Bellahouston Road Runners had an impressive turnout of 12 men and 7 women for this flat race in bright conditions along the esplanade in Greenock. As expected, the first half of the race was great but then we turned round and all of a sudden that nice gentle tail wind became a gale-force headwind. The injustcie of it all! After a battle with the wind it was back to Battery Park for a final lap-and-a-bit of the park, complete with an exciting crossing of paths with the other runners. Yet again it was the women (Elaine, Mary and Shona) who stole the show, winning bronze team medals. The men however missed out on a team medal by just ONE point! Must try harder guys… Seriously though, there were quite a few PBs getting posted today and some valuable club championship points earned, so well done everyone. And big thanks to the enthusiastic support from the Bellas who weren’t racing. Results attached below. Full results: Renfrewshire AAA – Road Relay Results 2015
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The conditions were surprisingly good yesterday at Strathclyde park for the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club (SVHC) Road relay event. One lap of the loch made each leg an unusual distance of 3.8miles. Well done to everyone who took part in a race with a strong field, and congratulations to Russell, Greig, Graeme and Andy who took 3rd place. The men’s teams were 3rd and 9th out of 41 teams and the ladies placed 7th out of 17 teams. Full results on the SVHC website: SVHC Road Relays 2015 – results
It was a busy day yesterday with many from the Club taking part in the Tollcross Parkrun, part of the club Winter Championships. With black ice underfoot on the main paths, the runners took to the grass. Well done to everyone who took part. Our ladies dominated the podium taking the top 3 spots. Over in Fife, in the Lomond Hills, we had 6 runners running in a mixed team at the Devil’s Burdens relays. The race is run over 4 legs, with legs 2 and 3 run in pairs. Very Well done to the team who finished 32nd of 132 teams.
With the temperature rising above freezing on Friday for the first time in a week, the weather looked promising for parkruns in Glasgow this weekend. But social media early on Saturday morning told a different story as Pollok, Victoria and Springburn were all cancelled – victims of sheets of ice on the courses caused by light rain and a subsequent cold snap overnight. Since Tollcross parkrun was the only Glasgow parkrun still going ahead, it was an inspired choice to make this the venue of a Bella Winter Championship race. Or maybe Bruce has a crystal ball he’s not told anyone about. There were changes to be made however, and even Tollcross had to make use of the alternative course, out and back 4 times on the grass. Just making it to the start was the first challenge to overcome. Thick black ice on all the paths meant that anyone watching from the overlooking flats had an entertaining morning counting the number of runners using their posteriors rather than their feet to get down the hill. With everyone upright again and safely on the grass, we were given a brief description of the revised course and we were off. The hills and grass combined to make this an even more challenging run than normal, and after a couple of laps, some of the turns were getting treacherous. Bad news for anyone who hates cross country. Graeme’s shouts of encouragement from the sidelines were very welcome and he gets a special mention for taking photos, probably suffering frostbitten fingers in the process. First Bella home was 3rd place Tony McParland (19:54) but the day belonged to the Bella ladies who put in some great performances and gave us the first four females over the line: 1st Mary SENIOR (23:43) 2nd Helen CRAIG (24:54) 3rd Jane WILD (24:57) 4th Julie VINTER (25:00) Well done to all 15 Bellas who ran. Results for the club can be found on the parkrun website here: Bellahouston Road Runners – consolidated results – 24 Jan 2015 Full Tollcross parkrun results are here: Tollcross parkrun – 24 Jan 2015 Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners are linked from the: Bellahouston Road Runners parkrun results page, or directly on the parkrun website:
Well done to all who took part in Sunday’s East Kilbride AC Open XC race. It wasn’t the mud-fest that last year’s race was, instead we had mainly snowy fields and sunshine so despite a bit of windchill it was a great day for racing. Louise Ross – 1st Female Ciara O’Connell – 2nd Female Shona Donnelly – 4th Female(but scooped 3rd Female prize) And funnily enough Louise, Ciara and Shona won the women’s team prize too – brilliant effort girls! For the men, Greig Glendinning had a great race and got the prize for 3rd V40, and the rest of us (Iain, Tim and I) thought it polite to let the home team (East Kilbride AC) win the mens team prize by the narrowest of margins. Doh! We did get given consolation prizes of some unwanted Christmas selection boxes, so that made it all alright.
