Performance details

Stirling Cross Country: In the last update we referred to the pictures of the runners at the Cross Country race at Stirling. We’ve now got the performance details.

Kirkcaldy, 27 Nov

For the second Cross country race at Kirkcaldy we had a much bigger turnout, 7 “girls with guts” 7 blokes with clean trainers, plus a few of the club’s youngsters in the U11 & U13 races.

It was a bright, chilly day, and the girls were all shiny bright at the start, as the picture shows. As Claire reports “I don't know what the biggest challenge was - trying not to fall flat on my face in the mud, or a car full of women following a map to find the place. Although we did manage to get there in time to go round part of the route - in the car, making a quick exit as we saw the runners heading in our direction (We did briefly lead the under 17's race, until Alex managed to reverse off the course.) Alex makes a great team leader, she can make a girls day out being cold, wet and knee high in mud sound like fun.” Sally showed the benefit of the hard training she’s been putting in and pace judgement to finish ahead of Alex and Caroline for the first time, although the latter two may claim injury and illness held them back…  We’ve not seen an update in the team scores, but I would expect the girls will now be in the top dozen. Some of the guys had invested in new trail shoes which were well and truly christened on the squelchier parts of the course. Bob had hoped to jog gently round but found nobody else at the back, so had to work harder than expected to stay in touch with the field, before putting in a sprint finish to move up from 229th (3rd last) to 228th (4th last).

Performances

PS We hope our “club photographer“ gets a pair of warm gloves from Santa…..

Reggae Running - Greetings from David Syme in Jamaica

“I did the Half here in 2 hrs 10, my son did the Marathon in 3hrs 19 (9th overall) and my daughter the Marathon in 3hrs 39 - a PB despite the heat, and 4th lady home!”

a half marathon in Jamaica has got a few folk thinking

On the day at the start there was terrific downpours of the wet rain and a strong wind which kept you nice a cool at the start. Its an early start at 09:00 thus allowing the rest of the day to stock up on carbs of liquid black GUINESS. The atmosphere was really good with people from all over the world, I spend 20minutes at the start exchanges comments about Motor cycle racers with 2 Spaniards, 1 Irish, 1 English and 1 Italian. The sign language was comical. The route takes you through the centre of Dublin (Blackpool is the English translation, a good one for those St Patrick day trivial pursuit days ) and out via Phoenix park ( which is the largest 1800 acres of parkland in any EU City), the route zig -zags around hamlets of Dublin eventually coming back to the centre past some terrific old buildings. The final 1 mile was lined by thousands of folk which was nice and warming to hear. I had been trying for PB of 3:15 mins but the old legs gave up a wee bit and I did it in 3 hours 26mins. Still a good achievement for an old 53 year old Super Vet, I was 900th out of 10500 runners.

The medal at the end is a real beauty and the T Shirt even better, it’s a long sleeved thick shirt which will be worn proudly this winter.

Wednesday 2nd November Balerno: Pentland Runners Weds eveing sessions.
Good work out over a short distance of approx 5/6 miles, well attended for a  very dark and wet night and   a good wind-down for an old Pentland Runner Super Vet.

Sunday 6th November Dundee Road Runners Templeton Woods 10 Mile road race.
This race was the dogs bollocks, totally fantastic. Put this on your calendar every year and spread the word around the club. It was in a fantastic setting around Tealing, Auchterhouse and the Temp Woods area. The route is very very hilly ( really) and is a good test for anyone of how their fitness is doing.

The finish was changed this year and is great, at the 9 mile marker you turn a corner onto a hill that can only be described as severe, you then run up it for a few hundred yards then into terrific woods for the final dash of 440 yards. At the end you get water bottles and a cracking long sleeved T Shirt. I attended the presentation ceremony where the spread of food and drink had to be seen to be believed, it was brilliant. They even allowed non competitors access to the food and drink ( my girls stuffed there faces with sanies and home made shortbread). A great day out for all the family.

