Good weather and running conditions made for a smashing day for Carnethy 5 hill race on Saturday 14th Feb. With a field of 500+ runners the atmosphere and camaraderie was great. Grant MacDonald, David Stakes and I tackled the hills, heather and scree. Grant and David came in with a time of 1:00:57 and 1:19:47 respectively and me 1:19:23. The school dinner after was a long forgotten culinary experience right enough! Great race, would thoroughly recommend it. by Elaine Race info:Carnethy 5 Hill race – 6 mile hill race with 2500 feet total climb over 5 summits, Photo: Descending Carnethy, Pentland Hills (Jim Barton) / cropped from original CC BY-SA 2.0
Carnethy 5 Hill Race
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So, Sunday 15 February was the final race in the Borders Cross Country Series. This was the day the boys finally got their hands on the coveted horseshoe. You see, Greig had promised us the best momento of any race possible and given it was the 25th anniversary series excitement was tangible as to whether the horseshoe would be polished silver this year to mark the date. Graeme had mentioned that he had already cleared a space in the living room to exhibit the prize. The final race was at a place called Conundrum near Berwick. Now, I have never been good at the conundrum on Countdown, possibly because I am so focused on Rachel Riley. I was hoping today, in the town of Conundrum, and as a disassociation tactic, to solve the ultimate conundrum. A question so tough that even Stephen Hawkins has failed to resolve: “Why is Davy’s hair more orange than oranges?” My race tactic was to focus on that question and maybe it would spur me on to success in the race too? The weather was as usual tropical. I arrived slightly late and realised I’d lost my number. Not to worry, the tattoo parlour in Conundrum was delighted to scribe my number on my chest and after a quick change I was ready to go. During our warm up I was scanning the other runners to see if I could see Deep Sea Diver. They either had decided to take the day off or were having problems with the replacement canisters of helium strapped to the suit rather than the oxygen. An inspired feat of psyching your challenger out ( well kind off!). It was during this process that I saw The Terminator. This beast was truly magnificent…..a real professional. Dressed in matching shoes, socks, shorts, racing vest, hat, gloves and sunglasses, he looked mean and ready to kick ass. When I grow up, I thought, I want to be just like you! I mentioned to the boys that he was clearly the winner and that Grieg was now racing for the lower places…….no problems for me as I am always in that position. The whistle summoned us to the start line. This gave Greig just enough time to take his last sip of EPO. I stared in awe as the majesticness of the Terminator muscled his way to the front. The starter gave us precise directions: “You run up there, across there, through there, across the road, down there, up there, through a few fields, watch the electric fences, run down there, it’s quite muddy over there and you finish right there” Brilliant….where can we go wrong? The race started. We ran across a very flat section for about 100 metres and then bang…up a big hill. I settled in behind a group of boys watching Greig, Davy and Graeme running into the distance ahead. I just thought dig in…..oranges, oranges, oranges. At the top of the hill I noticed I was right behind […]
The Carnegie Harriers Devilla Forest 15K took place yesterday with 13 Bellas taking part. The cold, dry weather last week meant the trail sections were firm under foot and the sunshine on the day made for perfent running conditions. Bellahouston Road Runners results are shown below and the full results available from the Carnegie Harriers Website here. Well down to all our runners. 40 Kevin Queenan 01:02:59 70 Gerry Hanlon 01:05:59 78 Brian O’Donnell 01:06:26 94 Elaine Somerville 01:07:33 123 Henry Merriweather 01:09:29 156 John Sandbach 01:11:38 218 Christopher Doak 01:15:41 238 Judith Macgregor 01:17:16 251 Derek Smith 01:18:08 256 Chris Kay 01:18:27 306 Walton Pantland 01:22:00 315 Jackie Mcguire 01:22:31 326 Roz Wilson 01:23:06
Bellahouston Road Runners had an impressive turnout of 12 men and 7 women for this flat race in bright conditions along the esplanade in Greenock. As expected, the first half of the race was great but then we turned round and all of a sudden that nice gentle tail wind became a gale-force headwind. The injustcie of it all! After a battle with the wind it was back to Battery Park for a final lap-and-a-bit of the park, complete with an exciting crossing of paths with the other runners. Yet again it was the women (Elaine, Mary and Shona) who stole the show, winning bronze team medals. The men however missed out on a team medal by just ONE point! Must try harder guys… Seriously though, there were quite a few PBs getting posted today and some valuable club championship points earned, so well done everyone. And big thanks to the enthusiastic support from the Bellas who weren’t racing. Results attached below. Full results: Renfrewshire AAA – Road Relay Results 2015
The conditions were surprisingly good yesterday at Strathclyde park for the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club (SVHC) Road relay event. One lap of the loch made each leg an unusual distance of 3.8miles. Well done to everyone who took part in a race with a strong field, and congratulations to Russell, Greig, Graeme and Andy who took 3rd place. The men’s teams were 3rd and 9th out of 41 teams and the ladies placed 7th out of 17 teams. Full results on the SVHC website: SVHC Road Relays 2015 – results
It was a busy day yesterday with many from the Club taking part in the Tollcross Parkrun, part of the club Winter Championships. With black ice underfoot on the main paths, the runners took to the grass. Well done to everyone who took part. Our ladies dominated the podium taking the top 3 spots. Over in Fife, in the Lomond Hills, we had 6 runners running in a mixed team at the Devil’s Burdens relays. The race is run over 4 legs, with legs 2 and 3 run in pairs. Very Well done to the team who finished 32nd of 132 teams.
