We celebrated our 20th anniversary back in January, and Scottish Athletics put together a lovely piece to mark the occasion for the early 2020 issue of PB magazine. Delighted to say it’s now available online, and brings back some really happy memories of a great birthday party. Hope you enjoy the piece, and the story of the club over our first two decades, and what we’ve been up to – and hope to get up to in the future! Purple patch now stretches to 20 years . . . Many thanks to Stuart Miller for the article, all at Scottish Athletics, Gordon Goldie for the amazing pictures, and everybody who’s been involved with the club over the years!
News
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We’re pleased to publish our 2018-19 Annual Report. We’ve tried to make this year’s report – our second – a celebration of what the club has been up to over the course of the year, as well as including all the details we’re required to include about our policies and finances. It’s available to read here, and we hope you enjoy reviewing it. It covers from August 2018 to July 2019, which is the club’s formal reporting period. Many thanks to everybody at the club who contributed to this year’s report, and looking forward to reporting on the year in progress. All of our required documents, and previous annual report, is also available on our 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.
Just a note to remind members that this autumn/winter, the club will be meeting at a different venue on alternate Wednesdays, starting 17th October (full list of dates below). Full details of the background for this training variation on the member’s forum. All other dates continue at Glasgow Club Nethercraigs, as usual. We will be meeting from 6.15pm at St Francis Community Centre, Cumberland Street, G5 0SE. We’ll then proceed to a session on Glasgow Green at 6.30pm, after announcements, for a structure training session. The training venue, and specific session, is always indicated on the front of our website, so it’s easy to check in advance. We have recently started a Whatsapp club announcement group which we will publicise this on (as well as any training cancellations or urgent news). Please sign up if you’ve not already done so. Details on how to do so are on the forum. Please speak to a member of the board, or coaching group, if you’ve questions or concerns!
The club is currently consulting with members, so that it can draw up a strategy to take it forward over the next few years, and we want to ensure it fully reflects our members views. We’d like to ask all members who haven’t already done so, to take a few minutes to add their thoughts, ideas and suggestions about the club. An email has been sent out with the online consultation form (if you’ve not received it, please check your spam folders!), and can also be found on the club forum. We’ll be running some after-training discussions shortly too. The deadline for responses is 1st December. Thanks very much for taking the time! Danny Phillips & Richard Leyton
This month’s Bletha is now online! Copies are available at club. Stories include: Gold run, Shona & Ann for Scotland, Jimmy T, Haddayaway man. four do thirty, pool and beer, Same a keeper. Coach mark, on the Terry bus. And much much more! Read it here!
Hot off the press: Bletha is now online, and hard copies are available at club. Stories include: Good Win for Bellas! PB Geeks, Beer and chocolate, Yogis, Bellasupport; M10K4, Wilds in the Fintry, Flash, Golden Vets, and Who would rather be sailing? And much much more… Read it here!
Report from Matt of the 55 mile Cateran trail race on Saturday, 19 May. So the Cateran Trail race was really my first serious race this year. Having had a decent season last year, my body final said enough is enough at the end of September last year and I picked up a bit of an injury ( a pain in the butt- to use the technical term). A wee lesson learnt on the number of ultra races it is wise to do in a year! This frustratingly lasted a number of months and I only managed to start training in earnest about Feb/March.. Having looked at the racing calendar the Cateran was the main race that caught my eye, but by time I was on the mend the race was full. I contacted the organiser who put me the waiting list, in the mean time I trained assuming i’d be racing. A few weeks later I was in! The race is a 55m loop starting and finishing in Glenshee, it’s a waymarked course taking in 7450ft of ascent. Terrain varies between road, farm track, single track, muddy fields, bog- oh and some of the highest stiles I have ever seen! I had never set foot on the course before Saturday, which many of the other racers found odd, but for me part of what I enjoy about a race like that is running somewhere new and not knowing what is around the corner. It’s all part of the adventure. Another part of the adventure was the fact that entering late meant there was no room at the inn (or hotel) where most others were staying. Thankfully they had a suitable square of grass outside for me to pitch my tent- ( a tree outside even had a plug in it to let me charge my phone- luxury to me). On the morning of the race conditions were pretty much perfect, nice and cool, dry and not too windy. After a quick race briefing warning us about the potentially aggressive cattle on the course we set off. The first few miles took us over some farm tracks and some pretty muddy, sh***y fields and I thought “yeeh ha this is a proper trail race” A few of the ultras i have done have had a bit too much road for my liking. At this stage I was just running steadily along with a few others wondering who the guy was way out on front. I wasn’t too concerned though as in a race like this, as far as i’m concerned the race doesn’t really begin until about 30m. Our first check point came close to a nice pad by the name of Dalnagair Castle before a road section took us onto a more agreeable off road trail towards Loch Shandra. I chatted to a few other runners and enjoyed the Perthshire countryside until we hit out next check point at 15m (still not an angry bull in sight). At the check […]
