A cracking 46 Bellas braved the slippy weekend conditions taking part in the latest Scottish Athletics Challenge and once again finishing as the highest participating club in the country 🥳 We organised Covid friendly 10K club runs at Glasgow Green and Renfrewshire, and as it was a Club Championships event another 22 Bellas took part over the weekend, adding up to an awesome 68 members in total 🤩 Here’s a little collage featuring our hardy bunch 💜
Racing
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Today would have been our 11th Jimmy Irvine race, marking a full decade since the event first kicked off As our 2020 couldn’t go ahead, we thought we’d create a wee retrospective to mark the occasion, with club members sharing some some of the reasons 💜 Why We Run!💜 Thanks to all the club members who sent in selfies and ideas, and to the many brilliant event photographers who’ve captured the energy and atmosphere of our races over the years, so we can look back and look forward to the next ones as well! If you’re inspired to get involved, we’d love to see you along at the club, check out our website for more.
Huge well done to all our Bellas keeping race sharp during lockdown and embracing last weekends Scottish Athletics virtual distance challenge !!! 💜 It was a hot weekend for racing, but that didn’t stop the 57 Road Runners take on the 15/30 min challenge. We were once again the highest participating club in Scotland!! 👏 and we were 1st overall in the main U17 and Above 15min and 30min Combined distance challenge – a whopping 301.97km! Full results over on the Scottish Athletics website. Of course, we were not just racing this weekend…. As a club, we love keeping in touch virtually through various means during lockdown – a firm favourite seems to be getting in front of a camera 💁🏻♂️🎥🤩 We have joined up with our local rivals Bellahouston Harriers💙 to create the 💜BELLA BATON BONANZA💙 . We also miss seeing our competitors at local running events and thought this would be a great way to link in with them and pass a virtual baton during lockdown Enjoy 💜💙
🥳Congratulations and a huge well done to all our Bellas who took on the Scottish Athletics Virtual Challenge – The one mile time trial – which took place from 8th – 11th May. 🤩 We were again the largest club by participation! A whopping 77 Road Runners took to the streets over the weekend to see how fast they could record one mile and there were fantastic performances all round 💜👏 We say it every time but it’s really hard racing yourself – amazing effort from EVERYONE!🤩 💜Among a host of great performances, our ladies masters team finished 2nd in their category with our other teams just outside the placings. Awesome job Bellas!! Not only has it been a busy weekend of running, we’ve all had a busy weekend getting on with our housework 😜. Some of our talented members got together to create a fun video of everyone doing their household chores. We really can’t wait until lockdown is lifted so we can ‘Break Free’ !!! 💜 Enjoy!! 🤩🎥 🧹 🧼 🎶💜
💜Congratulations and well done to the whopping 69 Bellas who took part in the Scottish Athletics 15 minute challenge at the end of April.💜 There was a lot of buzz over on the forum, Facebook and strava pages and it was great to see so much encouragement and support given to all our members taking part!!! It’s hard racing against yourself, however that didn’t stop everyone giving it their all…. There were some amazing times recorded across the board! 🙌 A special shout out to our amazing Bella’s 🤩Grant Murphy and Cat MacDonald who covered the furthest individual distance for the club! 👏 💜 But…. Teamwork makes the dream work 💜 and as a result Bellahouston Road Runners scooped 1st place overall for the overall club distance recorded, as well as firsts for Senior Men and Senior Women 🤩 Full details on the Scottish Athletics website: 15-Minute Virtual Challenge brings in over 1100 solo runs With the full result breakdown now available too, we achieved the following ‘podium’ positions: All club members total distance: 1st 🥇 U17 and over total distance: 1st🥇 Senior Men total distance: 1st🥇 Senior Women total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (40) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Women (40) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (45) total distance: 1st🥇 Masters Men (65) total distance: 2nd🥈 Masters Women (55) total distance: 3rd 🥉 With an honourable shout out for 4th in Masters Men (50) total distance too. Well done to everybody who took part, to all the clubs that competed! Just a fantastic success and achievement for every club member to feel proud of! Of course, we didn’t stop there! With huge thanks to Laura Henderson for coordinating, club members got together virtually to create this fantastic video. We hope you enjoy it!
