Dermot Delivers at Lasswade and a good turnout for Musselburgh

If it’s the first Sunday in March, it must be Rosewell. The Lasswade 10 (that’s miles not kilometres) is a popular starting point for the season for many road runners and is a nice stepping-stone for runners planning a marathon or half-marathon in late spring.

Around 450 runners turned out for the latest edition and a healthy turnout from Musselburgh athletes - Dermot, Tony, Mike M-S, Stuart, Mike Jones, myself and soon-to-be-member Joe. It would have been an even better turnout if injuries had not hit Gordon and Alex and Craig did not take the bait after an exhausting (?) fishing trip up north.
As usual, you can never predict the weather and so we all came prepared for the worst. There was still a chill at the noon start but most of us decided the Musselburgh & District AC uniquely-fitting vest would suffice.

Dermot was looking for a fast time as he prepares for the London marathon and Stuart summed it up nicely before the gun when he said it was a case of who could get closest to Dermot. I prefer “Desperately Seeking Dermot” as I didn’t manage to see him at the start line and didn’t even manage to glimpse him even in the distance during the ten miles.
We had warned first-timers Stuart, Mike (Jones) and Joe about the hill coming out of Roslin Glen (early in the race) and the one climbing out of Auchendinny (just before the halfway mark). It was the least we could do!

The official results were: Dermot (35th, 62:31), Roddy (75th(fourth Over-50), 66:54), Stuart (85th, 67:37), Mike Jones (104th, 68:53), Mike Malcolm-Smith (112th, 69:31), Tony (184th, 75:18) and Joe (243rd, 80:56) but everyone ran at least 10 seconds faster than that as it is not a chip-timed race and does take some time to get to the start (I timed myself at 66.41 but was given 66.54). Kerry Liam Wilson (Ron Hill Cambuslang) won the race in an impressive 54:03.

 In the team event, Musselburgh came in eighth (although the provisional results had us ninth and did not register myself or Stuart!) with Corstorphine winning the race with three runners in the top ten.

 Also good to see our old friend and team mate Neil White back on  the road :)

 Photos Courtesy of Bob Marshall

Results:

http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/index.php?p=80&itemType=fixtures&itemId=12786