Mar / Apr 2008

Preparing for the Summer

It’s now officially Spring, which means (a) the rain is warmer, (b) the wet grass is longer and (c) we’re outside at training, unless the weather is really awful.  Preparations for the summer are well under way, but here’s a reminder:

 Training and Event Dates

Attached is a sheet listing what’s on week by week in the summer term. As you can see, we’re going to be quite busy! It might be useful hanging up beside any family diary / organiser (hint).

 Please Note:

Training on the Monday Holidays: In previous years we haven’t trained on the Monday holidays when the school is closed, but Dave suggested “Why not keep it going?” So, lets go for it! We’ll be open for training in Malleny Park on the 3 school Holiday Mondays, so come prepared. We won’t be able to go inside if it is wet, so let’s hope the weather is dry.

No training in Gala Week: We won’t be holding training during Balerno Children’s Gala week: Mon 26^th  and Wed 28^th May.

 Forth Valley League

Attached is an information sheet (MS Word) about the Forth Valley League with dates, directions to venues and some background information about how the competition is managed.

 George Miller, assisted by Catherine Barr, Roddy MacLeod and Erin McIntosh will be our team management this year, so please give them as much help as possible.

 Saturday morning Family Fun runs around Harlaw Reservoir.

 Mon 12 May:        800m & Shot Putt

Mon 2 June:          100m & Long Jump

Wed 11 Jun:          Water of Leith Mini-Marathon

We would like to remind everyone that these are open to all members, whatever evening you normally attend on, so if you normally attend on a Wednesday, please come along to the Monday night Mini- Championships, and bring a friend or two.

Age Groups for the Summer Season

 This causes no end of confusion, so to help everyone we’ve listed the age group qualification dates and who (according to the information on our database) is in each age group. There are a few recent arrivals we don’t have a date of birth for, so we’ll be aiming to fill in any missing gaps for at training.

 “Welcome to the World” Young Athlete Relay races Saturday 29^th March

 Running in Holyrood Park is quite challenging, which is one of the reasons it was chosen for the World Cross-Country Championships. There is the wind, there are some wee hills, there are some squelchy bits, and some routes have a bit of all three. Sometimes, but fortunately not always, it can rain as well. As part of the World Championships programme of events there were junior relay races where we tackled wind, hills, but not too much squelch.

 Thanks to Kathleen Robinson and Gail Crosbie who did the phone-arounds. We were able to raise four teams who lined up against many of the strongest junior clubs in Central Scotland. We may not have featured at the front end of the races, but a few folk commented that there were VERY few teams from East of Scotland clubs, and it was a great credit to Harmeny that we had four teams.

 Our Teams and results

 We hope everyone has recovered from aches and pains (some adult runners take weeks to recover) and everyone can justifiably feel proud of being part of a World Championship event.