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Results for today’s Bella 5k are now available. Click here to download the results (PDF). Note these were updated on 21/Aug/09 to correct some omissions, and are now the final results.

Pictures are also available here, courtesy of Kenneth Phillips. Add any other photos to the Bella RR flickr pool (link).

Robert Gilroy, of Ronhill Cambuslang, won the men’s race with a time of 15.31. Kirsty Husband, of Garscube Harriers, won the ladies race with a time of 18.14.

2nd and 3rd in the Men’s race went to Michael Deanson (Glasgow Uni), in 16.04, and Daniel Bradford (Glasgow Uni) in 16.11. 2nd and 3rd in the Ladies race went to Donna Finlayson (Victoria Park) in 18.51 and Michelle Sandison (Springburn) Harriers.

The first male and female team was Bellahouston Road Runners.

First MV40 was Charlie Thompson (Ronhill Cambuslang) in 16.05, First MV50 was Paul Thompson (Helensburgh AC) in 17.11, and first MV60 was Tony Hall (Garscube Harriers) in 21.45. First FV35 was Emma Birnie (Bellahouston Road Runners) in 19.17, First FV45 was Jacqueline Cowan (Giffnock North AC) in 21.21, first FV55 was Sandra Wilkinson (Helensborough AC) in 30.28, and first FV65 was Sallie Lloyd Jones (Jog Scotland) in 36.06.

Thanks to all sponsors, volunteers, organisers and participants for making the event a great success.

If you enjoyed the event, why not come along one evening and try out a training session with the club? We meet twice a week (Monday and Wednesday) at the Ski Centre in Bellahouston Park, ready to run at 6.30. We’re always friendly, and like to see new faces. Your first two sessions are free. See the rest of the website for more details.

Saturday 1st August saw the 23rd running of the Ardbeg Isle of Islay Half Marathon. Most of the purple posse started their journey from Chez Glendinning (Danielle, Greig, Nick and I) on the Friday afternoon in the Bella Bus (aka Glendinning Jeep) with an advance party already scoping the island (Alasdair McLeod & family). On the boat over to the island stomachs were churning, there was more chop in the sea than a Kung Fu movie. Fine dining Cal Mac style let us down with a severe lack of Mac Cheese which we were all looking forward to as our pre race meal.

Once safely on dry land the Bella battalion made their way to base camp at the camp site. To my horror as a first time camper gale force winds were battering the island, and attempts at pitching tents was more like flying kites. The wind was so strong it cut through Team Glendinnings tent like a hot knife through butter. This gave us an issue with the sleeping arrangements but before we could start the discussion of who was sleeping where, Glendinnings were headlights in the distance, off to find a B&B somewhere on the island, securing the very last one! Not planned, honestly! Captain Nick and I decided we would tough it out and settle in for the night. The only mildly scary event of the night was me jumping out my skin when a hedgehog decided to try out my tent and the only casualty was Nicks flapjacks which the local seagulls lapped up after Nick thought it a good idea to leave outside his tent.

Onto the race and first pit stop was to pick up 5th Bella Brendan from the boat. He had left Glasgow at 4:00am (!) to make his way here. With 4 members on the team this could have been a little tricky. Nick, Greig and Alasdair were assured their place but that last place was up for discussion until I stepped up to fill in the team sheet, decision made. The race started in Bowmore on a cool but windy day. The first 7 miles were into a strong headwind and six of those were uphill supplying negative splits all round. We had a job to do, being defending champions of the team prize. Team Bella faired well with Alasdair finishing 2nd, Nick 3rd, Greig 5th, myself 8th, with Brendan the only one securing a PB, which was quite a performance given the conditions. The team prize was ours for the second year.

The prize giving was one to remember and I wish I could. There was plentiful supply of whisky, sandwiches and lots of crumpet! The organiser was encouraging us to drink as much as we could. Prizes were extensive, with a prize given for 1st couple, and a prize given for the guy who decided to propose to his girl half way round.