The latest consolidated parkrun results from Saturday are available on the parkrun website: Bellahouston Road Runners consolidated parkrun report Highlights include 1st places for Ciaran DOUGHERTY (17:10) at Victoria Park and Andy CAMPBELL (17:49) at St Andrews, a 2nd place for Iain BURNS (17:52) at Pollok and includes Bella’s running at 6 different events including Iain O’DONNELL in Sydney, Australia. Links to the last few weeks Bella parkrun consolidated reports can be found here
During the holidays we gave the website a bit of a makeover. If you have any comments on the new look, problems with the site, or suggestions for improvement, please email: webmaster@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk
It was a good day for Bella at Pollok parkrun yesterday. Last week’s run was cancelled owing to icy conditions, and this week’s field of 231 was certainly smaller than usual, but that didn’t put off the Bellas as the first two, and five of the top ten, were from the Club. Bruce Carmichael was 1st in 17:10 with Andy Campbell 2nd in 17:42. Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners on 20 December 2014 can be found here: Bella Consolidated Results NB If you’re missing from the results, add Bellahouston Road Runners as your club on your parkrun profile – a link is given in the email with your result you received on Saturday. Photo Copyright Jim Smillie [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Today was the 4th race in the Border series and it was a long trip down to Berwick. There were Three Wise Men that made the journey, aka Me, Greig Glendinning and Graeme Paterson. I know what you are thinking where was Peter Gallanagh??? Well he couldn’t make it today, we received a text to say that he had “a lot of decking work to do” today! 😯 I was amazed that he put his decking before a XC race! But as it’s Christmas we won’t call it decking work we’ll just say he was building a Manger for his festive garden display. Also we had a travelling support from Danielle Glendinning aka Mrs Clause and 5 Border Collies aka The Reindeers. I had never been to Berwick before so I didn’t have a clue how to get there. With no star to follow as it was daylight it was down to my Satnav. We arrived in Chirnside just outside Berwick and I’m happy to report the weather was a lot better than the previous week at Linwood. With the warm up complete it was down to business. There weren’t as many people that turned up for this race as there were in Peebles. But there were still loads of fast guys and gals as we were about to find out when the wee women shouted GO at the start line. It started with a dash around the football pitch to spread out the field a bit and Greig shooting off like Blitzen, followed by Graeme running like Dasher and finally me trundling along like Little Donkey. We then followed a route which took us through many farmers fields. This was to bring gifts for all! The first field was filled with brussel sprouts then on the way back there was another field full of potatoes, so that’s the veg sorted for Christmas day! It was a bit of a nightmare trying to run with 2kgs of potatoes and sprouts stuffed down our shorts. But we did manage it. Greig finished in 6th place (1st old boy), Graeme in 13th (3rd old boy) and me in 17th. It’s fair to say that we were all really pleased with our finishing positions. This course wasn’t as hilly as the previous courses we have ran in but the terrain was heavy under foot. And I lost count on how many fields we ran through. It was still a brilliant route! We then did a warm down run with the reindeer before we heading home via a nice wee cafe just off the A1 for refuelling. The trip back home seemed a bit longer than the way there but this was broken up in the car by Graeme belting out Christmas Carol classics in the style of Aled Jones! Looking forward to the next race in the series in the new year. By Davie Weatherhead
Well done to all the Bellas who braved the challenging conditions at the West Districts yesterday, great results in both team and individual Team results here : http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/West-Dist-2014-XC-Champs-Team-Results-NEW.xls Individual results here : http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/West-Dist-2014-XC-Champs-Indiv-Results.xls
Well done to Bellas Andy Campbell (17:25) and Claire Wharton (19:51) – 1st Male and 1st Female respectively at the 6th Anniversary Pollok parkrun on Saturday. And congratulations to Derek Rankine who completed his 100th parkrun at the same event. Big congratulations too to Al Maclachlan (pictured) who won the Men’s points competition. Much to celebrate over a piece (or 3) of parkrun birthday cake in the Burrell cafe after the event. Consolidated parkrun results for Bellahouston Road Runners on 6 December 2014 can be found here: Latest Bella Consolidated Results NB If you’re missing from the results, add Bellahouston Road Runners as your club on your parkrun profile – a link is given in the email with your result you received on Saturday.
