Today would have been our 11th Jimmy Irvine race, marking a full decade since the event first kicked off As our 2020 couldn’t go ahead, we thought we’d create a wee retrospective to mark the occasion, with club members sharing some some of the reasons 💜 Why We Run!💜 Thanks to all the club members who sent in selfies and ideas, and to the many brilliant event photographers who’ve captured the energy and atmosphere of our races over the years, so we can look back and look forward to the next ones as well! If you’re inspired to get involved, we’d love to see you along at the club, check out our website for more.
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For the third straight year, we’re delighted to report that Scottish Athletics have just announced that the Bellahouston Road Runner Ladies team secured the Scottish Half Marathon Team Gold at this year’s Great Scottish Run. A huge congratulations to Cat MacDonald, Ann Robin and Katie Mathieson! Well done to Edinburgh AC who were just in 2nd place for Silver, with Garscube Harriers taking Bronze. We’re delighted for our Ladies, who’ve won this prestigious prize for the third straight year, and bringing it to an amazing five years on the podium. Congratulations too to Ann Robin, who also secured Silver in the W40! Well done to everybody who took part on the day. The club had an amazing 60 members complete the Half marathon, and 6 taking part in the 10k. On top of that, 40 club members volunteered over the course of the weekend to help make the event a huge success.
We’ll shortly be sending final instructions to participants email addresses. If you don’t receive your copy this evening, please check your spam folders, and mark any email from bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk you find there as not spam, to help our emails reach you, and others, in future. Note too if you registered two people with the same email address, you will only receive one copy of the instructions. Please review the entrycentral.com/bella10k entry list or get in touch with us if you’re unsure. Please do also follow us on social media for any last minute announcements or changes relating to the race. We’re at facebook.com/bellahoustonroadrunner and twitter @bellaroadrunner
What a day at the Great Scottish 10k and Half Marathon! At least 85 Bellas were involved in marshalling, pacing and racing this morning. That must be a record, and that’s not even including our fantastic supporters along the route! Congratulations too to Louise Ross for winning the Scottish Masters Bronze medal, finishing with a huge PB of 1.24.57. We were defending our Scottish national Ladies team Gold from 2017, and hope to find out later this week if we were successful! Thanks to everyone for making it such a memorable day!
Many thanks to everybody who took part today, or helped volunteer to make the event such a success. We hope everybody enjoyed their day out in Glasgow’s south-side! Provisional results are now available at our timing provider at stuweb.co.uk/race/1J2/. For the small number of runners who didn’t have a technical t-shirt available in their size, we should have taken a note of your details so we can post one to you in a few weeks time. If we didn’t take a note of your details today, please get in touch with us via races@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk by 16th November. Prizes We’d like to express our thanks and gratitude to our sponsor Achilles Heel for their support, providing the prizes and goody bags. Overall winner prizes Male 1st, Robert Gilroy, Cambuslang Harriers, 00:32:28 2nd, Jozsef Farkas, Stirling University Athletics Club, 00:32:32 3rd, Alasdair Campbell, Cambuslang Harriers, 00:32:45 Female 1st, Claire Moffett, Falkirk Victoria Harriers, 00:37:21 2nd, Katie Bain, Edinburgh Athletics Club, 00:38:36 3rd, Laura Wallace, Ayr Seaforth AAC, 00:38:46 Age Category Prizes 1st Male V40, Cris Walsh, 00:35:10 1st Female V40, Ann Robin, 00:38:56 1st Male V50, Chris Upson, 00:36:50 1st Female V50, Jacqui Thomson, 00:41:58 1st Male V60, Brian Hughes, 00:39:07 1st Female V60, Linda Selman, 00:51:22 Team Prizes Male: Bellahouston Harriers (Jack Arnold, David Mackintosh, Darren Mackintosh) Female: Bellahouston Harriers (Janine Dickie, Kristina Greig, Clair McCormick) Most runners were present to collect their prize, but we’ll be in touch with participants who couldn’t make it along to Nethercraigs.
