Pentland Runners       

Endurance Training & Injury Prevention Clinic, Fri 17^th March

We had a good turnout for the evening and lots of useful tips for runners at all levels. Many thanks to Norma and Martin Bone for organising the presentation facilities and video-recording the evening. DVD’s (broadcast quality) are now available, for only £10.

For those who missed it (and haven’t yet got the DVD), this is (speaker) John Whitehead’s most  unusual running claim to fame  :
 “….I was penalised for offside in a football match when trying to find the end of a cross country race in very thick fog on some playing fields.  The fog was so thick you could not see from one side of the pitch to the other, never mind to each end. Only when a ball followed by shouts and then some footballers appeared did I realise I was even on the pitch.  I just kept running, so don't know how the ref sorted that one out.”

Some folk are already asking when the next clinic will be… I’ve got one potential speaker lined up for a possible event next winter.

Members Discounts

As well as Run & Become in Dalry Rd, it now looks as if Run-4-It in Lothian Rd will now be offering club discounts of 10% (non-sale items). For any queries about membership cards, contact Paul McIntosh, 449 5227

Inverness Half Marathon, 12 March

Report by Andreas: “There was a snow storm in the morning which meant that apparently half of the runners who have entered didn’t travel to the race. 1500 have entered and only about 800 turned up.

The snow (and the icy-stormy) weather subsided after a while and a slight drizzle was all that was left. I was so excited to be racing on the road again for the first time since October last year that I started my warm-up 45 minutes before the start which meant that I needed a rest with 20 minutes to go. But I felt good during the race and finished in 1:32:42 (139 out of 838)”

NOTE: for those who need reminding, this was the Sunday morning when blizzards kept all but the hardiest indoors.

Dumfries Marathon, 19 March

Report by Andreas:  “Was this the perfect race ? 7-8 degrees, cloudy with sunny intervals and a light breeze. Very friendly atmosphere and very pleasant scenery, with water stations every 3 miles. Post-race refreshments galore: I had 6 cups of tea, 1 cup of chicken soup, 1 cup of tomato soup, 10 jaffa cakes, 2 ham and cheese rolls and about 1 liter of orange squash. And a very good looking female handing out the goody bags. Runners could make use of the local swimming pool free of charge and every finisher got a nice memento (a plaque).

About 180 runners turned up at the start in front of the police station. There were no changing facilities, which was a bit awkward for me (talking of exposing myself in public, in front of the police). There were cctv cameras and maybe the officers are still looking at the footage…?

The course was on quiet country roads, through picturesque villages with magnificent views towards the snow covered mountains in the lake district. My plan was to run 8:30 minutes per mile, I passed the first mile marker in 7:30 (so much to even pacing) which gave me ample time to visit the local toilet facilities at one of the villages we passed. I spent some time by listening to the various accents, northern Irish, south-eastern Scottish, northern English, southern English. Gentle undulations through agricultural land; cattle, sheep and horses watching the runners and, amazingly, plenty of crowd support. There were people in every village supporting the runners. At one point there were about 200 geese flying overhead and I nearly fell into a ditch. After 20 miles one guy was lying at the roadside. I asked him if he needed help but he just groaned that “his right leg just went”. I couldn’t keep up the 8:30 pace and needed some walking breaks. But I was able to pick up the pace nearer the end to finish in 3:54:15. I was 106th out of 180. The winning time was 2:50:08.

Later on, the race organizer held the trophy ceremony but made a mess of it because he couldn’t read his own hand writing and it took some time to announce the winners. I didn’t get a trophy.

They said that this was a one off event, but I believe there will be plenty of disappointed runners if they don’t organize this marathon again.”

Edinburgh Forthside Half-Marathon, Sun 26 March

Results available on the web-site:

117 Richard Sharp M45         01:27:31

319 Thomas White M45        01:35:31

325 Andreas Wilhelm            01:35:41

352 Richard Gray                   01:36:42

498 Hugh Chalmers M60       01:39:52

515 Kenneth Tindall              01:40:10

892 Paul Thompson M40      01:46:56

957 Janice Carruthers F40    01:47:53

1056 Carl Dennis M40           01:49:34

1151 Catherine Barr F35       01:51:05

1310 Lindsey Boyle F45        01:53:45

Andreas	Tom
Richard Gray	Andreas, Kenny, Richard, Tom, Hugh

Dunbar 10k, Sat 1 April

By Iain Morrice: “You know that Spring has sprung when its time to do the excellent Dunbar running clubs Belhaven Best Dunbar Boundary 10k. There are also tell tale sings in the Balerno area, the first lambs appeared this same weekend and loads of people were seen out pounding the roads and paths around the Balerno Vvillage area.

