Senior/U20 Event Report 11th March 2026

Apologies for the length of time it has taken since our last report – time seems to have disappeared into thin air of late!  We have been busy finalising the winter league, sorting out the summer league and organising the awards night, but whilst we’ve been working away in the background our athletes have been out and about doing some amazing things on the road, track and trails!  As always please let us know of any omissions, we love to report good news but it’s hard to capture everything and some of you are very modest…

We start this report with the big one, the one that crowns the XC season for our team.  Unfortunately our initial team was decimated by illness and injury, but those that did brave the mud and hills at Falkirk were well rewarded for their efforts with some great results.  As has been the case for all of the season, our U20 athletes Eve Starritt and Jamie Work were the only contenders for the club in the U20 races.  However as always, quality outshone quantity with Jamie finishing 40th in his race and Eve finishing 46th in hers.  Morgan McBurnie was the only senior lady who made the race on the day, sharing the start line with Olympian Laura Muir!  This did not leave Morgan too star struck however, and she finished a fine 125th overall in a big field of senior women.  In the men’s race, Jonathon Downey was first back for the men in 35th overall which is an excellent result in such a high quality field!  Next back was Craig Ferguson in 146th, followed by Ross McNaught in 276th, John Speirs in 305th and Gary Martin in 369th – huge well done to all who put a toe on the line on the day, Nationals is definitely proper XC!

Not all roads led to Falkirk however, with Jennifer Beattie travelling to Lee Valley in London for the British Masters where she finished 6th in the 800m on the Saturday (2:31.3) and 5th in the 1500 on the Sunday (5:21.82).  Her dad Richard had a slightly longer flight to his race the same weekend, travelling to Malta where he enjoyed a sunny half marathon – finishing 5th V70 in 1:50.03. 

Meanwhile, one tough event was not enough for Jonathon Downey over the weekend and he followed up his National XC run with an outright win at the Hillbilly 10k trail race in Dalmellington on the Sunday in 36:39.  Fellow Harrier Graeme Quinn made it 2 of 3 for Killie on the podium, finishing in 3rd place (40:46), whilst Gordon Sandler also picked up a prize for 1st V60 in 39th overall (52:04).  Unfortunately the organisers do not include clubs on their results so if I’ve missed you then it was not intentional, but names that stood out on the results were Lynne McCaffrey (96th and 4th V40 in 59:28), Kirsty Mackay (115th in 1:01:12) and Robin Bourne (149th in 1:05:20) – well done all, always think that looks like one of the toughest ones out there!

Friday the 27th saw the return of 3k on the Green, where our sole Harrier Mark Alexander finished 6th overall on the temporary course in 10:29.  The next day, a whole squad of Kilmarnock athletes got to sample this slight amendment to the course (due to the demolition of the boathouse) at the Allan Scally relays on Saturday the 28th.  Again we lost some numbers to illness and injury, but there were some great performances on the day.  Our first team back (25th overall) was our men’s A team of Scott Masterton (16:32.0), Owen Walpole (16:21.5), David McLure (17:07.9) and Graeme Quinn (16:37.0).  Next home in 86th overall were the men’s B team of Ross Granger (17:21.8), Josh McClymont (18:23.9), Gary Martin (19:03.4) and Callum Rennie (19:19.8).  The ladies A team of Lynsey O’Connor (19:33.4), Eve Starritt (20:26.2), Morgan McBurnie (20:42.4) and Kirsty Girvan (19:29.5) were 137th overall and 17th ladies team.  Next back were our men’s V50 team who finished 5th overall in their category, with Mark Saez (18:40.7), David Anderson (18:55.5), Mike Corson (21:59.2) and Alasdair Murray (22:00.7) making up this team.  The ladies B team were 39th ladies team overall with Bethany Ross (21:37.9), Jennifer Beattie (19:57.7), Alison Mair (24:58.1) and Cara Baillie (24:12.6) making up the last of our full teams.  Our part team of Rory Morris (17:52.4) and Cameron McClymont (23:56.5) also enjoyed strong runs on the day.  Rory was definitely our dark horse as he predicted a 20 minute run – Valley Dash handicapper take note!!!  From an overall perspective, we had two ladies in the top 10 V40 runs on the day with Lynsey 4th overall and Jennifer 7th.  A great day out with loads of PBs and big thanks to all who helped with the tent!  It was also great to see some of our younger athletes competing for their University teams on this occasion – Jonathon Downey, Matthew Monachello, Jordan Phillips, Eilidh Ballantyne and Izzy Caufield were all spotted in their uni colours and there may have been more of you out there!

On the Sunday, Craig Ferguson took on the Wild Deer Culzean Trail half marathon where he finished 2nd overall in 1:27:51 – well done Craig, great to see you back out racing.

The weekend just gone was another busy one, with the culmination of the indoor season for our U20 athletes.  It was fantastic to see Molly Hunter back on the track, and she had two solid runs in the 60m (8.21s) and the 200m (26.91s), narrowly missing out on progression in both events.  Gregor Samson was competing in the 800m, where a fine PB of 2:03.02 in the heats earned him a q position in the final although he elected not to run this. We also had Cara Monachello stepping up into the U20 400m race.  Despite still only being 15 and racing her first competitive 400m races this weekend, she took the win in H1 (and fastest qualifying time) with 58.52 and then proceeded to put the afterburners on in the final where she stormed to victory in 56.04s, taking the U20 championship title – what an achievement for a hard working young athlete. Another young athlete stepping up an age group to U20 was Rhian Mitchell, who took on the heavier weight in the shot this weekend as he has done on several occasions this season with great success.  A 16.36m effort was more than enough to seal the gold medal with the next closest athlete recording 13.81m, it will be exciting to see exactly what distance this young athlete will record back down in the U18 weights where he has already met the European U18 qualifying standard. Finally, rounding off a great weekend for our U20 athletes, Jamie Work ran a mature and meticulously timed race to take the 1500m title in 4:07.30 – huge congratulations Jamie, great to see all of your hard work paying off with a championship title.

On the other side of town, Mark Alexander was racing at the Des Gilmore 5 mile race where he finished 28th overall and 1st V45 in 30:10 – great racing! And on the other end of the scale, David McLure was taking on the Highland 8 Hour Challenge in Glenmore where athletes have 8 hours to complete as many 4.366 mile loops as possible with the added bonus (!) of 570ft of ascent on each lap.  Definitely not for the faint hearted, but it was mission accomplished for David on the day as he took the win, completing 14 laps (according to the results 98,420m).

Hopefully this has covered off everything and everybody, but if there are any errors or omissions please get in touch!  We look forward to seeing you all at the awards on Friday night!