A WINDOW ON DORES from Charlie Bannerman

It’s great to see a bumper entry of almost 400, including a large contingent from host club Inverness Harriers, for Saturday’s North District CC championships at Dores. The courses, again created by Ross Nixon, look set to provide excellent competition.
In the men’s race, our own John Newsom will be keen to regain the title he last took at the same venue when we convened these championships in 2014. 2015 champion Mark Mitchell of Forres is also on the entry …list but it’s not clear whether he is going to run. Graham Bee, Gordon Lennox and Finlay MacLennan have also done sterling work in recent league matches and we hope they figure again in our team which also defends its title.
Welcome back to Helen Gertig who will hugely strengthen our team in the women’s race where Sarah Liebnitz has been our leading contender this season.
Anna MacFadyen has been a stand-out so far, both individually and for a Forres women’s team which, to be realistic, has had a definite edge to date. I am sure that our Forres friends, who I know read these pages, will not take offence – quite the opposite I hope! – if I say that Anna’s absence in a separate under 20 race on Saturday is quite good news for IH!
We also have what could be quite useful teams for the male and female veteran championships as will hopefully also be the case in the junior age groups where the under 13 boys and under 15 girls have been particularly noteworthy.
There have been various administrative notices both on here and elsewhere regarding team assembly, catering and course matrshalling and I would ask members to support all requests as far as possible.
Finally, Ross Cairns has sweated blood getting the very large club entry organised. I think we probably need to look at a more streamlined club system for processing cross country entries which, unlike TandF championships, are club and not athlete based.