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| U11 Girls Emily and Esme (back), Christina, Madeline and Holly |
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| Back row: U13s Michael, Corran and Ethan |
Significant contributions by the Moorfoot juniors to the winning of two East League titles for Team Borders at the third and final race at Broxburn on Saturday. Indeed all the team points at this race for both the U11 Girls winning team and U13 Boys winning team came from Moorfoots.
It was a day when temperatures stayed around the freezing
mark, with the frozen ground causing the first challenge of the day, the
decision on whether to wear spikes or trail shoes. The course is renowned for
its water feature, a 4 metre wide stretch of shin-deep flood water in a dip about 1km from the
finish, and strenuous efforts were
needed by the organisers to break the thick surface ice, leaving a less
deep but very icy paddle to provide a shock to the system mid-race for the
record 771 runners.
The U11 Girls held a 14-point advantage over Fife going
into the race and ran out convincing winners on the day with Madeline Collins, Esme Minto and Emily Carrick-Anderson bagging the
team points with 3rd, 4th and 10th places over
their 1.4km course. Madeline was home in 6 minutes 21 seconds, one second ahead
of Esme, with Emily timed at 6.40. As ever, the fourth and fifth team counters,
fellow Moorfoots Holly Hobbs (11th in 6.45) and Christina McGorum
(13th in 6.48), also played their part, helping to push up the
scores of the opposition teams. Once the calculators had been put away, Team
Borders were confirmed as league champions by 35 points ahead of Fife.
The U13 Boys lay fourth in their league after the
first two races but in a closely contested age-group, they were only eight
points adrift of leaders Central. Given that they had yet to field their
strongest team so far, there was some optimism that a strong turn-out might be
enough to challenge for the title. Not only did they do that, but they raced
away for a clear-cut team win on the day and an overall league winning margin
of 22 points over Falkirk, with Central dropping out of the podium places. The
Teribus Trophy, originally donated by Teviotdale Harriers, was awarded to Team
Borders for the third successive year.
Ethan Elder had another excellent
run for third place in 10.04 with club-mates Corran Carrick-Anderson using his
cyclo-cross fitness to good effect for 5th in 10.23 and rugby
playing Michael Girdler, having a rare winter race, just behind in 6th
in 10.26.
There were many other good performances on an icy day.
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| This is what came off the water hazard... |
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| ....leading to some shock |
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| and cold wet feet! |
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