brody Scanlon (9:21).
The women led off the senior races and we had four complete teams, two senior and two masters. The fastest home in 47:24 was led off by Kate Gallagher (15:47) completed by Scarlett Roy (16:46) and Grace Whelan (14:51). Our next team home in 53:24 comprised Louise Torr (17:58), Megan Macdonald (17:36) and Becky Hay (17:50) and then came the two masters teams in 56:11 (Sally Gallagher (18:44), Laurie Douglas - 19:06 and Liz Robertson - 18:21) and 66:45 (Melanie Bowie - 20:26, Linda Cunningham - 22:46 and Rhona Scott - 23:33).
When it came to the men’s races, we found our lineup lacked some of our best known runners but the leading team still collected bronze medals in 50:37 through the efforts of Luca Fanottoli (13:01), Lewis McComb (13:03), Logan Beagley (12:19) and Alastair Marshall (12:14) who seized third place with just a hundred metres to go in a thrilling sprint. Our other teams in the senior category finished in 53:26 (Josh Wood - 13:41, Max Stevens - 13:11, Daniel Sutherland - 13:11 and Josh Scott - 13:23) and in 55:39 (Craig Baillie - 13:33, Euan Andrews - 13:41, Sam Burton - 13:12 and Andrew Irvine - 15:13) and an incomplete team driven by Findlay Smith (14:33) and Gavin McCaffrey (14:52). Among the masters, our leading team finished in 69:31 (Sean Morrison - 16:54, Gordon Appelbe - 16:52, Ewan Jack - 16:47 and Alastair Cunningham - 18:58) followed by a strong effort from Hugh Buchanan (19:56), Allan Gall (22:54), Colin Sinclair (21:54) and Cameron Campbell.
Full results at https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/2026/GBR/edxcr/event/
Newport Marathon
Newport is just along the South Wales coast from last week’s Cardiff half marathon, but road racer Colin McCreadie instead travelled for the marathon in its namesake in Rhode Island on Sunday 11 October - or should that be Road Island? Colin set an excellent time of 3:04:05 to win his V45 category. Full results at https://results.raceroster.com/v3/events/abx5kwqg2kkvv7s2