by Peter G Sunday was the 3rd race in the Borders Cross Country series held in Peebles. 4 fearless Bella explorers had entered ready to do battle with the expected artic conditions on the last day of November, over the 4 mile course. Unfortunately Greig Glendinning had contracted Ebola and had to be confined to Uplawmoor Hills. This was just as well as Davy Weatherhead was still wearing the head scars of Greig’s 6×2 rusty nail infused dog throw toy and was seeking revenge. Clearly that would have to wait another day! So, early morning on Sunday I borrowed Mrs Gallanagh’s pimped up tractor for the trek towards the Siberian village of Peebles, only stopping to pick up Graeme Paterson and Davy Weatherhead on the way. Now, runners have a lot to answer for with their insistence on not using showers but instead preferring to apply the ‘shower out of a can technique’ thus clearly damaging our beloved Ozone. As we descended the North of Britain the temperatures rose and the sun shone to Saharan proportions. Mrs Gallanagh’s tractor looked magnificent in the scorching sun albeit the speed we were travelling meant we would not get there with much time to spare before the start of the race. I however revelled in driving such a wonderful vehicle. You will not be surprised to read that by the time we got to Peebles, the locals dressed in their finest Sunday mankinis and Hawain shirts were picking the low hanging fruit from their trees in the wonderful sunshine. This completely caught me off guard as I had brought running gear for arctic conditions. Graeme however was well prepared as he unzipped his tracksuit revealing his hairy chest. As we had arrived late we had to rush to the start line. Me, in my thermals, Davy wearing his Bella top and Graeme in his speedo’s were ready to do battle with the Gutterbluids and Stooriefoots. The pre-race advice from GG was all about getting a fast start as 100 metres into the race the course narrows to single lane. So as the gun sounded I sprinted like Usain Bolt. I was flying….Davy and Graeme in front of me! 10 yards before the funnel a guy running backwards, wearing a diving suit with his laces tied together came past me. I could have swore he was reading the Scotsman too! It was then I realised we were in for a tough day. The first mile was in the park. A steep incline in the first 200 metres followed by a slippy muddy decent. I felt great although had a few Bambi on ice moments. We then ran along the riverside and up a grass wall. I could see Graeme pulling himself up whilst Davy, the goat, bounded up no problem. I managed to beat the Deep Sea Diver up the wall. Hopefully that would be the last I saw of him. We then ran past the start and out of the park along a […]
Full 2014 results available here: http://www.stuweb.co.uk/events/2014/11/08/1858/ Congratulations to the 2014 prize winners: 1ST MALE Robert GILROY – Ronhill Cambuslang Harriers 0:31:03 2ND MALE Colin THOMAS – Bellahouston Harriers 00:33:19 3RD MALE Shaun LYON – Greenock Glenpark Harriers 00:33:36 1ST FEMALE Julie GORDON – Inverclyde AC 00:37:24 2ND FEMALE Laura WALLACE – Ayr Seaforth AC 00:37:50 3RD FEMALE Megan DAVIDSON – Falkirk Victoria Harriers 00:38:21 MV40 Peter CURRIE – Dumbarton AAC 00:34:55 MV50 Wattie MACKAY – Strathearn Harriers 00:36:03 MV60 Jim SCOTT – Portobello Running Club 00:41:00 FV35 Lyndsay CURRIE – Dumbarton AAC 0:38:46 FV45 Mary WESTERN – Carnegie Harriers 00:39:11 FV55 Lorna COYLE – Greenock Glenpark Harriers 00:44:38 MALE TEAM: Bellahouston Harriers :Colin THOMAS, Jack ARNOLD and Cris WALSH FEMALE TEAM Bellahouston Road Runners : Ann ROBIN, Elaine SOMERVILLE , Kirsteen PATERSON
The Jimmy Irvine Bella 10K on 8th November is sold out and there are no entries on the day. All entrants should now have received their final instructions email notifying them of their race number. The race number can be collected from Achilles Heel Glasgow store on Thursday between 9:30am and 7:30pm or on Friday between 9:30am and 5:30pm. Numbers will also be available on Saturday at Mosspark Bowling Club between 8:45am and 10:45am. We look forward to welcoming you on Saturday https://www.bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/events/bella-10k