For runners taking part in tomorrow’s event, we hope you’re looking forward to taking part in the 2017 edition of our event. Bellahouston Road Runners certainly looks forward to welcoming you! Final instructions were emailed out to participants on Tuesday, so please check your inbox (and spam folders), for your personalised email with all the details you need. We’ve also put details on our event website at bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/events/bella-10k. If you have already received your number, please be at the start line (adjacent to Cycle track in Bellahouston park) by 11.50am for the 12pm start. Your race number should be clearly attached to your front. Safety pins are available at the start area or at Nethercraigs. To ease congestion on the course we’ll be asking runners to assemble in approximate race pace order, so please find the appropriate pace group for your expected time. If you have not received your number, or require changing facilities or secure lockers, registration is at Glasgow Club Nethercraigs (G52 1TQ) from 9.30am to 11.30am. This is 1 mile from the start, so please allow plenty of time. We look forward to welcome you tomorrow. After the race, and after collecting your technical t-shirt and goody-bag, we invite you to the post-race buffet in the dance studio at Nethercraigs (donation requested). The race presentation will take place at approximately 1345 at the Nethercraigs dance studio. Hot Beverages will be available to purchase in Bellahouston Park. Full details are on our event website at: bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/events/bella-10k.
Club founder Jimmy Irvine has unveiled the t-shirt design for the 2017 running of the ‘Jimmy Irvine Bella 10k‘, which takes place this Sunday in Bellahouston park. The T-shirt was designed by Bella Road Runner, Greame Pert who said: “I hope the t-shirt shows Jimmy’s enthusiasm and enduring commitment to running. Jimmy does not make it to club as often as he’d like but is still running.“ Graeme added, “I spent time with Jimmy and Sandra, looking through their old photos and found a great one of Jimmy starting a leg of the London to Brighton relay in 1959. His club mate is exhausted as he passes the baton to a sprightly eager Jimmy who is just raring to go. Jimmy is a great ambassador for running, our local hero and worth celebrating. His photo is centre of 2017 club T-shirt” Current club President, Richard Leyton added “Everybody who’s seen the design, and heard Jimmy’s story behind it loves it. We’re all really looking forward to seeing it out and about on the streets of Glasgow over the coming weeks and months.” For entrants on Sunday, details are on the event website at bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk/events/bella-10k/ – We’d remind the runners who didn’t receive their number in the post, or who wish to use the changing facilities, that registration and changing are at Glasgow Club Nethercraigs (G52 1TQ), approx 1 mile from the start. The event is sponsored by Achilles Heel, and supported by Tunnocks.
We hosted the 2017 Renfrewshire AAA XC Relay, at Netherpollok, on Sunday 22nd October 2017. Many thanks to everybody who helped make the event such a success. Photos from the day are available on our Facebook page) (Albums here and here), and please find the full results for each of the races below: Senior Women Senior Men (updated) U11 Boys U11 Girls U13 Boys U13 Girls U15 Boys U15 Girls U17 Boys U17 Girls
Report from Greig The challenge is to complete at least three of the five Western Isles Half Marathons – Stornoway, Harris, Benbecula, Barra or Skye in any one year. This is the longest running series of half marathons in Scotland and 2012 saw the 23rd event. It is a hugely popular race series, with increasing entries every year. In particular, the Barra race, which is only able to support limited numbers, sells out the day entry is opened every year. The series starts with the Stornoway half marathon and ends with the Harris half marathon, which traditionally involves post race celebrations, both locally and on the ferry! 3 Bella runners completed at least the minimum 3 races Myself, Nea MacInnes, John Sandbach. First up for the Bella challenge was the 2nd race in Benbecula. Despite it being a circular route it had the usual stiff headwind for about 12 miles (always described as “perfect running conditions” in the local press) and talk of a strong challenge from the Heb 3 host club Stornoway, I did enough to grind out my 3rd Benbecula Half win followed by Nea clinching 2nd with a fine PB after a good race with a couple of runners from the previously mentioned local club. John Sandbach picked up a “Heb PB” for his first counter and the bravest run of the day was from Sandra Houldsworth who with a couple of miles still to run had a nasty fall and despite the blood oozing from numerous wounds still managed to finish and was then promptly whisked to hospital where she discovered she’d also broken 3 toes. 7 days later in Skye it was the heat that took its toll on the runners, I finished 3rd followed by Nea 4th and Robbie Hayman 5th to win us the Skye team prize and John in 85th adding another time towards the series. Next it was onto Barra where Nea and John were joined by Louise Gray. Nea had another fine race on Barras famously brutal undulations, battling so hard with a