The Dunbar 10k was as usual well organised by the Dunbar running club with loads of extra marshalls this year. The Haddington running club help out Dunbar for this event as Dunbar are a small club with not a great deal of helpers.

The entry this year was a massive 275 with Harmeny AC Pentland runners having a good turnout again this year with 6 male and 4 female entered for the race.

The weather was fine and sunny with a really cool strong easterly breeze. This did cause the times to be a bit slower than normal and not just for us but also for the fast guys and gals and this was reflected in the winning time which was 35.42.

As many of you know the course is a really good one over roads, beach paths,parks and woodland tracks around the boundary of Dunbar. It passes by the harbour and along the side of the cracking Dunbar sands with great views out into the Forth and the Bass Rock. This 10k really is one that first timers should try as it is nice flat course with a couple of undulating hills in there which makes for good times ( hopefully). The presentation ceremony at the end is always well enjoyed as you get a medal, bottle of water and more important a can of cold Behaven Best. There is also a great tea coffee and sandwich spread for all competitors and families.”

The results for the Harmeny AC Pentland Runners are as follows.

Obermain Marathon, 9 April

By Andreas: “I ran the Obermain (The Obermain is a river in the south of Germany) Marathon on my birthday. Some said it is one of the toughest marathons in Germany. The first hill (mountain) came straight after 3 miles. I struggled the 3 miles uphill but because nobody was actually walking I had to keep running too. Then downhill again until the next hill (mountain). Here, I was the only one running, everyone else was walking. But I stopped on top of the hill to admire the views for a couple of minutes (everybody else was running). Then the rest was all downhill but into the wind which caused everybody some difficulties. Both hills (mountains) were about 1000 feet, but not very steep, it was gently uphill over a few miles. The people in this area are very religious, meaning there are these famous Jesus Christ Statues everywhere. There were actually more statues than people watching. With 5 miles to go we ran through a nice, picturesque village with a group of scantily clad female cheerleaders from the local sports club encouraging the runners. Not sure about the encouragement but I had tears in my eyes when I left them. Sometimes there weren’t any signs which meant that I had to wait for other runners to ask for directions. One runner just passed me without even looking at me. Nice guy! The other abnormality of this race was that I tried to signal with my fingers the number of marathons that I finished when I crossed the finish line. But, unfortunately, on the finish photo it looks more like a obscene finger gesture. So much to coordination after running 26 miles. All in all, very good value for money, typical efficient German organization (less is better, in my opinion) and a great way to celebrate my birthday. Next year my birthday is on a Monday, any marathons on Mondays ?

3:53:15 103^rd out of 281 (23^rd in my age group) (Second Fastest foreigner, an Irish guy was 10 minutes faster than me…but at least I beat the Swiss guy by about an hour)”

A month in the life of a distance runner

Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted that Andreas has had a quite a strenuous race programme recently … five races on five consecutive weekends.

12/3          Inverness half-marathon

19/3          Dumfries Marathon

26/3          Edinburgh Forthside half-marathon

1/4            Dunbar 10k

9/4            Obermain Marathon

That’s about 136 kilometres (84 miles) of racing.   Ouch!

MONTHLY MEDAL

Our first Monthly Medal handicap was based on performances at Dunbar, relative to target times set by “the handicapper”. It was pretty close, but congratulations to Tom & Pauline White for a remarkable double. Tom was only 2 seconds outside his target, narrowly ahead of Mark, only 17 seconds outside target…. as close to spot on as you’ll get (the handicapper’s stopwatch has been following your progress on the track). Pauline’s work over the winter was rewarded with 3^rd overall and first girl.

The handicapper has made some adjustments to target times (where necessary) for the next handicap “medal” event, the Edinburgh 10k.

 Another member has commented how close the handicapper’s target time was to a 10k he did at work, but has now realised that on a handicap basis he could now be beaten by his wife…..

