We’re excited that with the Covid restrictions having been amended this week, we’re now able to resume group training from next week (15th March). We’ve written to members, but we’re also making our plan available on our website for others to reference. Here’s the letter to members from our Coronavirus coordinator Emer, and club President Richard. Our full club coronavirus plan (v10) is available too. If in doubt, our club Coronavirus plan page at bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/coronavirus always has the latest version, as well as links to many of the activities and initiatives we’ve been running to keep members motivated! Members can find details for how to sign up for training on the members forum. Thanks to everybody involved in making this possible, at Scottish Athletics, sport Scotland and – of course – at the club.
Training
A bumper audience of members tuned in to a virtual session from Bella head coach Robert Hawkins on Wednesday evening. He was joined by his two Olympian sons Callum and Derek which added extra excitement to the occasion 🥳 Robert explained the science behind our training schedule followed by a question and answer session. It was lapped up by our members who asked a mix of interesting and funny questions of our hosts. There was one controversial exchange near the end of the call, when a question came in asking who would win a final sprint between Callum and Derek at the end of a marathon. Let’s just say we didn’t get a definitive answer to that one! 😜 Thanks again for your time Robert, Callum and Derek! Club members who missed the session, can access a recording of the session via our members’ forum (for the next month or two)
Update, 25th September – Our latest plan (#5!) has exciting news! We’re back to groups of 15! Access our full plan here: BRR_ Coronavirus Club plan and members info #5_ Late September 2020 Changes announced earlier this week meant this update could return us to training with groups of 15, as Glasgow specific guidance was brought in line with the rest of Scotland. There’s also now a route for members to bring informal groups into the club’s auspices. Interested members should get in touch with the Board or Lead Coaches to discuss the steps required. Full details on the club forum. Update, 5th September – Because of updated guidance for Glasgow area clubs, issued by Scottish Athletics on 4th September we have issued an updated coronavirus plan, which you can read in full here. This currently supersedes the plan detailed below. Original announcement (28th August) follows We’re pleased to today publish our newly updated plan for our continued resumption of group training, after our successful trial in August. Our updated club plan uses the recently updated framework from Scottish Athletics, allowing groups of up to 15 members to implement a ‘training bubble’ at organised club sessions. It builds on our successful trial in August, with groups continuing to meet in separate locations by training group, members booking sessions and a declaration prior to attendance. We’re also very excited to be planning to resume welcoming new members along to the club, to try us out for a while to see if they’d like to join us. We’ve had a waiting list for a little while now who we’ve already started reaching out to, and hope to begin inviting them to our expanded sessions in early-September after our new plan has settled in. If you’re interested in finding out more about our club and what it can offer, please check out our website, then drop a note to info@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk and we’ll look to add you to the waiting list, and book you in. We are again hugely grateful to the Coronavirus sub-group, led by Emer (who took time-out from a much deserved holiday to update our plan), and presented it to our coronavirus group and coaches this week. Many thanks to everybody involved at the club who helped with that review/approval process. Many thanks, once again, to Scottish Athletics for their framework, support and guidance: it has been invaluable in helping our volunteer coaches and Trustees to put this together. Download the club plan here: BRR_Coronavirus Club plan and members info_ August 2020
We thought it’d be fun to write up some of our favourite club sessions and routes, to perhaps give a few ideas and inspiration, or take a look at in more detail. The club’s full training schedule is on our website, and detailed each week by our coaches during the lockdown, via social media. We’re grateful to Niall Murphy for his excellent twitter posts and pictures, that served as the inspiration to this first post. Sherbrooke Hills A core session for our winter training schedule is the Sherbrooke hills. We’d even suggest it’s one of the very best hill rep routes in Glasgow: we even have members, who’ve moved away or further afield, comment to us of their “fond” memories of the session, and all the hard work. To borrow a term from cycling, it’s perhaps the Queen of our training sessions. It’s well worth hunting down, to create memories of your own: have a look at the map, or read our summary below, or why not become a member of the club, so when we resume our winter training schedule we can introduce you to it properly! The Strava segment helps visualise it, but: It starts on St Andrews Drive/Dalziel, right next to the lampost adjacent to ‘Somersby’. Head up the punchy (first!) hill, turning left on Nithsdale Road, then next left (by Sherbrooke castle). Head up the Sherbrooke Avenue hill (second!) – the famous three parter. Continue over the top, and down a bit, turning right on Springkell avenue just by the postbox (watch out when it’s wet). Continue down, then next right on Hamilton Avenue, up the steep (third!) hill, turning right and continuing up as it levels off. Turn right again, to the junction with Springkell again (by the postbox), but this time turn and run back up Sherbrooke Avenue for the fourth hill. Then it’s a brief downhill for a bit, taking the second right down Hamilton avenue, and first left to complete the loop at the junction with Dalziel. Club sessions are generally a timed tempo hills session (eg. 30 minutes), a number of loops (3-4), or efforts on the uphill/recover downhill. Do watch out for leaves in the autumn months, which – with some intermittent lighting – can absure uneven surfaces, ties. Roads can sometimes be busy too, so be sure to be careful, and wear highviz, and of course give way to others on the route, and during coronavirus, take care to follow applicable rules. A guided tour For those who know the Sherbrooke hills as a classic, we will all have found ourselves peering up at some of the houses whilst doing the session, thinking (perhaps initially) Is there a story to that house? – Pollokshields is Scotland’s first Garden Suburb, so if you’re on Twitter Niall Murphy (@MurphyNiallGLA) is well worth a follow for interesting and engaging stories of the architecture of this neck of the woods. A few highlights to look up next time you’re along. This whole thread […]
Training is cancelled until further notice Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, and on the recommendation of Scottish Athletics, the club is cancelling all club training sessions until further notice. Naturally, we are very disappointed this has to happen, but we are determined to do our best to help support our membership, and the wider community, through this unprecedented situation. Please contact the club if you have any questions about this: info@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk or via social media: Facebook: facebook.com/bellaroadrunner Twitter: @bellaroadrunner Club support For members impacted personally, or financially, by this situation (eg. unable to work or train as a result, forced to self-isolate): the club is keen to support you if it can. We are happy to pause and/or extend memberships for the duration, so you’re not charged or impacted. Please contact us on the club forum, or email membership@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk if that would be of help or interest. We also hope the social side of the club can support our members’ mental health and wellbeing at this difficult time: members are encouraged to check you are on our various groups, including Facebook, Strava, Whatsapp, as well as our own members’ forum. Please feel free to join, or kickstart, conversations if you fancy a natter or some ideas or some support. We’d love to hear ideas for more we can do. We are already working on one to help keep members’ training on track and focused, as well as motivated through this situation: we’ll be publishing details soon. Regards, Richard Leyton, Chair, Board of Trustees Bellahouston Road Runners, a charity registered in Scotland (SC047300) Further guidance Further advice for the public is available through NHS Inform: https://www.nhsinform.scot/coronavirus The Scottish Government is also putting out the latest information and advice through social media channels, and on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/coronavirus-covid-19/
Sometimes it’s important to take time out from hard training and racing, to just enjoy the sport of running. In Glasgow we’re close by to lots of stunning Scottish countryside. The club has plenty of trail runners, ultra runners, and hill runners who all love to get out amongst it. Our social media feeds were lit up at the weekend with some inspiring pics from members who were (quite rightly!) pleased with their efforts, so we thought we’d share them with you! We’ve also included links to Strava too to help with ideas. Simon Wells took the amazing featured picture for out on a run at Glen Loin/Ben Vorlich with Derek and Christie. It’s a favourite loop of theirs, and relatively easy to get to, and scenic right through the year. Huge credit to them though for taking this amazing pic when it looks so cold (Extra kudos for the Shorts Simon!) Elle, Alison, Terry, Lynn and Kelly were out near Helensburgh doing a recce of the From Hel’n Back hill racethat takes place later in the year, and took this super selfie with the backdrop towards the Clyde estuary. Of course some members just love running around muddy fields, and the Kilmarnock Harriers Roon The Country open XC was on on Sunday, and a few club members headed down the road to take part (and managed to win a case of beer as a spot prize!). Cat MacDonald had earlier continued her excellent cross country season, with the overall win of the Ladies event. Closest to home, the brilliant trails of Pollok Country Park are always a great option, and this weekend were the focus of the latest in the new South by Five series of races. The 5k trail race was certainly a muddy affair, although Jamie Wieland here in this pic by Bella and marshal Garry Smith was taken just before the heavy going section down past the North Wood pond. Anyway, always lots to inspire and enjoy in and around Glasgow, and great to see so many members getting out and about enjoying the beautiful Scottish countryside!
