Bellahouston Road Runners was well represented at the annual National Cross Country Relays, in Cumbernauld. Out of 100 men’s senior teams (plus 20 part teams) and 63 women’s senior teams (plus 11 part teams), we fielded a whopping five men’s teams, and two women’s teams. The rain kept away for the duration of the races and the Bella Brollies (this years prize for completing the club championship) were in attendance, but not required until the post race walk back to Cumbernauld High School. With the conditions so much better than last year there were PBs aplenty as the purple posse put in some credible performances. Emma and Matt recorded the fastest Bella times and Club Captains Jane and Brian did a sterling job but everyone did well in a great turn out from the club. Women’s13 Bellahouston RR “A” Claire Thompson 17 17:18 17:18Emma Birnie 10 16:52 34:10 Jane Simpson 13 17:20 51:30 42 Bellahouston RR “B” (V) Jane Wild 57 20:20 20:20Jacqueline McGuire 50 20:10 40:30Julia Harris 42 19:21 59:51 Men’s19 Bellahouston RR “A” Alasdair McLeod 39 14:58 14:58Marcos Sanz Gomez 34 15:26 30:24Matthew Williamson 28 14:41 45:05Liam Conway 19 14:55 1:00:00 31 Bellahouston RR “B”Neil Farnell 44 15:10 15:10*Grant Edmondson 40 15:36 30:46 Craig Ross 34 15:08 45:54Russell Whittington 31 15:16 1:01:10 48 Bellahouston RR “C“Brian O’Donnell 60 15:55 15:55David Weatherhead 51 15:53 31:48Andrew Birnie 47 15:54 47:42Brendan Moriarty 48 16:08 1:03:50 77 Bellahouston RR “D” *Peter Goodwin 76 16:34 16:34Robert McEwan 70 16:29 33:03Ewan McDonald 78 18:31 51:34Ian Goudie 77 18:49 1:10:23 Bellahouston RR “E“Norman Boyle 118 19:53 19:53Douglas MacGregor 114 20:46 40:39Mike Devlin 105 23:09 1:03:48 Thanks to Ian for the race report, and well done to all the participants. Full results available at the Scottish Athletics website.
race report
As the day wore on, and the clouds got lower & lower, Bella emerged as top Scottish team (& 11th overall) in this years British Fell/Hill Relay Championships at Kirkland Leaps in West Cumbria on Sun 18th Oct. The championships are a 4 leg relay with legs 1 & 4 run as solo, and 2 & 3 run as pairs. Maps & checkpoints for Legs 1,2 & 4 were provided beforehand which allowed us to run the routes on the Saturday (in beautiful sunshine!) to find the best lines & identify some landmarks. Leg 3 is the navigation leg, with map supplied 500m after the leg start, so with 20 metre visibility adding to the joys of the deep bogs, high heather & tussocks it was a real test. In total 7 Scottish clubs entered teams making up a total field of 148 teams. The teams consisted of some of the top hill runners, road runners & triathletes in Britain. But fast runners don’t always know where they are going, resulting in drama at the end when the top 3 clubs were disqualified for missing a checkpoint on the last leg. But no such drama for the 2 Bella teams, as everyone climbed well, descended well & navigated (almost) flawlessly. The boys team are still kicking ourselves, missing out on a top 10 spot, with slight navigation errors on legs 3 & 4. But thats what will have us going back for another shot next year, in the Lomonds of Fife. A final mention for the best sprint finish of the day has to go to Stuart on the last leg for the Mixed Team, after flying down the final steep descent, crossing the field and lunging for the electronic dipper box on the line. The photo evidence shows