With the temperature rising above freezing on Friday for the first time in a week, the weather looked promising for parkruns in Glasgow this weekend. But social media early on Saturday morning told a different story as Pollok, Victoria and Springburn were all cancelled – victims of sheets of ice on the courses caused by light rain and a subsequent cold snap overnight. Since Tollcross parkrun was the only Glasgow parkrun still going ahead, it was an inspired choice to make this the venue of a Bella Winter Championship race. Or maybe Bruce has a crystal ball he’s not told anyone about. There were changes to be made however, and even Tollcross had to make use of the alternative course, out and back 4 times on the grass. Just making it to the start was the first challenge to overcome. Thick black ice on all the paths meant that anyone watching from the overlooking flats had an entertaining morning counting the number of runners using their posteriors rather than their feet to get down the hill. With everyone upright again and safely on the grass, we were given a brief description of the revised course and we were off. The hills and grass combined to make this an even more challenging run than normal, and after a couple of laps, some of the turns were getting treacherous. Bad news for anyone who hates cross country. Graeme’s shouts of encouragement from the sidelines were very welcome and he gets a special mention for taking photos, probably suffering frostbitten fingers in the process. First Bella home was 3rd place Tony McParland (19:54) but the day belonged to the Bella ladies who put in some great performances and gave us the first four females over the line: 1st Mary SENIOR (23:43) 2nd Helen CRAIG (24:54) 3rd Jane WILD (24:57) 4th Julie VINTER (25:00) Well done to all 15 Bellas who ran. Results for the club can be found on the parkrun website here: Bellahouston Road Runners – consolidated results – 24 Jan 2015 Full Tollcross parkrun results are here: Tollcross parkrun – 24 Jan 2015 Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners are linked from the: Bellahouston Road Runners parkrun results page, or directly on the parkrun website:
Well done to all who took part in Sunday’s East Kilbride AC Open XC race. It wasn’t the mud-fest that last year’s race was, instead we had mainly snowy fields and sunshine so despite a bit of windchill it was a great day for racing. Louise Ross – 1st Female Ciara O’Connell – 2nd Female Shona Donnelly – 4th Female(but scooped 3rd Female prize) And funnily enough Louise, Ciara and Shona won the women’s team prize too – brilliant effort girls! For the men, Greig Glendinning had a great race and got the prize for 3rd V40, and the rest of us (Iain, Tim and I) thought it polite to let the home team (East Kilbride AC) win the mens team prize by the narrowest of margins. Doh! We did get given consolation prizes of some unwanted Christmas selection boxes, so that made it all alright.
The latest consolidated parkrun results from Saturday are available on the parkrun website: Bellahouston Road Runners consolidated parkrun report Highlights include 1st places for Ciaran DOUGHERTY (17:10) at Victoria Park and Andy CAMPBELL (17:49) at St Andrews, a 2nd place for Iain BURNS (17:52) at Pollok and includes Bella’s running at 6 different events including Iain O’DONNELL in Sydney, Australia. Links to the last few weeks Bella parkrun consolidated reports can be found here
During the holidays we gave the website a bit of a makeover. If you have any comments on the new look, problems with the site, or suggestions for improvement, please email: webmaster@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk
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
Well done to all the Bellas who braved the challenging conditions at the West Districts yesterday, great results in both team and individual Team results here : http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/West-Dist-2014-XC-Champs-Team-Results-NEW.xls Individual results here : http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/West-Dist-2014-XC-Champs-Indiv-Results.xls
Well done to Bellas Andy Campbell (17:25) and Claire Wharton (19:51) – 1st Male and 1st Female respectively at the 6th Anniversary Pollok parkrun on Saturday. And congratulations to Derek Rankine who completed his 100th parkrun at the same event. Big congratulations too to Al Maclachlan (pictured) who won the Men’s points competition. Much to celebrate over a piece (or 3) of parkrun birthday cake in the Burrell cafe after the event. Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners on 6 December 2014 can be found here: Latest 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.