BUMPER BELLA TURNOUT AT THE RELAYS Over the Easter weekend, an amazing 68 Bellas participated in the Scottish Athletics Virtual Relays. In true Bella style – a bumper squad got on board and we provided the highest participation level out of all 40 clubs who took part. 68 Bellas ventured out to safe social distancing routes to run impressive times over 5k or 10k and of course rewarded themselves with some guilt free chocolate eggs to celebrate Thanks to everyone for taking part this weekend and huge well done to you all on your performances – it’s not easy racing yourself! Having the virtual support / post race selfies from club members over the the weekend kept everyone going and gave us the racing buzz we all love !! Well done everyone!!! GO BELLA!! We had a lot of fun too coming together virtually too, with members taking a selfie which Laura Henderson turned into these great combos!
The club celebrated its 20th anniversary on Saturday, with a packed day of events for members. A few pictures from the day’s events below. The day kicked off with an exclusive booking of the prestigious Emirates arena indoor running track. This was the first time many members had ever run on this fantastic resource. The focus of the morning was a series of 1 mile race heats, enabling members to challenge themselves at a short but tough race distance. There were great performances and a good few personal bests right across the club. The session concluded with a fun relay event, with team members each running a 200m lap: huge fun, if a little chaotic! A brilliant and delicious home-made Birthday cake was the centrepiece of the post-race lunch spread put nearby. Formally cut by club founders Jimmy and Sandra Irvine, and a marked by a few words of thanks to everybody who helped make the day happen, and to everybody who has been involved with the club over the years by current club President Richard Leyton. The afternoon then had a full itinerary of training talks with a detailed training overview and Q&A with our coaching convenor Gerry Scullion, a presentation from Glasgow Triathlon Club’s lead coach Vicky Begg on sport psychology and mental preparation for training and racing, and a presentation and Q&A on training plans and approaches from coaches Louise Ross and Henry Merriweather. Many thanks to everybody involved in making the event happen, with special note of thanks to Kevin Queenan, Gerry Scullion and Michael Lancaster for overseeing the overall arrangements. A bit more detail about the day on the club forum for members, our Birthday news post, and loads more pictures on our membership Facebook group. Thanks for the pictures used here from Gordon Goldie, Kevin Queenan, Cormac Smith and others.
Saturday saw a couple of brilliant results for Bellas. At the Scottish Athletics Inter-District XC, Catriona MacDonald finished 7th overall, and as 3rd team counter, helped the West District secure team silver in the Scottish Athletics Inter-District XC. 🥈 Ciaran Dougherty was also in action, winning the Great Stirling Castle run a 7.3k multi-terrain race taking place earlier in the day, in an impressive 28:29 🥇 Well done to both Catriona and Ciaran!
Congratulations to all our runners today and a big thank you to all the very many volunteers who gave up their time to make the event possible. We hope you all enjoyed the day as much as we did. There are lots of pictures to come which we will post in due course. For now, here are the provisional results: JI2019Results(Provisional) Thanks again to Katie, Bryan and the team at achilles heel for sponsoring the event. We hope to see you all back at next year’s Jimmy Irvine Bella 10k! 2019 Prize Winners: 1st Female – Lorna Young (Leeds City) 2nd Female – Sheena Logan (Fife Athletic Club) 3rd Female – Kristina Greig (Bellahouston Harriers) 1st Male – Alasdair Campbell (Cambuslang Harriers) 2nd Male – Gregor Yates (Bellahouston Harriers) 3rd Male – Robbie Ferguson (Kilbarchan AAC) Female V40 – Jane McNeilly (Bellahouston Road Runners) Female V50 – Maria Doherty (Glasgow South Road Runners) Female V60 – Sandra Aitken – (Fife Athletic Club) Male V40 – Iain Carroll (Giffnock North) Male V50 – Mark King (Kirkintilloch Olympians) Male V60 – Bryce Aitken (Fife Athletic Club) Female Team – Bellahouston Harriers Male Team – Bellahouston Harriers
Well done to everybody who took part at the 2019 National XC Relays in Cumbernauld yesterday! We had a cracking turnout from the club, lovely weather on the whole, and conditions were ideal for the familiar, but always challenging 4k XC circuit around Cumbernauld House Park. The club fielded a total of 10 teams (4 from the Ladies, and 6 from the Men). Some superb performances throughout! We’re delighted to report that our Ladies Masters team of Ann Robin, Louise Ross, and Jane McNeilly secured the Women’s Masters Gold Medal, making it three straight years on the podium in this team competition! Cat Macdonald ran an impressive individual leg in 14:48, 10th fastest on her leg. For the gents, our V50 team worked to take a solid 8th overall in that competition, with excellent runs by Tony McParland, Liam Conway and Gerry Scullion. Some standout individual runs from the gents included a brilliant 14:01 by Andy Campbell anchoring our men’s A team, and an excellent 14:57 from Craig Ross, returning to XC after a 9 years! Great support out on the course for our runners, and of course everybody taking part. Everybody was delighted to watch some brilliant racing in all the events, but a highlight for everybody was of course seeing Olympian Callum Hawkins tear by chasing Central AC in the senior men’s event. Scottish Athletics race report is available, with a link to the provisional results. We’re very grateful for the work by Scottish Athletics, all the volunteers and marshals for making the event another great success. Many thanks too to the Bellas who helped with setup, home baking, cleanup, team management and support on the day. The trombone was an interesting innovation from Henry too. We’ll pass on any feedback to him 🙂 A few pics below, plenty more on our club social media groups too. Thanks to Kevin Queenan, Alan Digweed, Elle Tea and others for the pics.