Beautiful spring weather welcomed 500 runners to Fort William for the Lochaber Marathon on Sunday, 15 April. An out and back course along the shore of Loch Linhe was the challenge and 6 runners from Bellahouston Roadruners were up for it. The course is fairly flat, undulating in places. Basically you run towards Corpach and continue on until you reach 13 miles, then turn round and run back. The snow capped mountains give a scenic backdrop and the fact there are only 500 runners and few cars means you get a clear run. Although there is a sneaky wee steep hill in the last mile. Bellahouston highlights included PBs for Greg Glendinning ( 2.41 and 1st MV40) and 2.59 for Nea Macinnes. Thanks to Danielle, Brendan, Susie and Peter for their excellent support around the course. Bellahouston Times Greg Glendinning 3.41 Nea Macinnes 2.59 John Gilhooley 3.09 Frans Roelefse 3.14 Tomoyo Fujiwara 3.33 David Boyle 3.39 Full results Above report from David And some additional reporting… from Tomoyo I enjoyed running this race, beautiful view and plenty of water station there. It was my 19th marathon and I had my first experience “I took a wrong turn” at 25 miles, as I did not see any runners in front of me. However the guy who was running behind me (actually he was walking when I passed), he shouted and rescued me!!! I wonder if this guy ignored me….am I still running now?? Lucky me, I guess! I will try hard again at the Edinburgh marathon next month to get sub 3:30!!! Thank you for all your support. And more from Nea ….. Phew, that was close! Ran 2:59:46, new PB by 10 mins. Perfect running weather on lovely flat course, until the last mile when little hills come out of nowhere and feel as if you are climbing Ben Nevis itself! I thought I had 90secs to spare and cruise to the finish until Brendan started running beside me in the last mile screaming at me and looking worriedly at the stop watch on his iphone. My garmin was showing that the finish must be round the corner, but alas it was round the corner, up the hill, round another corner and then the final straight (0.25miles longer than I thought!). In the final straight just as the legs wanted to fall off I had Brendan screaming behind me and Peter screaming in front of me – there was NO way I was not going to finish under 3 hrs!! Great support from Danielle, Suzie and the Sadistic Duo – Brendan & Peter! I know I could not have done it with out your support – BRILLIANT!!!! Well done to all Bella’s on the day and Greg getting 1st V40!
This short but challenging event was the first of three mixed terrain winter duathlons organised by Fort William based ‘No Fuss’ events. Set in the stunning mountain amphitheatre of Glen Nevis (moved from last year’s Glencoe route due to fallen trees) 84 duathletes turned up on Saturday 14th to do battle on mountain path, fire road and tarmac. The first leg was a short but steep run, (about 4-5k, they’re not sticklers for exact distances) up the single track path towards Sgurr a’Mhaim, followed by a rapid road descent back to transition. The dilemma with an event of this distance is whether it’s worth changing from running shoes to cycling shoes; figuring there may be some ‘technical stuff’ ahead, I decided to stick with the trainers. The 12k-ish bike section followed the fast, undulating road almost to the bottom of the Glen, before hanging a left and climbing back up a forestry road. Most people opted for some sort of mountain bike, but there were some pretty racy looking cyclocross numbers making short work of the dry, hard packed conditions – with thankfully no ‘tricky bits’ to reveal my woeful lack of bike skills. Back at the transition, I managed to overtake a few of those whom had smoked me on the ascent as they struggled to change back into their trainers (always a nice moment, on a longer ride it would have been a very different story!) By this time I was in 7th; with the front three well out of sight, over the same run loop I managed to catch one competitor and squeeze 6th overall/2nd SV. Great result from Inverness triathlon’s Henry Blake, who came first by over 3 minutes. The prize giving took place in the Nevis Centre in Fort William, where podium finishers received giant medals and a bobbly hat, courtesy of Big Bobble hats (http://www.bigbobblehats.co.uk) For anyone looking to try something a bit different, these events are nicely run, low key and friendly, and take place in some truly fantastic parts of Scotland (the second leg of the ‘winter feast’ is in Arisaig http://www.nofussevents.co.uk/event/Win … ries/2759/). As one who mostly runs, the challenge of a bit of mountain biking (and changing shoes against the clock) is quite good fun. Full results at http://www.nofussevents.co.uk/userfiles … %20Nevis(1).csv Report from Hamish
We’re today launching a brand new website for the club. We hope you like it, and find the revamp refreshing, and the new setup easier and more informative. Please feel free to feedback to Linda, Scott and Richard about anything – typos, suggestions or ideas for new content. Some of the highlights include: New look and feel. Nice and shiny, we hope you’ll agree. Template based system, so much easier to make changes and add new sections. News page for announcements, big club results, training schedules. Note you can subscribe using your RSS reader (or click here), and we’ll have an e-mail subscription soon too. Photo gallery, powered by flickr. If you’re a flickr user, just join the ‘bellarr‘ group and submit photos to it and they’ll appear (in a few hours) on the Gallery page. Forum integration. The latest posts to the forum are summarised on the News page. Fully up to date club records so you know what targets to aim for 🙂 Online back issues of The Bella Blether, so you can complete your collection if you missed any. Pages can be bookmarked. No more frames. Woo!