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
News
Just a bit of blowing the club trumpet here…don’t know about anyone else, but we’ve been smiling over the last few days at the variety of races that Bella runners (and riders) have been turning up at. In the last week or so we’ve had: Greig pot-hunting on the roads and farm tracks of the Borders Bella sweeping all before them at Goatfell Joe running his 2nd superb ultra in a month a record Bella turnout at the Glasgow parkrun Ewan conquering the hills of Windermere Brian O’D flying the flag at Loch Leven Richard hashing with Mendip Hills Hash House Harriers (MH4) Mole, Bruce G and Jackie (and others?) braving the hairpins and carpet tacks on epic cycle events a couple of Bellas winning a bizarrely handicapped ’10k’ race on Skye (albeit running in the colours of their 2nd claim club!) In the coming week we’ve got (among others): a Bella contingent heading to the Inter Counties fell race in Cumbria more (even more remote) pot-hunting from Greig on the Isle of Lewis the Polaroid 10k series kicking off in Helensburgh another parkrun So we’ve got 5ks, 10ks, HMs, Marathons, Ultras, Hill Races and cycle races. Throw in the ongoing Duathlon training which folk are doing in preparation for the Highland Cross and the Corrieyairack Challenge, and I think you can say we’re diversifying more than most clubs! Doesn’t make writing training schedules any easier though! It’s all great to see and illustrates that we’re so much more than just a road running club. There’s something for everyone at Bella!
Well done to the Bellas who took part in Ben Lomond Hill Race on Saturday. Some challenging conditions (a snow blizzard up top) made for an interesting race. Andy Birnie was 1st Bella with an excellent 7th place. Race was a dead heat between a visiting American called Judson Cake (I kid you not!) and Brian Marshall. Thanks also to Stuart and Katie for defying hypothermia, by marshalling at the top. Report and results here: http://shr.uk.com/NewsItems.aspx?NewsItemID=476
Club members Raymond and Susie recently tied the knot, and celebrated as any good running couple should, with a trip to a far away marathon. Here’s their full report: The Boston marathon was on Monday 20 April, with the build-up kicking off in earnest the previous Friday with our wedding. Conscious of the endurance benefits of alcohol me and the best man squeezed in a couple of sneakies at a windowless pub in Garscube Road to calm our nerves prior to the ceremony. Susie claims not to have troubled the champagne beforehand but even I know that it beggars belief that she married me sober. After the ceremony – and some obligatory stretching shots outside the ski centre – the carb-loading continued inside the House for an Art Lover with both grape and barley energy drinks. As the night wore on there was time for a final pre-marathon session: 1 x tango (warm up); 3 x Strip the Willow (tempo) @ 2 pints recovery; Gay Gordons / Dashing White Sergeant / St. Bernard’s waltz (continuous loop); Auld Lang Syne (cool down). Experienced marathoners will appreciate that this is all textbook stuff. Shamelessly hawking our newly-wed status at check-in the following day earned us an upgrade to club class and a passport to the BA executive lounge at Heathrow. There we were surrounded by a dizzying array of complimentary fine foods and drink. Susie retained her dignity whilst I treated it as an against-the-clock all you can eat/drink buffet. Once on the flight the hospitality continued in the same vein. By mid-Atlantic I felt like a goose being fattened for foie gras. Having registered at the expo on the Sunday – and given our livers a well-earned rest – it was up at around 5am on race day to wolf down some contraband porridge and head off to the start. The Boston marathon is a point to point race and so fleets of yellow school buses left central Boston from 6am to get all 26,000 runners out to the town of Hopkinton in time for the 10am start. The organisation was superb. The only downside was that once at Hopkinton there was the grim prospect of hanging around for a couple of hours in a field that doubles as the high school sports ground. It was a bit like T in the Park but without the neds. New England can be pretty cold at that time of year. You could tell the Boston veterans: they were the ones with thermals, bivvy bags and tents. Susie wasn’t too badly off with her bella hoodie and a couple of tops. I’d taken one look at the early morning blue sky from our hotel room window and figured that a vintage men’s health 10k T-shirt would be more than enough. Whilst I sought refuge in a portaloo Susie managed to cadge a few spare bin liners that proved just about enough to stave off hypothermia. The race itself was unforgettable. It’s a tough up […]
