Former columnists never give up, as long as the password for the news site isn’t changed :)
Turns out the only Craigleith masters who got to race Saturday, at least in North America, were those brave souls who represented the Club at the Interclub event at Alpine Saturday morning. (For newcomers, Craigleith’s Interclub team is now the eight-time defending champion, after decades of near misses and other disappointments. Info concerning Interclub is available on the GDHL website here. It will help in interpreting what follows.)
It was certainly a damp day, but the race crew did a great job of preparing the course and spirits remained high. No drownings were reported. As numbers were generally down a bit, for the first time in memory, we didn't run out of sandwiches or beer tickets at the post-race festivities. Team members were able to linger a bit with the cancellation of the afternoon GDHL event.
The scores for the first three team places were 403, 395 and 390, so very close. Craigleith ended up second. As several women suggested, this may be good for other teams' morale, especially as we didn't dwell on Craigleith only having 17 racers, while first and third counted the maximum 18. Interestingly, there were more starters in the men's 80+ group than in the women's 40 to 49 combined. Kate Veer did nothing for the morale of the 45 to 49 group, winning by over 7 seconds.
Mary Riopelle and Leslie Sims both won their age groups handily. Mack Irwin reported temporary inattention as the cause of a late hip slide, but she finished nonetheless, in a better time than two Club directors.
Jeff Sutherland was high scorer on the day with 29 points and held first place overall until almost the end of the first run. Special congrats to Alan Shaw for a PB 25 point performance. Trent Winstone, Rob Burnes, Ian Latimer, Jerry Patten and Bryce Conacher were also 24+.
Full results are available here. When you’ve finished perusing them, flip to the home page on the Interclub site (interclubski.org) and “Sign Up Now” if you haven’t been part of Interclub previously, or “Sign In” and register for 2020 if you’re just late rejoining. (Spelunkers are being sent to look for one notable late rejoiner!)
Next week’s race is SL at Caledon on Saturday afternoon. This is a great opportunity to make your Interclub debut, as the distance tends to suppress attendance. Shoot an email to captain Taylor Simms-Brown to confirm your interest.
Let's not let others’ morale get too high! In the end, beating them is better.
And in the meantime, hopefully we get some racing at Craigleith on Sunday.
Cheers,
James Mathers