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It was a good day for Bella at Pollok parkrun yesterday. Last week’s run was cancelled owing to icy conditions, and this week’s field of 231 was certainly smaller than usual, but that didn’t put off the Bellas as the first two, and five of the top ten, were from the Club. Bruce Carmichael was 1st in 17:10 with Andy Campbell 2nd in 17:42. Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners on 20 December 2014 can be found here: Bella Consolidated Results NB If you’re missing from the results, add Bellahouston Road Runners as your club on your parkrun profile – a link is given in the email with your result you received on Saturday. Photo Copyright Jim Smillie [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Today was the 4th race in the Border series and it was a long trip down to Berwick. There were Three Wise Men that made the journey, aka Me, Greig Glendinning and Graeme Paterson. I know what you are thinking where was Peter Gallanagh??? Well he couldn’t make it today, we received a text to say that he had “a lot of decking work to do” today! 😯 I was amazed that he put his decking before a XC race! But as it’s Christmas we won’t call it decking work we’ll just say he was building a Manger for his festive garden display. Also we had a travelling support from Danielle Glendinning aka Mrs Clause and 5 Border Collies aka The Reindeers. I had never been to Berwick before so I didn’t have a clue how to get there. With no star to follow as it was daylight it was down to my Satnav. We arrived in Chirnside just outside Berwick and I’m happy to report the weather was a lot better than the previous week at Linwood. With the warm up complete it was down to business. There weren’t as many people that turned up for this race as there were in Peebles. But there were still loads of fast guys and gals as we were about to find out when the wee women shouted GO at the start line. It started with a dash around the football pitch to spread out the field a bit and Greig shooting off like Blitzen, followed by Graeme running like Dasher and finally me trundling along like Little Donkey. We then followed a route which took us through many farmers fields. This was to bring gifts for all! The first field was filled with brussel sprouts then on the way back there was another field full of potatoes, so that’s the veg sorted for Christmas day! It was a bit of a nightmare trying to run with 2kgs of potatoes and sprouts stuffed down our shorts. But we did manage it. Greig finished in 6th place (1st old boy), Graeme in 13th (3rd old boy) and me in 17th. It’s fair to say that we were all really pleased with our finishing positions. This course wasn’t as hilly as the previous courses we have ran in but the terrain was heavy under foot. And I lost count on how many fields we ran through. It was still a brilliant route! We then did a warm down run with the reindeer before we heading home via a nice wee cafe just off the A1 for refuelling. The trip back home seemed a bit longer than the way there but this was broken up in the car by Graeme belting out Christmas Carol classics in the style of Aled Jones! Looking forward to the next race in the series in the new year. By Davie Weatherhead

by Peter G Sunday was the 3rd race in the Borders Cross Country series held in Peebles. 4 fearless Bella explorers had entered ready to do battle with the expected artic conditions on the last day of November, over the 4 mile course. Unfortunately Greig Glendinning had contracted Ebola and had to be confined to Uplawmoor Hills. This was just as well as Davy Weatherhead was still wearing the head scars of Greig’s 6×2 rusty nail infused dog throw toy and was seeking revenge. Clearly that would have to wait another day! So, early morning on Sunday I borrowed Mrs Gallanagh’s pimped up tractor for the trek towards the Siberian village of Peebles, only stopping to pick up Graeme Paterson and Davy Weatherhead on the way. Now, runners have a lot to answer for with their insistence on not using showers but instead preferring to apply the ‘shower out of a can technique’ thus clearly damaging our beloved Ozone. As we descended the North of Britain the temperatures rose and the sun shone to Saharan proportions. Mrs Gallanagh’s tractor looked magnificent in the scorching sun albeit the speed we were travelling meant we would not get there with much time to spare before the start of the race. I however revelled in driving such a wonderful vehicle. You will not be surprised to read that by the time we got to Peebles, the locals dressed in their finest Sunday mankinis and Hawain shirts were picking the low hanging fruit from their trees in the wonderful sunshine. This completely caught me off guard as I had brought running gear for arctic conditions. Graeme however was well prepared as he unzipped his tracksuit revealing his hairy chest. As we had arrived late we had to rush to the start line. Me, in my thermals, Davy wearing his Bella top and Graeme in his speedo’s were ready to do battle with the Gutterbluids and Stooriefoots. The pre-race advice from GG was all about getting a fast start as 100 metres into the race the course narrows to single lane. So as the gun sounded I sprinted like Usain Bolt. I was flying….Davy and Graeme in front of me! 10 yards before the funnel a guy running backwards, wearing a diving suit with his laces tied together came past me. I could have swore he was reading the Scotsman too! It was then I realised we were in for a tough day. The first mile was in the park. A steep incline in the first 200 metres followed by a slippy muddy decent. I felt great although had a few Bambi on ice moments. We then ran along the riverside and up a grass wall. I could see Graeme pulling himself up whilst Davy, the goat, bounded up no problem. I managed to beat the Deep Sea Diver up the wall. Hopefully that would be the last I saw of him. We then ran past the start and out of the park along a […]

You always think you are going to get an amazing nights sleep after running a 24hour race, but it never quite works out like that. I can’t move my legs a millimetre in any direction without yelping in pain, so in the absense of sleep i might as well rustle up a race report. It’s around 48hours since i last slept so expect spelling errors, factual innacuracies and flights of fancy. It’s possible none of this actualy happened, but if that is the case i can always play the brain haemorrhage defense trump card. So, Glenmore 24 hour trail race. I won this race back in 2012. It’s the only race i’ve ever won, and that was quite exciting. So when i entered the 2014 race back in november I was hoping the big boys would stay at home and i could win another shiny trophy. I guess like Greig Gleindinning I am a bit of a pot hunter. Although his technique is to find 10k races in obscure borders towns to win, my version is to find stupidly long races where you can win by being the last person to get bored of running around in circles. Well, I jest, you do need a bit of training, but a low boredom threshold will take you a long way in 24 hour racing. In feburary the aforementioned sub arachnoid brain haemorrhage occured (try spelling that after 48 hours with no sleep) which kind of blew a hole in my training. Most of Feburary was spent enjoying the facilities on ward 65 at the Southern General and much of March was spent napping and trying to remember what I’d had for breakfast. By April I had got fed up of googling brain haemorrhage to 5k training plans and started doing a little bit of running, I even ventured out for a few hill races. My lack of fitness was apparent, I could no longer keep up with bella’s resident mountain goat al ewan and had to resort to giving the v60 ladies a run for their money. By may i was back at work and i was running regularly but very slowly. By june most of the fatigue and headaches I had been having were starting to wear off and I was starting to feel like normal. It was at this stage that Glenmore became important to me, i felt that if i had a decent run there it would be the final stage in getting my life fully back to how it was before the brain haemorrhage (end of the serious bit, stay with me there is some toilet stuff coming soon). Over june, july and august i got 3 decent months of training in but that doesnt make very interesting reading so lets just cut to the startline: We are in a field near Aviemore. Its cold and it’s raining and I’m about to spend the next 24hours running laps of a 4 mile trail loop. I’m starting to […]