Aberdeen Amateur Athletic Club’s young guns stormed to a memorable victory at the national cross-country relay championships in Cumbernauld -stunning pre-race favourites Giffnock North.
The north-east trio of Alex Henthorn, Harris Callander and Hamish McKay combined to edge out the opposition by 10 seconds in typically grizzly cross-country conditions in north Lanarkshire.
With each of the three runners representing a different age group – Alex Henthorn, under-13s, Harris Callander, U15s, and Hamish McKay, U17s – the day proved a valuable learning experience for the young athletes, who earned Aberdeen the boys’ cross-country relay title for the first time in well over a decade.
Henthorn, himself a Scottish national champion over 800m earlier this summer, led the charge on the first leg of the 4k course, before handing over to Callander.
A good leg by Callander, who has enjoyed a consistent stretch of competition this year, set up McKay for the final run.
With two competitors ahead of him and much of the first half of the course uphill, McKay was aggressive from the off – overhauling the Giffnock A and B teams and returning home to secure Aberdeen a richly-deserved win.
It is a victory which places the club firmly on the map in the early stages of the cross-country season.
Katrina McKay, an Aberdeen AAC volunteer and the boys’ cross country team manager, thinks the format of the race helped spur the boys on to the statement win, with the varying age groups also allowing for some of the more senior athletes to guide the younger runners through the course beforehand.
She said: “We get the U17 athlete to walk the course with the younger team members, just so they’re aware of the course they’re going to run and what it’s like under foot.
“The relays are quite a different event. With normal cross-country competitions, you’re running as a club, but it’s not normal for the U13 to go to the U15 and then the U17.
“But the U17 is likely to have been to Cumbernauld before and done relay competitions, and they know what they’re doing.
“A lot of the younger kids haven’t (had that experience) – Harris had never done a cross country relay before. Alex Henthorn did it last year, but on a different course.”
People have their cowbells out and are cheering and shouting”
Although McKay knew the team was strong, prevailing overall was still a major success for the three runners – and Aberdeen AAC as a club.
She added: “The team winning was a brilliant achievement. We knew they were going to do well, but you never know what’s going to happen on the day with cross country.
“These events have always got a really good atmosphere because you’re there as a team. It’s very different to track events – people have their cowbells out and are cheering and shouting.”
Other Aberdeen AAC teams land
top-10 finishes
In the young female category, Aberdeen edged out Airdrie Harriers and Edinburgh AC to secure a top-10 finish.
Without a full complement of runners, Aberdeen’s senior women’s team were unable to compete for honours – though the competition did act as a good training run for national 800m champion Hannah Cameron, and team-mate Stefanie Tucker.
The senior men’s team, however, managed to finish in the top-10, with Adam Brown, Fearghas Thomson, Aaron Odentz, and Michael Ferguson making up the quartet.
Ferguson thinks it’s an important event, as it brings a wide range of distance runners together for the first time in the cross-country season.
He said: “The brilliance of the event is that it’s a 4k course.
“It’s at the part of the season where the track runners are happy to do it because it’s not going to affect how they run in January, and endurance athletes, like road runners and marathon runners, are quite happy to do it as well because marathon races have finished. It brings all the endurance community together.
“The quality was definitely one of the highest it’s been for quite a few years.”
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