Over the Christmas period there are a few changes to the usual schedule: The club is meeting as normal on 22nd December and 29th December. Ready to run at 6.30pm from the Ski Centre. There’s a tubing session after training on the 22nd, with mulled wine, mince pies, and games 8-10pm. On Christmas Eve and New Years eve, the Ski Centre closes at 5pm, so the club won’t be meeting at the usual time. There will, however, be informal club runs from the Ski Centre earlier in the day. Meeting at 12pm, ready to run at 12.15pm, and probably hitting the trails in Pollok Park. The club’s Festive 5k on Sunday, 21st December. Meet at the ski club from 10.30am for “registration” the Race starts at the track in Bella park @11am and follows the Bella 5k route. £5 entry, and will be given to charity. Fancy dress mandatory. Mince pies afterwards back at the Ski Centre. The Ayr Turkey Trot on Boxing day is always popular with the club. The Glasgow parkrun will, as usual, be taking place on Saturdays, with events on 20th and 27th December and 3rd January, at 9.30am. Feel free to help by volunteering too.
Here’s Brian’s report from yesterday’s “Eddie’s half marathon” in Fort William: Greig and I, with support crew of Danielle and the dogs, headed north for this half marathon in Fort William. Excellent weather conditions allowed for some spectacular scenery on the drive up, and indeed throughout the race. Snow capped hills all the way. The race starts and finishes on the shinty pitch next to the Nevis Centre, and it’s an out and back course. We headed out through a housing estate and onto a cycle path for the first mile or so, then onto the roads all the way to a turning point at half away with only a few turns to get us there. It was a bit hectic for traffic with runners on both sides of the road and the cars having to get between us. Limited marshalling, and this caused a problem for Greig on the way back as he and the group he was running with ended up on the wrong path for a short time (about 19 seconds worth claims Greig!). I was delighted to get a new PB 1:21:43 and finish in 10th place, but hats off to Greig for another stunning performance. He finished 5th in 1:19:18. That’s his first sub 1:20 and he did it in style. Afterwards there was loads of biscuits, tea and coffee for the presentation. Slightly disappointed that with the range of prizes on offer Greig didn’t manage to bag one but I don’t think that took the shine off the day for any of us. Thanks to Danielle and dogs for support once again. The race was won by Robert Gilroy in a time of 1:10:46. Highly recommend this one. More here, on the forum.
With the new Club Championship season already under way, we thought best to update you with the details! The Championships are there for EVERYONE to take part in. So make it your challenge to complete the criteria, you will be motivated to get out there and race, and see how you progress from last year! How does it work? There are 23 championship races each for men and women, spread throughout the year, starting with the Brampton to Carlisle 10 Miler in November 08 and finishing with the Great Scottish Run 10K/HM in September 09. Points are awarded for each race you complete, based on your official finish time and recognised scoring tables. The faster you run the more points you earn. Each race is classified as Short, Medium or Long. To fulfil the Championship qualifying criteria, you must complete at least 8 races in total…comprising 2 short, 2 long and 2 medium PLUS any other 2 from the list. At least one of the long races MUST be a half marathon. This might mean that you have to run a new distance or stretch yourself to complete the criteria – why not use the Championship as an incentive to achieve a new goal this year? Please submit your race times on the message board following each Championship race. The points total from your 8 qualifying best-scoring (fastest) race times will be ranked against your club-mates, with updates as the year progresses. Awards EVERYONE who completes the Championship criteria will be awarded a special Club Championship memento! Prizes will be awarded to the overall Club Champions i.e. the highest scoring male and female from either senior or vet category (35+ for women and 40+ for men as of 1st January 2009). The winner of each category takes home the annual Club trophy. The first 3 senior men and women overall PLUS the first male and female vets in each age category will win prizes as shown below. The details The full details are available here. A printed copy of this information will be available for all club members. In the meantime, best of luck, and get racing! Thanks, Nick and Carla 🙂