I was 49th out 312 runners in a time of 68 minutes, Andrew Neilson was 21st in a time of 63 mins and his sister Sarah was 219th in a time of 83mins.”

Our Winter 05 run saw 15 hardy souls (pictured on the right) braving the elements and running the 10 miles over the hills from the Carlops village car park to Balerno High School. It was a chilly morning when we all meet at the Carlops, for some this was their first social run outing and some worried brows could be seen when the route was explained to them. Starting from Carlops the route took us up the steep climbing road/track to Fairlehope Farm. The route then follows the "Route of the Cows" know for its extremely boggy under foot conditions. This was the point when some of less experienced runners wished they had maybe keep under the warm dry downy. We then continued over burns and bridges and onto North Esk reservoir. We then went up over the heather moors to the Bore Stane where the views are worth all the hard effort.

It was then the fast decent down to Listonshields Farm and further down to Buteland Road passing the old Steading of the farm until reaching Cockburnhill Road. It was then along past Cockburn farm, Goodtrees farm reaching Johnsburn Road and turning down past the watering station of the Johnsburn pub and finisihing at BHS.

Once everyone had scrubbed up and got all the crud from their toe nails it was up to the Johnsburn for some excellent food and soft drinks!!! ( the Deuchars/IPA  had as usual been beautifully kept by Martin ). We were joined by family and friends which swelled our ranks to 32, a healthy turnout and once again re-enforced what a social pastime running is.

60   Iain Morrice                    43.01

88   Andreas Wilhelm            46.00

103 Richard Gray                  47.11

162 Carl Dennis                    54.23

194 runners

Membership Update

The last email had a remarkable effect in bringing in a flood of memberships! Paul (our membership secretary) has spent most of the last 5 weeks in Russia / North sea so I’ve not got the complete up-to-date picture, but I’m aware of the following memberships received for 2005/06 (Apologies for anyone whom I’ve missed out while Paul’s been away)

We’re providing members with a fluorescent vest for evening running – when we see you. A membership form can be downloaded from this site

Festive Running and Forthcoming events

As usual there are several folk aiming to work off the excesses of the festivities. We will be meeting up over the holidays:

Wed 21^st           Normal evening run                                  BHS     7:00

Thu 22^nd             Normal Track session                              Saughton 6.30

Monday 26^th       Boxing Day Run                                      BHS     10.00

Tuesday 27^th      JogScotland Group / Easy run                  BHS     10.00

Wed      28^th        Normal evening run                                  BHS     7:00

Monday 2 Jan     JogScotland Group / Easy run                  BHS     10.00

Wed 4 Jan          Normal evening run                                  BHS     7:00

Thu 5 Jan           Normal Track session                              Saughton 6.30

In addition, there are a few forthcoming events folk can try:

26/12     Beecraigs Festive Handicap Trail races, 7k / 4k                 11.00

Jan 1     Portobello Promethon, 4 Miles, enter on the day               11:00

Sat 14 Jan          Great Winter Run, 5k, Pre–enter by 29/12

            Several of the jogscotland girls are doing this.

Sat 4 Feb           Cross Country League race 3, Deans Livingston

            (club covers entry for this)

25 Feb               Edin Univ Hare & Hounds, 5 miles, Kings Buildings

4 March             Veterans CC Championships, Forres

4 March             Stranraer Half

12 march            Inverness Half

19 March            Alloa Half

1 April                Dunbar 10 k

            Sunny Dunbar-sur-mer … a 10k for EVERYONE that marks the start of spring

All events listed on the Scottish Athletics web-site, http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/events.php

Were aiming to hold a “Running Clinic” evening in late Jan or Feb, with a couple of speakers covering training for endurance, injury prevention / treatment followed by “refreshments”.

We’re also aiming to hold a social evening / disco sometime Feb / March.

Date & venues to be confirmed, but will be notified when known.