Senior/U20 Event Report 29th October 2025

Cross country season is now well and truly underway, the first national event is now behind us and some are looking forward to National Short course on the 8th of November or indeed the longer format events starting at Saltcoats on the 15th of November, whilst others are already starting preparation for the indoor season – certainly lots coming up in the calendar!

We start this week’s report at the Ayrshire XC relays at Rozelle on Saturday the 18th where we had 2 full ladies and men’s teams, and a partial team in each race.  For the women, our 1st leg A team runner Morgan McBurnie had a strong run in 14:47 to hand over in second place to Lorna Baird who scorched round the course in the fastest ladies time of the day (13:26) to take the lead by a decent margin, handing over to Lynsey O’Connor who completed in 14:41, ensuring that the gold medals and the trophy came back to Kilmarnock for the second year running – great running ladies!  The B team of Eilidh Ballantyne (15:03), Jennifer Beattie (15:00) and Katie Vallance (15:23) meanwhile held 3rd place for the duration of the race to take the bronze medals behind Ayr Seaforth A.  Our partial team of Cara Baillie who was making her Kilmarnock XC debut and team stalwart Amanda Bryden also had strong runs in 17:04 and 16:22 respectively – well done ladies!  Meanwhile in the men’s race, the A team made a clean sweep through the card.  Jamie Work (in his 1st year as an U20) finished the first leg in 11:35, a good minute ahead of his nearest competitor.  John Speirs then took the next leg in 13:07, extending the winning margin by a couple of seconds.  Greig Glendinning then extended the lead further in 12:31 before handing over to Jonathon Downey who ran the fastest leg of the day in 10:47 to take the victory for the team – by this time an advantage of over 3 minutes!  So for the second year in a row both our men’s and women’s teams brought home the trophies, making for a VERY happy team captain.  The men’s B team of Rory Morris (13:17), Nick Carter (14:28), David Anderson (13:58) and Callum Rennie (13:38) finished a very credible 4th place overall, and the partial team of Alasdair Murray (15:27), Paul Black (14:57) and Murray McDonald (16:41) also ran well.

Also on the 18th and enjoying a bit more heat in the sunshine, Robert McHarg continued his run of fine form at the European Masters Championships in Madeira in the V60 800m final.  Rob obliterated the current world record to claim gold in 2:07.65 – outstanding running!  2nd claim athlete Graeme Gemmell was also in this final where he ran his second fastest 800m ever in 2:15.58 to finish 8th in one of the most competitive finals of the championships – great running both!

On Sunday the 19th we had two Harriers at the TCS Amsterdam Marathon.  Gary Martin had a strong run to deliver a PB of 3:13:56, and Alistair Craig made his debut in 5:14:06 – well done lads.

The weekend just gone saw all roads lead to Cumbernauld for the Lindsays National XC Relay Championships.  It is safe to say that the course at Cumbernauld is not for the faint hearted, but our teams had some really strong performances on the day.  In the ladies race, our A team of Lynsey O’Connor (16:51), Lorna Baird (15:34), Eve Starritt (17:13) and Morgan McBurnie (17:31) finished in 21st overall in a very competitive race, whilst partial B team Jennifer Beattie (17:31), Katie Vallance (18:22) and Cara Baillie (19:43) all had good runs.  In the men’s race, our A team finished 42nd overall with Jonathon Downey leading our charge in 12:33, strongly backed up by Jamie Work in 13:18.  Greig Glendinning was next out and came home in a fine 15:45, and the team was anchored by Rory Morris who completed in 15:33.  Unfortunately as with the women our B team was a partial team, but great runs were had by Callum Rennie (15:49), Nick Carter (16:56) and Gary Martin (16:42).  This is always a great team day out and hopefully we will be able to have more teams next year – don’t let the word National put you off!

As promised, the league tables have been created and will be attached to this report.  You can see the full table here – winter 25.6 tables In our U20 leagues we have so far only had Eve Starritt for the ladies and Jamie Work for the men competing, so they by default (and also by some great running!) hold the leads there with 17 points apiece.  In the ladies league it is a 4 way tie at the top, with Lorna Baird, Morgan McBurnie, Katie Vallance and Jennifer Beattie all on maximum points.  In the men’s league it is also a 4 way tie, with Jonathon Downey, Nick Carter, Greig Glendinning and Rory Morris all on maximum points for competing at all events so far.  This will start to change in the coming weeks once we start to get to the individual events, starting with the National Short Course on the 8th.  We are looking for names for the Ayrshire champs at Saltcoats on the 15th of November and West Districts on the 6th of December at Erskine – please tick ‘yes’ on TeamApp if you wish to compete.  You may also wish to plan ahead for non XC events in the league – entries for Cyclists v Harriers, Turkey Trot 10k and Beith 10k are all open now, don’t miss out!

As a final piece of admin, Friday the 31st of October is the last day for you to submit times for Parkrun/HM/Marathon for the summer leagues, after which we will be in a position to announce our league winners.