North District Cross Country - Strathpeffer - 02/02/2008

Strathpeffer cross country course brought back many harrowing memories for many of the athletes as they headed back south last Saturday. This was the fifth of six fixtures and for many of the athletes, was vital for their final placing in the League standings.

The hilly course at Strathpeffer is becoming quite notorious across the north cross country circuit with the first mile of the course being all uphill. Just when the athletes relax into the race and feel that what has come up must then go down, they are faced with what the CAAC team has termed the 'gorilla run'; aptly names as it is steeper than the 'monkey run' at the back of Thurso High School.

The results from the various races certainly told a story of the athlete's levels of fitness at this point in the season with some surprisingly good results from athletes who obviously have a liking for challenging courses.

The first of these athletes was Lauren Lafferty, who in the Under 11 Girls race came home 12th and finished 3rd Caithness athlete. The Under 11 Girls are still leading the team event as they go into the last race.

Ross Gollan in the Under 11 Boys took his fifth victory in a tough race where another Caithness athlete worth mentioning, Sean Currie finished 6th; his best performance of the season. Sean has only started racing this year and has grown in confidence with every race experience.

Older sister, Jade Currie in the Under 13 Girls was back in form after an illness and finished 2nd ahead of Oonagh Dunnett in 3rd place. Jade has now taken herself up to 2nd place in the league standing and Oonagh presently lies 3rd. Oonagh's final placing will all come down to the last race in Forres against fellow athlete Bethany Wilson from Moray Road Runners who is one point behind Oonagh.

In the Under 13 Boys age group, the race of the day went to Dean Britton who finished 10th which was a huge improvement on previous placings. This was also true for David Gardner and Jake Anderson in the Under 15 Boys race who finished 2nd and 6th respectively recording their highest placings of the winter.

In the Under 17 Men, Graeme Taylor secured League victory by dominating the race from start to finish. The overall results for the athletes were as follows:

The overall results for the Caithness athletes are as follows:-

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