Great effort from Irvine Athletic Club

Apr 10 2009 by John Woods, Irvine Herald

IRVINE Athletic Club sent two teams to Livingston on Saturday to compete against the best in Scotland in the National Six-Stage Road Relay Championships.

The race is held over alternate short (3.2 miles) and long (5.8 miles) loops on a traffic-free course and incorporates both a senior and a veterans’ race.

Pat Cullinane, who has been improving his road times all season, ran the first leg for the Irvine A team to finish in a very creditable 17th place out of the 63 teams in a time of 17 minutes 26 seconds.

Jamie Findlay took over for the first long leg and managed to gain three places with a time of 31.42.

Brian Craig had a gutsy run on the third leg with a time of 18.48 but lost three places to put Irvine back to 17th place.

The fourth leg saw the in-form David Millar surge through the field to bring Irvine up to ninth place with a superb time of 30.03 and Colin Miller was dependable as ever on the fifth leg with a time of 18.03 but lost three places to put the team back to 12th.

Alex Allardyce brought Irvine close to a coveted top ten finish on the last leg but was only able to consolidate 12th place in a time of 32m.41.

The race was won by a Shettleston Harriers team which contained four Eritrean runners, with the holders Central AC runners up and a fast finishing Inverclyde AC overtaking Kilbarchan AAC for third.

The Irvine Veterans’ team finished in a very creditable 32nd place overall in the main race but, on this occasion, were out of the medals in the veterans’ competition with Jim White (20.11), Mark Livingston (35.55), Jim Sneddon (19.45), George Irving (34.26), Alastair MacFarlane (20.44) and Dougie Connery (34.24).