Craig Ross submitted this race report: On a warm and uncharacteristically sunny day, four Bella teams participated in the West District relay champs, this year held at the Royal Academy, instead of the beachy Magnum Centre. Despite torrential rain in the days leading up to the event, the course was relatively dry underfoot, which suited many of us unaccustomed to the dark and mysterious arts of off-road running. Some say that it’s not a real cross-country unless it is chucking it with rain, and you end up covered in mud, but I’ll take a dry track any day thanks. The men’s A team was lead out by novice stand-in captain Craig Ross, who muscled and cornered econmoically around the course to have the team well placed after the first leg. Marcos SanzGomez then took over and finished stronlgy before tucking into a meal of home-made pasta in a trademark plastic container. Jim O’Hara in his debut XC ignored all advice and took off like a rocket, and worked hard in the final stages before handing onto Gordon Durnan, up until this time a Bella race virgin. The A team finished in a respectable 20th place in strong field. For the B team, Euan Black started well before handing onto a hungover Dougie MacGregor, and then onto Norman Boyle who despite fancy new bold spikes had his efforts impaired by a bad cold. The team was anchored by Chris Doak who had a strong run, to bring the B team home in 44th. For the ladies’ team, Louise Ross finshed looking remarkably fresh before handing onto Emma Simpson, who had been out of XC for 16 years. Iona Robertson finished typically strongly, and clawed back several places to bring the team back in a commendable 10th. For the ladies’ vets team, Karen Clarkson (who had been roped in after a few drinks the night before at the Awards night) started things off, before passing onto the consistent Julia Harris, and finally Maddie Smillie brought the team home in 17th, after some time spent running the wrong way. All told, a great day out, and notable for the number of athletes who made their XC debuts.
In what was one of the biggest turn outs from Bella at the George Cummings Relay Races, four men’s teams and three women’s teams from Bella RR helped to make up the 48 men’s teams of 4 and 27 women’s teams of 3 in a 2.7 mile race in dreich conditions. New women’s Captain Carla got of to a winning start as the women’s vet team team won 1st prize. Full results at the Kilbarchan AAC website (PDF), and individual club results available on the forum. Photos here (facebook, courtesy of Greig) and here (Ian), and course map here. Thanks to Ian for the write-up.
Huge congratulations from the club to member Gavin, who completed the UK Ironman. Gavin wrote a superb summary of his experience: First of all, thanks for all the support over the last few months. I managed to complete my first triathlon in 13:53:29. I took 1:32:59 to cover the 2.4 mile swim; 7:22:30 for the 112 mile bike and 4:32:19 for the marathon, with the other few minutes in transition changing and sorting myself out! The swim start was delayed unitl 6:30 due to the overcast and dark conditions, visability above water was very low and underwater you could see about 6 inches. So the mass start of 1500 swimmers all thrashing about and jockeying for position means that you get punched, kicked, pushed and prodded a fair bit for the first mile or so. I had planned to take it easy on the swim and expected to come out the water at the back of the crowd. Safely through the swim it was onto the bike for 3 laps of a undulating and windy course. The feed stations every 12 miles never came quick enough, there were 3 big hills on each loop, and a fun fast downhill section reaching speed of upto 48mph!!. After 112 miles of physical and mental highs and lows it was a quick descent back to the transition area. After another changes of clothes and liberal application of vaseline I was on the run course. This was a very hilly figure of 8 loop that you ran three times. The first mile was a surprisingly easy 9 min/mile which set the pace for the first loop. On the second loop, things where getting tough, so I took full advantage of the aid stations, positioned every 1.5-2 miles. Which had Gatorade, power gels, pretzels, water, bananas and flat coke, I stuffed myself with everything except the coke and walked through them. By the 3rd and last lap my speed was getting seriously slow and I figured that unless I puled my finger out I would be over the 14 hour mark. So now I took onboard the flat coke and my last 4 miles was done in under 32 minutes (fast for me!). So running along the final 100m in my ancient Bella vest in the dark towards the finishing chute was a proud moment.
