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Congratulations to Debs Gray, Louise Ross and Claire Wharton on their Women’s Team Bronze Medal winning performance in the Scottish National Half Marathon Championships on Sunday at the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow. Debs ran a seasons best 87:11, while Louise’s 89:59 equalled her half marathon PB set at last years GSR. Claire ran within 11s of her PB set way back in 2004 to finish in 91:33. Well done – great to see all that hard work in training paying off. Scottish Athletics article with Results

Last Sunday saw Bellas competing in Marathons at Loch Ness and in Berlin. First Bella over the line at Loch Ness was Russell Whittington who said he was “Well chuffed” to win the Scottish Vet 40 Marathon Championship, finishing in 2:44:39. There were some big PBs and some extremely determined running from the other Bellas, so well done to you all and thanks to all those supporting. Results below: Meanwhile, in Berlin, Bruce Carmichael and James Montgomery were running with Bruce finishing in a very impressive 2:35:10 and James in 3:05:41.

This was the first distance race that I ran and what prompted me to join Bella last year. The event consists of a Marathon or Half Marathon for runners in the morning with a cycle Marathon and Half Marathon in the afternoon. The organisation is excellent and the circuitous route around the River Tay is pretty spectacular. We (my wife Angela and myself) travelled up on the Friday evening and registered at the Moness Resort where there was a pasta spread laid-on for participants. With child-care sorted and a wee cottage hired for the weekend my biggest challenge that evening was trying to ignore the wine in the fridge particularly with the sun making a rare appearance! Having missed 6-7 weeks of training over the summer due to my dodgy calf I decided to wait for a post-run tipple. The Marathon kicked off at 09:30hrs from the village of Weem just over the Tay from Aberfeldy and is a two-lap course. The HM mustered about 09:45hrs at the showfield camping / car parking area (both free) just over the Tay Bridge (aka Wade’s Bridge). From there its a 500m walk to the start line led by two pipers. The start itself is at the Aileen Chraggan Hotel just shy of Weem. The weather was good, a nice bright morning and about 12c, although there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing down from Glen Lyon. The gun started us 300 HM runners off at 10:00hrs and its a fairly steady 4 miles past Weem, Camserny and Dull to the iron bridge over the River Lyon. We were into the breeze at that stretch however it was fairly kind. From there its a left turn over the bridge and on the road to Kenmore. This is roughly a 2.5 mile undulating stretch with a water stop/toilet and past some pasture where the horses were clearly having a laugh at the two-legged humans trying to run! Entering the village of Kenmore is quite a site with Loch Tay straight ahead and a cross over the Taymouth Bridge. Its probably designed to take your mind off the impending climb through the grounds of Taymouth Castle and Golf Course. Thats where the only real hill springs up, just after the castle but thankfully through the woods which provided some shelter from the head-wind that had blown-up by that stage. Its a fairly long winding climb, probably similar to the hill in the Alloa Half. Having survived, I was glad to see a water station at the exit of the castle grounds and having briefly stopped to hydrate (I’ve lerned that I cant run and drink at the same time having nearly drowned last year) I started the gradual stage on the A827 back to Aberfeldy only to feel a large stone lodged in the sole of my left trainer. Having just stopped for a drink I didnt want to spoil my momentum again so like an audition for Riverdance, I tried to ‘remotely’ dislodge the […]

With Berlin at the end of September I was in the market for a race sharpening half marathon with 4 weeks to go. I had seen that the Barry Buddon race was advertised as a flat, fast race, that’ll do nicely I thought. So off I headed not too early yesterday for a 12pm start up in the the military range just by Monifieth. A very friendly registration area was enhanced further by a couple of musicians playing guitars and a violin, not the sort of thing you get at the GSR. The only downside at this point was the fairly stiff breeze and the sun splitting the sky. Anyway, I was joined at the start by fellow Bellas Tony, Shona and Mhairi, and off we went. After a headwind in the 1st mile we turned round and got the benefit of a tailwind for the next 3 miles, at this point I was wondering what my new PB was going to be, foolish boy. After a quick change of direction, miles 5-7 were straight into the wind and by the time we turned both myself and Colin Thomas from the Harriers had nothing left in the tank. It was a pretty sorry last few miles and the last mile itself was straight into the wind again, what a whiner I am. I finally limped over the line in 3rd place and Shona retained her F45 trophy. All that aside, the main reason for this report is to highlight the selfless actions of Mhairi, who sacrificed her own race when a fellow runner collapsed after 3 miles. She waited with him for 15 minutes until help came and she finally managed to resume her race, I would imagine that most people would just call it quits at that point. Another proud moment for the club, well done Mhairi! Bruce Carmichael 3 01:14:32 61 Bellahouston RR Anthony McParland 58 01:32:46 271 Bellahouston RR Shona Donnelly 105 01:42:23 96 Bellahouston RR Mhairi Hill 166 01:53:07 177 Bellahouston RR Photo:   © Copyright Douglas Nelson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