Before we headed back we stopped off in Ardbeg distillery to sample yet more free whisky before Team Bella set sail for home with the Bella bus stuffed full of pot.

Even this far from home we are well supported with Danielle and Alasdair’s family doing a great job, which is always appreciated.

Official results to follow.

Brian.

I’m happy to report that I made my long awaited return to competititive representation to the purple machine at the Round Arran Relay at the weekend. This had coincided with me concentrating on coaching and coming back from a semi-serious knee injury but the team needed me at the weekend so rather than go and have a round of Golf on Arran I made myself available to run.

An early start to get the ferry and away we went. what with the number of call offs we still didn’t know the exact line up for the teams and this was sorted out by S.M.M. (that is Sergeant Major Milligan) on the ferry over. He had a lot of call off’s over the week and I must say he did a good job of ensuring that we had a full complement for the three teams we had out, including a stand-in on the ferry as a last resort should someone else not make it. I was dumped, without too much complaint I may add, from the Alfa males team to fill a place in the second girls team which then became a mixed team. I was given the short easy leg South 1, aye right! Setting of up a short sharp hill we settled into a 400 m flat section before what seemed like 6 miles of climbing and about 1 mile of flat or slight downhill. It was hot and hard but I did my best for the purple vest thinking that although I wasn’t fast I was well pleased that I ran and worked hard for the full distance.

I can honestly say that it was good to be back racing again, well I could say that 5 minutes after I had finished anyhow. It was good to cheer other Bella’s home and then meet up with the other 17 runners and a couple of spectators at the end for prize giving. Brilliant to see Claire get a stage winning award and to see the ladies team defend their title from last year.

Excitement was building before the placing came out as we thought that the girls had won but weren’t 100% sure. S.M.M. was delighted to see that the Boys team finished ahead of the girls team by a few minutes as he wouldn’t have been able to contemplate not doing so. He even made a point of saying to me that Claire Blue pulling out at the last moment had really helped him out. I asked why and he said well if she hadn’t then you would have been running for the guys, not the mixed team, and Peter who stood in at the last moment was a lot faster than me. Can’t argue with that and maybe just sometimes you say something your thinking before you have chance to think about it first? On the other hand we are talking about S.M.M. Yep great to be back running for Bella, even S.M.M. hasn’t put me off.

Oscar

Entries for the Achilles Heel Bella 5k are now open.

This year the event takes place on Sunday, August 16th. Race starts at 11am, with declaration and changing (from 9.30am) at Palace of Arts, Bellahouston Park, Glasgow.

Pre-entry is £5 for SAL members, and £7 for non-SAL members. There’s an additional £2 for entry on race day. Minimum age of 16 on race day.

Visit http://bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/bella5k for more detail and to download the application form.

Chief Bella supporter (and surely member-in-waiting) dd_bdlm sends this report from yesterday’s Skye Half Marathon:

The Skye Half Marathon turned out to be a purple dominated affair. Around 300 competitors ran in sunny but windy conditons. The race was led from the off by Graham Bee (Fife AC) who won in an impressive 1.15.48 Second was Gordon Lennox (unatt) and then the intrepid purple trio of Scott Kennedy (3rd), Andy Birnie (4th) and Greig Glendinning (5th) easily brought home the team prize. Second Claim Bella Andy Joyce (today running for Stornoway) was 6th. Christopher McKiddie also ran for Bella but unsure of his time.

The ladies race was won comfortably by club president Emma Birnie managing to make it home just under 1.30.

The prize giving had the nature of a take-over about it with the boys winning their place prizes & team prize and Andy also winning MV40 prize. Then Emma also won the Female Vet prize as well as the overall first female.

With a very generous if unusual prize list next year we will need to consider a Bella Van to bring it all home!