the monumental effort – and the Race Face Award for 2009/10 is already closed! I cannot recommend these events highly enough, the sense of team spirit is 2nd to none, and the bad weather only added to the fun and to the decibel level of the supporting Bella team members. The Devils Burden Hill Relay at the end of January uses a similar format, and your next chance to come along to an event like this, go on, you know you want to…. Representing Bella were: Bella Boys Team (11th) – 1. Matt, 2. Mark/Marcos, 3. Andy/Dougal, 4. Kenny Bella Mixed Team (73rd) – 1. Katie, 2. Brendan/Davie, 3. Emma/Dave, 4. Stuart Full results here: http://www.sportident.co.uk/results/2009/BritishFellRelay/BritishFell&HillRelay2009Results.pdf Cheers to Andy Birnie for the Race Report
Bella were, as ever, well represented at parkrun. The weekend saw the 44th running of the Glasgow parkrun event, and the first running of the Edinburgh parkrun. A great day for the Bella Posse at the Glasgow parkrun today, Sat Oct 17. Scott Kennedy who seems to have caught the parkrun bug, in between running marathons, took a further 8 seconds off of last week’s course PB to finish third in 17:44. Jane Simpson continued the fine form which made her Bella Member of the Month by going one better than her second place last week to win the women’s event in 19:30, taken a further 24 secs off of last week’s course PB! Club President Robert McEwan retained his place as best age grade %, by achieving 79.01% with a time of 19:08. Bruce Carse also earned a new PB and John Sandbach and Sandra Houldsworth both took part in the Pollok Park event with excellent first runs. Position Athlete Sex Run Time Age Grading % Age Category Personal Best 3 Scott KENNEDY M 17:44 76.41% SM35-39 New PB 5 Bruce CARSE M 18:15 70.87% SM30-34 New PB 10 Al MACLACHLAN M 18:42 78.88% VM50-54 13 Robert MCEWAN M 19:08 79.01% VM50-54 16 Jane SIMPSON F 19:30 75.90% SW30-34 New PB 45 John SANDBACH M 21:45 64.67% VM40-44 1st run 53 Linda KENNEDY F 22:01 69.19% VW35-39 66 Murdoch RODGERS M 22:49 69.69% VM55-59 80 Sandra HOULDSWORTH F 23:58 61.89% SW30-34 1st run Last week’s winner Carnegie Harrier Andrew WRIGHT was the first athlete across the finish line today. He completed the course in 15:49 and posted an age grade score of 83.35%. A total of 193 runners completed the course. Over in Edinburgh: Some 204 runners completed the inaugural Edinburgh parkrun in a Baltic, sunny and surprisingly wind free Cramond foreshore…………. and of course Bellahouston Road Runners were represented at the historical event. Strong performances from Richard Leyton and myself earned us both all time PBs. Richard took 16 seconds off of his best 5k time to finish in 48th position in 20:43, an age grade % of 64:04%. I proudly displayed my Bella vest as I finished four places ahead, in 44th place with a time of 20:19 (wava 73.75 %) some 19 seconds better than my previous best 5k time. Running legend Neil Renault (Edinburgh AC) led from the start and was first over the line in a time of 14:59, an age grade of 86.1% and in a day when loads of cyclists and triathletes took part, it was fitting that the first woman home was Rachel Ramsay of Edinburgh Road Club who completed the course in 20:48, 71.31%. Thanks to Ian Goudie for the race reports, and a huge thanks to the teams of volunteers that made both the Glasgow and Edinburgh parkrun events such a success on Saturday.
