Sarah Inglis returns from Polish adventure

Apr 1 2010 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

SARAH Inglis crossed the line in 56th place in the Junior Women’s race at the World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland leaving the Lothian Running Club starlet slightly disappointed.

Running for Great Britain and Ireland at the international event on Sunday, she helped the team to fifth place.

Running a challenging 6000m course comprised of hard and soft ground, mud, sharp turns and artificial log obstacles, Sarah learned a lot from her experience.

She got caught up in the fast early pace. right from the starting un, and at one point she was up to 38th place, however, as the race progressed the early exertions began to toll and she dropped back to finish 56th.

She said: “I went off too hard and wish I could rerun the race differently.

“I’m disappointed but it will help me next time around at the Europeans next winter.”

As expected the race was dominated by African runners.

Kenyan athletes took the first four places and the first European across the line was a Russian in 16th place.

A total of 95 athletes from 27 countries contested the race.

Meanwhile, on a sunny but very windy day, Lothian Running Club had five runners at the 23rd Edinburgh 5k Parkrun on Saturday, and three age-category wins were recorded.

Lana Turnbull, running her 11th parkrun, finished first club runner and first in the 15-19 age group, coming seventh female over the line and 41st overall in a time of 20 minutes 45 seconds — a full 60 seconds short of her PB for the course.

Jill Horsburgh ran well to place first in the F50-54 category, 61st overall which made her 13th female in a time of 22:07, which was also short of her PB.

Alice Horsburgh, daughter of Jill, in her race debut finished first J14 in completing the 5k course in 25 minutes dead, to take 112th place overall as 27th female over the line.

Mike and Mags Turnbull completed the club representation and ran the course together for 205th and 206th place, with Mike completing in 33:55, which was 12 seconds faster than his debut run the previous week.

Mags crossed the line a second behind in 33:56.

A handful of club athletes were among a total of 218 runners.

A field of over 500 assembled for the 44th Round the Houses 10k from Grangemouth Stadium on Sunday.

Scott Nelson was the first club runner home in 37 minutes 19 seconds, which placed him 64th overall and eighth M40 for a new PB.

Ian Leggett was next home in 205th place as first M70, timed at 44:34. Only nine places separated Neil Graham and Kenny Mearns. Neil finished 255th with Kenny 264th.

The club’s only female runner was Lesley McGiffen in 56:31 – 481st and 36th F40.