Thanks to everyone who made today a great afternoon out at Netherpollok!! From everyone who took pictures for us, marshalled, cheered us on, helped set up/dismantle and contribute to our fab cake table!! Great running performances all round…. andddd it just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t bring home the bling!!! 🥈🥈🥈 A huge well done to our fabulous ladies team of Cat, Ann and Mhairi picking up Silver for 2nd Ladies team. 🥈🥈🥈 Well done everyone 💜💜💜💜 More pictures and stories over on our members facebook group. Big thanks to hosts Bellahouston Harriers!
What a great wee day at Kilmarnock for the start of the Cross Country season! Congratulations to Ann, Claire and Emer for winning the silver vets team medals, to Cat who had the 6th overall fastest split, and to everyone else who raced. Loads of pics over on our members-only facebook group. Thanks to Leanne and Bryan for organising the teams, Mhairi and Leanne for the home baking and chocolates, and to everyone else who helped set up and take down the tents and flags! Huge thanks to our hosts Kilmarnock Harriers, and to everybody who made the event happen. Provisional results have been posted on Scottish Athletics website.
For the third straight year, we’re delighted to report that Scottish Athletics have just announced that the Bellahouston Road Runner Ladies team secured the Scottish Half Marathon Team Gold at this year’s Great Scottish Run. A huge congratulations to Cat MacDonald, Ann Robin and Katie Mathieson! Well done to Edinburgh AC who were just in 2nd place for Silver, with Garscube Harriers taking Bronze. We’re delighted for our Ladies, who’ve won this prestigious prize for the third straight year, and bringing it to an amazing five years on the podium. Congratulations too to Ann Robin, who also secured Silver in the W40! Well done to everybody who took part on the day. The club had an amazing 60 members complete the Half marathon, and 6 taking part in the 10k. On top of that, 40 club members volunteered over the course of the weekend to help make the event a huge success.
This year’s Jimmy Irvine Bella 10k race will be held on Sunday 17 November starting at midday. It promises to be another popular event with entries already going quickly. We pride ourselves on our unique finisher’s t-shirt and our talented t-shirt designers have been busy again this year. Here is a sneak preview of the distinctive long-sleeved t-shirt that will be awaiting you at the finish. All runners and their supports are invited to our famous Bella post-race buffet for refreshments and a chat after the race. You can sign up now at https://www.entrycentral.com/bella10k. Full details of the race can be found at Bellahouston Road Runners Jimmy Irvine Bella 10K. Please get in touch if you have any questions. #seeyouattheJimmy
Well done to the 48 Bella members who competed in the second club 3k track race on Wednesday 24 April. Even though many of us are busy preparing for Spring marathons right now, there were some fantastic performances on the track in windy conditions. The runners were enthusiastically cheered on by fellow Bellas before everyone went inside for a post-race debrief over sandwiches and cake. We were delighted to welcome Jimmy Irvine at the event who, together with his wife Sandra, were awarded honorary life membership of the club. Jimmy remains as enthusiastic about running and generous in his support for the club as ever. Congratulations to all the runners who took part and a big thank you to everyone who helped with the organisation. Please let us know if you have any ideas for future club race evenings.