Great report on the recent Melbourne marathon, from Alan Scott, proving that Bellahouston Road Runners is a club with a decent range! Perfect conditions for the marathon at 7am this morning. We started next to the Rod Laver Tennis Arena (home to the Australian Open) and headed up and into the city centre before heading south along St Kilda Road. We then turned into Albert Park to complete a circuit of the Melbourne Grand Prix Course. I had set off with the 3hr 30min pace runners but from here found myself gaining on the 3hr 20min bus as we headed north along the bayside. Sally was perfectly placed to give me my second gel and we headed out to the furthest point of the course. I then started to pull away from the 3hr 20min mob, a mistake as I would later learn. Round about the 30km mark we merged with the slower participants in the half marathon. We then spent the next 10/15 mins weaving through them. The two groups briefly seperated as the marathoners headed up the only ‘hill’ on the course alongside the Tan (think Melbourne’s equivalent of Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, London’s Hyde Park, New York’s Central Park or Tokyo’s Imperial Palace). At this point I was struggling and was swiftly passed by the 3hr 20m guys. But from here it was less than 4km to the finish at the MCG where we had to enter the stadium and complete a lap on the hallowed turf. According to my watch I managed to duck just under 3hr 21mins, much quicker than I had ever imagined and almost 35mins knocked off my previous PB. With such perfect weather conditions I would definitely recommend this marathon to anyone. Alan
I’m happy to report that I made my long awaited return to competititive representation to the purple machine at the Round Arran Relay at the weekend. This had coincided with me concentrating on coaching and coming back from a semi-serious knee injury but the team needed me at the weekend so rather than go and have a round of Golf on Arran I made myself available to run. An early start to get the ferry and away we went. what with the number of call offs we still didn’t know the exact line up for the teams and this was sorted out by S.M.M. (that is Sergeant Major Milligan) on the ferry over. He had a lot of call off’s over the week and I must say he did a good job of ensuring that we had a full complement for the three teams we had out, including a stand-in on the ferry as a last resort should someone else not make it. I was dumped, without too much complaint I may add, from the Alfa males team to fill a place in the second girls team which then became a mixed team. I was given the short easy leg South 1, aye right! Setting of up a short sharp hill we settled into a 400 m flat section before what seemed like 6 miles of climbing and about 1 mile of flat or slight downhill. It was hot and hard but I did my best for the purple vest thinking that although I wasn’t fast I was well pleased that I ran and worked hard for the full distance. I can honestly say that it was good to be back racing again, well I could say that 5 minutes after I had finished anyhow. It was good to cheer other Bella’s home and then meet up with the other 17 runners and a couple of spectators at the end for prize giving. Brilliant to see Claire get a stage winning award and to see the ladies team defend their title from last year. Excitement was building before the placing came out as we thought that the girls had won but weren’t 100% sure. S.M.M. was delighted to see that the Boys team finished ahead of the girls team by a few minutes as he wouldn’t have been able to contemplate not doing so. He even made a point of saying to me that Claire Blue pulling out at the last moment had really helped him out. I asked why and he said well if she hadn’t then you would have been running for the guys, not the mixed team, and Peter who stood in at the last moment was a lot faster than me. Can’t argue with that and maybe just sometimes you say something your thinking before you have chance to think about it first? On the other hand we are talking about S.M.M. Yep great to be back running for Bella, even S.M.M. hasn’t put me off. […]
Emma has sent this excellent race report from the The Inter-Counties Fell, on Saturday 23rd May at Hutton Roof Crags near Kendal: Bella was represented by Kenny Richmond, Iona Robertson and Emma Birnie all running for the Scotland West team. The course was a tough 7 mile slog up to Hutton Roof crags then a long undulating cross country course to the near vertical acsent up Farlton Knot and back for a fast grassy descent back to Hutton Roof village. The West teams led the way in the Scottish stakes with the West girls team (Fiona Maxwell (Shettleston), Iona and Emma) bringing home bronze medals for third place and the mens west team (Matthew Gillespie & Tom Owens (both Shettleston) & Kenny Richmond the 3 counters) securing 4th place overall. Other Scottish team results are as follows: Women – Scotland East 4th (just beating Greater Manchester on first-team-home), and Scotland Central in 8th. Among the men’s teams, the honours were in the same order with Scotland West 4th, Scotland East 6th and Scotland Central 9th. The Scotland North teams were incomplete. A great day out with fabulous cakes on offer at the village fete afterwards! Full results are here: http://www.race-results.co.uk/results/2009/hutton.htm
Hot off the press, Ian Goudie has sent through this race report from Wednesday’s Troon 10k: “Wet wet wet! and breezy blowy windy!” is how one of the over eight hundred runners at the 24th Troon 10k described Wednesday’s race. The torrential rain, sleet, hailstones and gale force winds made it a challenging event but the marvelous support provided by Scott, Craig, the stewards and the hardy Ayrshire locals, kept runners going to the very end. The wild weather didn’t stop Bellahouston RRs taking 35 runners for a jaunt along Troon’s South Beach esplanade. Bella’s Star of the night was Emma Birnie, who finished first in the Women’s Vet Race and third in the overall Women’s Race in a great time of 39:54. However on a night when everyone had to battle against the elements, every one of the Bella 35 were winners! Full result and photos are available on the Troon Tortoise web site: http://www.troontortoises.org.uk Ian’s personal race report is available here