Social Run........

Our next social run is scheduled for Sunday 20th June. Balerno to the Ratho Adventure Centre (12 miles approx). Iain has confirmed we can use the showering facilities and has made a provisional table booking for 16 places for approx 1:30pm.
We need to confirm numbers for food (runners and partners / chauffers)  so CONTACT IAIN On 449 6546 Details of the route are at the end of this page. (PS I've cycled the route to confirm the distance -exactly 17 k from Iain's house)

Performances.......

London Marathon

We had three club members competing in the London marathon this year.  Here are their own words:

Andreas Wilhelm: I finished in 3:45:45. I was expecting a much slower time because of weather and crowds. So, I am quite pleased.

Tony Westbury: Thoroughly enjoyed myself. Ran 3.37 - was fine until about 21 miles and then the deadly leg cramps set in! Not entirely surprising as my longest training run had been 11 miles. I last did London in 1984, and ran 2.48, there is a pattern developing and I'm penciled in for 2024 Where, all being equal, I should run 4.26.

Bill Stobie I managed 3:49:44, Andreas got 3:45:45 and Tony was 3:37:25, according to the official results. I once again had uneven splits, but did manage to improve the second half. Splits were 1:45:38 and 2:04:06 according to my watch! I was 1 hour at 7.5 miles, 2 hours at 15 miles, 3hours at 21.5 miles (tailing off now) and 3 hours 35 minutes at 25 miles. It was around this point that I thought I saw a Harmeny vest a 100 metres ahead of me (which was either Andreas or a hallucination). The last mile and a fifth were very tough and I slowed down to 12 minute mile pace (ie a walk, except for the 300 metre run up the Mall).

9/5/04
BUPA 10k at Balmoral.
(By our roving reporter, Iain Morrice) My time was 44mins, Andrew was 40mins, Alex was 58mins and my friend Donald was 55mins. The course this year was the reverse of last years, weather was perfect, good temperature with just a nice cool breeze. The programme indicated that their was hilly section at 3.5k, the clerk of course announced on the speaker system that the hill was in fact VERY SEVERE. You should have seen the reaction of some of the FUN runners!!. This event is a must for our Pentland Runners who are looking to do either their first or are just starting to do 10k`s.

9/5/04 Monklands Half marathon.
17 Richard Sharp 1hr 25m 31s
250ish ruuners (I think ).
"I was pleased with my run and time as I had not eased up with my marathon training, and had used it as a fast training session, therefore everything seems to be going to plan for Edinburgh."

Neways ( Sponsor) 2004 Speyside Way Race.
Ballindalloch to Spey Bay distance 50kilometeres/32 miles.

By our very exhausted Roving Reporter (Iain Morrice) I entered this race for the first time and completed it in 4 hours 40 mins.
There were 96 entries with 94 finishers, one person got lost and the other pulled out due to injury. I finished the race in 36th place. The route is very spectacular and is classed as multi terrain, the route is marked with red arrows either on the track, roads or tree trunks so you have to keep your eyes open. It follows old railway tracks, B listed roads, mountain paths and Forestry Commission tracks. Part of the route climbs up and around Ben Aigen which has a height of 470m/1500ft approx. On the route you pass many of our famous Speyside distillerys including Knockando and Tamdhu If you are into long distances then this is the race for you, it is well organised with 4/5 water stations art approx 8/10k intervals. The majority of people who enter this have done so before and many have been doing it for 10 years or less, they are mainly all veterans or super veterans, there were certainly not many youngsters ( 30-40 years old ).

The winning time for this year was a very spectacular 3hours 5mins and was won by Simon Pride who finished 20 mins ahead of his nearest rival. As I write these paragraphs I know that Simon is competing in a 100k race in Italy. I chatted with many of the participants during what is a very long race, they come from all over Scotland, England and some EU countries. Many of
them were using this as a training run!!!! for Iron Man events, biathlons and triathlons. One person who I chatted to explained that his next race was going to be a 100mile cycle, jump off then do a Marathon 26miles !!!.

The last 5/6 miles of the race follow the river Spey from Fochabers to Spey Bay, this believe or not was one of the hardest sections mainly because you could see the end in sight but it took forever to get there. The goody bag at the end was not up to the usual standard that you would expect, 2 bottles of still water and a small bottle of Neways shampoo!!. Not very useful for my old hairless head however, it was put to good use that night as I recovered in a lovely warm bath.

Britannic Womens 10k
Congratulations to all the girls, especially those completing their first 10k, who all made it round without stopping, on a very warm sunny day. More warm weather training needed?

Also congratulations to Hugh Chalmers who won a prize in the Mini triathlon held at Penicuik on 5 May - 500m swim, 10 mile cycle, 2 Mile run.

Rigg Race 24 May

On one of the most pleasant evenings that I can remember from all my years standing around in Malleny Park, we had a record entry of 201 runners and a lot of pretty good times. The entry for this race has grown from apprx 40-50 ten years ago. These days we need almost that number of helpers to run the event smoothly, and luckily (!!) I had a squad of my track youngsters and other club officials on hand to help out at the finish area. Thanks also to Lyndsey and Anne for helping out. Now the Gala Committee are up to speed and I'll enjoy my retirement....