14 Bella’s made the trip down to Irvine for the Irvine Running Club‘s 5 mile road race, which was the penultimate short distance race of this year’s Club Championship. Gathering clouds and a weather forecast to match that didn’t promise great weather, but an epic downpour 45 minutes before the event started seemed to clear the air perfectly, leaving good running conditions – the odd sea breeze excepted – for the event. An out and back from the centre of town, along cycle path on the way out, and a closed for the event Marine drive on the way back made for a great course (a few deceptive climbs over rivers and roads excepted), and excellently marshalled. Full results available on the Irvine Running club website, club member performances were: A total of 165 runners took part, and First male runner home was Neil Renault (Edinburgh AC) in 24:58 and first female Melissa Wylie (Dumbarton AC) in 31:05. A couple of prizes for the club: Claire Wharton was 3rd female home, and Mary senior 1st F40. A special mention too to Lyndsay Kennedy too for whom this was her last race with the club before moving south to Poole. Well done to everybody! A reminder that the Strathclyde parkrun on 8th August is the final short race in the club championship.

To distract myself from missing out on marathon running this year, and enticed by the thought of doing less weekly mileage, I reckoned I’d have a go at the exact opposite: track racing. Unfortunately it turns out it’s every bit as tough as road running, just more intensely tough for a shorter period of time. And the first session I tried of 10x200m (with 60s recoveries) looked like an absolute doddle on paper, but trying to do the reps in 30s soon took its toll – stinging lungs and a tweaked left hamstring. This was going to tougher than I thought. An early ‘tester’ race in the 800m was another eye-opener. After a slightly keen 64s first lap I well and truly paid the price on the second lap, with lungs that felt like I was breathing fire and spritely legs suddenly turning to lead. One of the toughest training sessions has to be 4 x (200/400/200) with 200 at 800m pace (i.e. flat out) straight into 400 at mile pace, then straight into a final 200 at 800m pace. Try it sometime. After the first one-and-a-half of these you’ll be ready for an early bath. Seriously, I would rather do 10 Sherbrooke loops than that session again! Despite the training being brutal, the taper for this 1500m race had gone well and the legs were feeling good. And it was to be a rare chance to run on THE track used from the Commonwealth Games (which had been taken up and moved to Grangemouth) it was all looking good. At registration I was told that I had to be at the ‘call room’ at least 20 mins before my event, which was all starting to sound a little bit serious! But that aside there was a friendly atmosphere and a few familiar faces from the road racing world. After 2-mile warm up jog, plus some strides and drills (I hope coach Paterson is reading this…) and we were ready to head out to the track for some nervous chit-chat at the start line, and everyone asking everyone else what age category they were in and trying to work out who was racing who. And before we knew it…. BANG! The first 300m were fine, I got there in 51s. The next lap was OK too, although a seriously dry mouth was making it hard to breathe, but was there in 2.04, so still on course…until… Uh-oh, the dreaded 3rd lap, and this is where things are starting to tighten up a bit. With the leader opening a decent gap ahead of me, there was nowhere to hide on the back straight into the headwind (which to be fair wasn’t that strong) and I was starting to struggle. I made the classic mistake and eased off slightly, thinking “I’ll just save my energy and run the last lap extra fast”. No. No you won’t. Come the bell for the last lap all those thoughts of a Mo Farah-esque 59s blast […]