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=8 … 6e23d6cc15

Emma has sent this excellent race report from the The Inter-Counties Fell, on Saturday 23rd May at Hutton Roof Crags near Kendal:

Bella was represented by Kenny Richmond, Iona Robertson and Emma Birnie all running for the Scotland West team.

The course was a tough 7 mile slog up to Hutton Roof crags then a long undulating cross country course to the near vertical acsent up Farlton Knot and back for a fast grassy descent back to Hutton Roof village.

The West teams led the way in the Scottish stakes with the West girls team (Fiona Maxwell (Shettleston), Iona and Emma) bringing home bronze medals for third place and the mens west team (Matthew Gillespie & Tom Owens (both Shettleston) & Kenny Richmond the 3 counters) securing 4th place overall.

Other Scottish team results are as follows: Women – Scotland East 4th (just beating Greater Manchester on first-team-home), and Scotland Central in 8th. Among the men’s teams, the honours were in the same order with Scotland West 4th, Scotland East 6th and Scotland Central 9th. The Scotland North teams were incomplete.

A great day out with fabulous cakes on offer at the village fete afterwards!

Full results are here: http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2009/hutton.htm

Just a bit of blowing the club trumpet here…don’t know about anyone else, but we’ve been smiling over the last few days at the variety of races that Bella runners (and riders) have been turning up at. In the last week or so we’ve had:

• Greig pot-hunting on the roads and farm tracks of the Borders
• Bella sweeping all before them at Goatfell
• Joe running his 2nd superb ultra in a month
• a record Bella turnout at the Glasgow parkrun
• Ewan conquering the hills of Windermere
• Brian O’D flying the flag at Loch Leven
• Richard hashing with Mendip Hills Hash House Harriers (MH4)
• Mole, Bruce G and Jackie (and others?) braving the hairpins and carpet tacks on epic cycle events
• a couple of Bellas winning a bizarrely handicapped ’10k’ race on Skye (albeit running in the colours of their 2nd claim club!)

In the coming week we’ve got (among others):

• a Bella contingent heading to the Inter Counties fell race in Cumbria
• more (even more remote) pot-hunting from Greig on the Isle of Lewis
• the Polaroid 10k series kicking off in Helensburgh
• another parkrun

So we’ve got 5ks, 10ks, HMs, Marathons, Ultras, Hill Races and cycle races. Throw in the ongoing Duathlon training which folk are doing in preparation for the Highland Cross and the Corrieyairack Challenge, and I think you can say we’re diversifying more than most clubs! Doesn’t make writing training schedules any easier though!

It’s all great to see and illustrates that we’re so much more than just a road running club. There’s something for everyone at Bella! 

Well done to the Bellas who took part in Ben Lomond Hill Race on Saturday. Some challenging conditions (a snow blizzard up top) made for an interesting race.

Andy Birnie was 1st Bella with an excellent 7th place.

Race was a dead heat between a visiting American called Judson Cake (I kid you not!) and Brian Marshall.

Thanks also to Stuart and Katie for defying hypothermia, by marshalling at the top.

Report and results here: http://shr.uk.com/NewsItems.aspx?NewsItemID=476

Hot off the press, Ian Goudie has sent through this race report from Wednesday’s Troon 10k:

“Wet wet wet! and breezy blowy windy!” is how one of the over eight hundred runners at the 24th Troon 10k described Wednesday’s race. The torrential rain, sleet, hailstones and gale force winds made it a challenging event but the marvelous support provided by Scott, Craig, the stewards and the hardy Ayrshire locals, kept runners going to the very end.

The wild weather didn’t stop Bellahouston RRs taking 35 runners for a jaunt along Troon’s South Beach esplanade. Bella’s Star of the night was Emma Birnie, who finished first in the Women’s Vet Race and third in the overall Women’s Race in a great time of 39:54.

However on a night when everyone had to battle against the elements, every one of the Bella 35 were winners! Full result and photos are available on the Troon Tortoise web site: http://www.troontortoises.org.uk

Ian’s personal race report is available here