We’re today launching a brand new website for the club. We hope you like it, and find the revamp refreshing, and the new setup easier and more informative. Please feel free to feedback to Linda, Scott and Richard about anything – typos, suggestions or ideas for new content. Some of the highlights include: New look and feel. Nice and shiny, we hope you’ll agree. Template based system, so much easier to make changes and add new sections. News page for announcements, big club results, training schedules. Note you can subscribe using your RSS reader (or click here), and we’ll have an e-mail subscription soon too. Photo gallery, powered by flickr. If you’re a flickr user, just join the ‘bellarr‘ group and submit photos to it and they’ll appear (in a few hours) on the Gallery page. Forum integration. The latest posts to the forum are summarised on the News page. Fully up to date club records so you know what targets to aim for 🙂 Online back issues of The Bella Blether, so you can complete your collection if you missed any. Pages can be bookmarked. No more frames. Woo!
The summer edition of the bella blether is out now. Available to pick up at a great running club near you now, or click here to view it online! Past issues are available on the newsletter page.
4 Bellas braved the horrendous head wind yesterday in the Quiraing 10k in Skye, myself, Scott, Emma and Andy. Scott was 2nd overall with a pb of 33.33, Andy was 3rd with a pb of 35.21, Emma won the ladies challenge in 39.45 and I was 3rd with another pb of 45.26. It was a great day out, a very friendly race, £1.50 for all the cakes you can eat and the added entertainment of a belly dancer…..just don’t ask!!! Scott and I have had a deal on for the last 4 years that we could only drink the bottle of champagne he got for his club marathon record when we both got a pb in the same race……..at last!!!!
Well done to everyone to ran in the Bella 5k this year!! Prize winners and results below, or click here for the full 2008 results. A huge thanks from me (Linda) to everyone who participated today, whether it be running or helping out. It was a huge success yet again and i’m looking forward to seeing everyone back in 2009!!!! 1st Male – Paul Sorrie, Shettleston Harriers, 15.28 2nd Male – Matt Williamson, Bellahouston Road Runners, 16.16 3rd Male – Sean Fontana, Victoria Park City of Glasgow, 16.26 1st Female – Michelle Hetherington, Helensburgh, 18.52 2nd Female – Emma Birnie, Bellahouston Road Runners, 19.15 3rd Female – Donna Finlayson, Victoria Park City of Glasgow, 19.29 1st Male 40 – Alastair Douglas, Victoria Park city of Glasgow, 16.50 1st Male 50 – Graham Crawford, Springburn Harriers, 16.52 1st Male 60 – Tony Hall, unattached, 23.10 1st Male 70 – David Murchie, Eastleigh RC, 23.40 1st Female 35 – Sarah Dowling, Bellahouston Road Runners, 19.56 1st Female 45 – Pam McKay, Broomhill, 19.58 1st Female 55 – Janie Hall, JogScotland, 26.35 1st Female 65 – Sallie Lloyd-Jones, JogScotland, 36.37 1st Male Team – Bellahouston Road Runners: 2nd Matt Williamson, 5th Scott Kennedy, 7th Colin McGill 1st Female Team – Bellahouston Road Runners: 2nd Emma Birnie, 4th Amanda Wilson, 6th Sarah Dowling Also a huge well done to Emma Birnie and Andy Birnie (no fix honest!!!!) for winning places into the Great Scottish Run. And Colin McGill for his place in the Edinburgh Marathon or Team relay…….get training guys!! Enjoy the race? Why not complete the Runner’s World feedback form (link)?
The Club’s 2008 Annual General Meeting is on 10th September at 8pm, at Pollokshields Burgh Hall (by Maxwell Park). Nibbles and drinks from 7.45pm. Nomination form for committee positions is available on the club noticeboard. To stand for committee you need to have been a member for at least a year.