Bronze medals for the Irvine AC oldies

Jan 23 2009 Irvine Herald

IRVINE Athletic Club’s veteran runners travelled to Strathclyde Park on Sunday to compete in the National Veteran Road Relay Championships with a team weakened by the withdrawal of some of their 'younger veterans'.

However the A Team of Brian Craig, Colin Miller, Alex Allardyce and Dougie Connery performed above expectations to achieve a tremendous third place.

Brian Craig got the team off to a steady start, finish 14th with a time of 22 minutes 32 seconds.

Colin Miller took over for the second leg and carved his way through the field to finish in an impressive ninth place with a time of 21.29 while, in the third leg, Alex Allardyce ran a fantastic 20.17 to bring the team up to fifth place and he was rewarded with the fastest overall time on the third leg.

Dougie Connery still had work to do on the fourth leg but a gutsy run of 20.47 saw him overtake another two teams, including local rivals Kilmarnock, to give the Irvine A Team the bronze medals.

The Irvine B Team also performed well to finish in a creditable 22nd place with solid runs from Jim Sneddon (23.48), Alastair MacFarlane (24.33), Jim White (24.39) and Andy Rennie (25.34).