Whilst our training schedule, and the race calendar, form a large part of what we get up to, club members also organise and take part in a wide variety of informal and social runs, which are a great way to enjoy taking part, getting to know fellow club members better, and seeing parts of the city and region. We’ve a long-run group who head out at the crack of dawn around the south-side of Glasgow on Friday mornings, and another group that prefers a post-working day socially paced run. Members are also very regularly along at (or even organising) one of the many parkruns that now take place in and around Glasgow, as the consolidated results for the club show. The last couple of weeks a couple of different runs took place, which resulted in some great pictures and stories. Glasgow painted murals run Gordon Goldie devised the route, and members headed out last Saturday, around the centre of Glasgow to check out as many of the city centre murals as they could fit in. There’s plenty of details, and some fabulous pictures, on this post on our facebook page (facebook.com/bellahoustonroadrunners). A few of our favourite pictures from the run below. Gordon is already devising plans for the next themed tours of Glasgow for members! Dumgoyne and Earl’s seat hill run If hills and trails are more your thing, a group of members headed out into the snowy Campsie Fells on Saturday, and ran up Dumgoyne, and then onwards to Earl’s seat. It was a fantastic day for it, and the initial climb up Dumgoyne was soon a distant memory. A few pics from the morning on our facebook page. There’s already talk of the next run to Glen Loin in a few weeks time! Big thanks to Derek Rigmand for organising and leading the run.
Just a note to remind members that this autumn/winter, the club will be meeting at a different venue on alternate Wednesdays, starting 17th October (full list of dates below). Full details of the background for this training variation on the member’s forum. All other dates continue at Glasgow Club Nethercraigs, as usual. We will be meeting from 6.15pm at St Francis Community Centre, Cumberland Street, G5 0SE. We’ll then proceed to a session on Glasgow Green at 6.30pm, after announcements, for a structure training session. The training venue, and specific session, is always indicated on the front of our website, so it’s easy to check in advance. We have recently started a Whatsapp club announcement group which we will publicise this on (as well as any training cancellations or urgent news). Please sign up if you’ve not already done so. Details on how to do so are on the forum. Please speak to a member of the board, or coaching group, if you’ve questions or concerns!
For those coming to the Club tomorrow (Wed 1st June) for the President’s Cup 5k handicap race, don’t forget your club vest for the annual club photo. We’ll allocate numbers at Nethercraigs, before heading up to Bellahouston Park. The presentation will take place back at Nethercraigs after the race, and food will be provided.
A reminder that Club training is at Nethercraigs this week, 29th Feb and 2nd March. Glasgow Club – Nethercraigs
A record number of Bellas turned out for the first marathon pace training session of 2016 in Glasgow Green on Wednesday 13th January. Cold but dry – well done everyone!
Bellahouston Road Runner, Hill Runner and Mountain Leader Al Ewen gives us his tips for successful running in the hills and mountains.
Training Camp will be at Dunolly House in Aberfeldy, on the weekend of 5th, 6th and 7th March 2010. Cost £50.00, please bring along a £20 non-refundable deposit to the club to reserve a place!There will be a range of runs catering for all levels, and is great fun, and a great chance to get to know your fellow club members!
We’ve had a number of enquiries about whether the club is meeting in the current cold conditions. We can confirm that the club is meeting as usual: sessions take full account of the conditions and are always enjoyable! More details on the club forum. If you don’t have an account, please get in touch. See the forum tab for more information on getting an account.
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.