Reminder of rules to qualify for the monthly medal:

1) Club membership fees must have been paid before the day of the race. (Nearly everyone is up-to-date)

2) You must put Harmeny as the club on the entry form. (.. and worth putting on entry forms for other races as it makes it so.o.o.o.o much easier to find everyone’s results.)

Best performances, M & F, relative to target times will win a prize. (Updates targets will be published regularly)

Could those doing the Edinburgh 10k Please let me know before or soon after as I’ve a feeling the results site won’t have a club search facility?

Future Monthly Medal events

4 June                      Dechmont Trail 10k, Livingston

6 Aug                     Scottish Gas 10k, Granton, Edinburgh (also 5k race that day)

27 Aug   tbc          CLUB PURSUIT HANDICAP (10.7k)

24 Sep                    Linlithgow 10k

Post-Script to Edinburgh Half-marathon

They say you learn from your mistakes, and judging by the feedback from the folk who did the first Embra half-marathon, the organisers should have learnt a bucket-load. The basic problems seem to have been too many entries (4,000?) for the space available (2,000 expected) and not enough officials/marshals.

Pre-entry for large, professionally events such as this means the organisers can set the race limit at a manageable level, so they only have themselves to blame for not closing entries when the limit was reached.

But on the question of finding enough marshals / officials the organisers do have my sympathy as it is usually the biggest challenge faced by event organiser. It’s easy to say there should be more marshals, but who are these volunteers? Basically they are us, the clubs, runners, friends and family. And you’ll see the same dedicated folk at many of the big events around Edinburgh. Having organised many road races and track meetings over the years, my biggest headache was always getting enough officials. We have to find folk willing to give up a day / half-day / 2 hours, standing around in the Scottish weather from before the first competitor appears until the last one goes past. There’s no glory, no medal, no sponsorship from friends, no kudos for our efforts; sometimes there’s a t-shirt, a sandwich, water, a left-over goody bag. We’re responsible for competitor and spectator welfare or the accuracy of the results. But hundreds or thousands of competitors depend on a few dozen of us.

When 20% of the entrants for a race don’t turn up, the organisers aren’t bothered, but if 20% (or 10%, or even 5%) of the officials don’t turn up, it can be cancelled.

So it is worth reminding everyone of the importance to the club of our qualified officials, whom most members don’t know, but who play a vital role in several events happening: Ian Hislop, June Duffy and Paul McIntosh, and to those who do help out at events.

Right on cue, I’ve received call from…

.. the organisers of the Edinburgh Marathon for volunteers to marshal at this year’s event. Please contact me and I’ll forward details to the organisers, or logon at http://www.edinburgh-marathon.com/?volunteer

.. Alex Gordon (335 0379 for volunteers for the Balerno Children’s Gala sprint races (Sat 27 May) and the Rigg Race (Mon 22 May)

.. and from me, to support ….

…Junior section activities

The next 3 months are the busiest time for the juniors with Track & Field league meetings, open meetings, School events etc. In addition we are organising three club evening “Mini-Championship” nights for our juniors in Malleny Park and as ever extra volunteers to help man these would be most welcome, 5:50 for a 6:00pm start:

Monday 15^th May                                 800m races,             Shot Putt

Monday 29^th May                                 100m races,            Long Jump

Wednesday 7 June               Water of Leith Mini-marathon

                (You can run round with the youngsters before your normal Wednesday evening run)

Running fixtures

There’s a full list of the local races, and some potentially interesting ones on our website (www.pentlandrunners.org.uk), but a couple worth noting:

Sunday 14 May    First 5k trail run / race round Riccarton (1:00). Entry on the Day, £2.00.

     A flat run for beginners, a “sprint” for the long-haul brigade, a long haul for sprinters….

Sunday 15 Oct     First Aviemore Highland Half marathon     www.aviemorehalfmarathon.org

     Quite a few folk are definitely interested in this one, so there might be a few groups going up.

Sat  11 Nov    Glen Clova Half Marathon: The 8 places in the hotel bunkhouse have now been allocated (to 9 folk, so it could be cosy….), but others may be interested in this jaunt.

Race for Life series (5k runs for ladies) http://www.raceforlife.org/venues/   Most Edinburgh folk tend to do the one at Holyrood Park, but there are flatter, parkland courses worth checking out, eg Calendar Park (Falkirk), Beveridge Park, (Kirkcaldy).