runner for 2nd place to his surprise he almost caught the leader finishing just 10 seconds behind. Louse also ran well coming in 3rd v40. Finally it was to Harris for the fifth and final race in the series. Nea was series leader having already completed his 3 races, I had to finish my final counter in under 1.27 to overtake him and at last win the thing after being runner up 3 times in the previous four years. And with John Sandbach (like Nea) having already completed his 3 races we were also in with a chance for a first ever Bella series team win breaking the usual Edinburgh stranglehold (Portobello, HBT, Corstorphine). On the day it was pretty grim. You get taken on a fleet of buses out to Borve and run back the 13.1 miles in an easterly direction back to Tarbet. The theory is despite the first 10 miles being almost constant climbs, […]
Report from Bruce from race on Sunday, 27 May with further comments from Tomoyo. After having a worried eye on the weather forecast for most of the week beforehand, like most I was dreading running yet another hot marathon. The day got off to a bad start with us leaving the house a little bit later than planned, getting caught in a diversion getting onto the M8, having underestimated how long it took to drive to Edinburgh City Centre and then realising that the ‘London Road’ start was actually quite a long way from the old Regents Road start. Oh dear. So after a panicked warm-up scurry to the baggage truck, flinging on some factor 30 all that remained was to fight my way through the crowds of spectators to the start pen. By that point I didn’t actually care that I had 26.2 miles to run. Victory was mine just for making it to the start line. Once the race started the crowds thinned out quite nicely, and (as usual) I set off too fast at sub-6 minute miling and ended up 3.5 minutes ahead of my target by halfway. I spent the rest of the race waiting for my legs to seize up – but thankfully it never happened and was able to hang on. And luckily the weather never got quite as hot as it looked thanks to a cool sea breeze. My low-tech anti-Garmin device (race pace band printed off the Runner’s World website: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/pacing/javascriptcalcs3-v2.asp) worked quite well until the latter stages, by which point I’d flung so much water over myself to keep cool that it had turned to a gooey pulp. Oops. It wasn’t like I was paying attention to the plan anyway, so it didn’t really matter. After a seamless hand over of hydration juice and a gel from Nina at the 23 mile point, I was able to relax and soak up the atmosphere as the realisation that I was going to beat the 2:45 target sunk in. All that remained was a quick dash up the finish straight for 7 minute PB, encouraged along by a big shout-out from our own race commentator Bryan and the impressive crowd. The nice weather brought out a decent crowd of spectators on a pretty inaccessible route for spectators – special thanks to Gerry, Louise and Mrs (Geordie Jim’s wife) Robinson for the shouts of support, they were much appreciated. So all in all, a great day out! Here are the results I could find on the EMF site before it crashed, I’m sure I saw more Bellas than this though: Pos Gun Chip Name Category 18 2:41:33 2:41:24 Bruce Carse SENM 220 3:07:28 3:07:10 Neil McEwan SENM 236 3:08:31 3:08:12 Jim Robinson V50M* 307 3:11:53 3:11:35 Robert McEwan V55M** 1220 3:38:07 3:35:02 Tomoyo Fujiwara V35W 2132 ? 3:51:46 Lucy Mackay 2907 ? 4:02:29 Sarah Gillies * PB, 5th in MV50 category and all important London Good-for-age place ** 7th in MV55 category Race report […]
Chris Brotherston has just sent in his race report from the 2011 Ben Nevis Hill Race: It seemed like a big ask with all that ascent using only two blistered feet, the rain plummeting from the heavens and the gallus mountain clothed in dank mist. This was it……the Ben Nevis Hill race, the thing you hear about as a kid and think to yourself “wow, these guys must be superhuman”. And then as you stand at the start line you see the super human athletes such as Finlay Wild (no relation to the humble Oscar or his long suffering wife) and Angela Mudge (whose dog is even faster than you) or Stuart Mathieson (just being pseudo sycophantic there Stuart). But they are in the minority the rest of us are human; some carrying injuries while others carry hangovers and overhanging bellies. But, that’s hill racing with its motley assortment of craggies on the crags, sloppers on the slopes…..and the illiterate alliteraters…. Anyway, back to the hill race……….and in a hill race everything is about feet….how many feet of ascent and descent…how are your feet…..what are you wearing on your feet……did you keep your feet (no I gave mine away to a passing tourist who got in the way on the bloody zig zags!)…wow what a feat (!). Anyway back to the hill race….it starts as most race do and then finishes. In between there are a hell of a lot of feet (4370 feet of ascent, 1000 runners feet and 500 incredible feats). To some it is running up and down in an incredible 1 ½ hours, to others it is completing it in just under four hours, while all those in between have their own personal goals. An experience it was; an achievement it was; an emotional experience it certainly was; a joyous pleasure…..well I think I will leave that feat to the imagination……. Wouldn’t change it for the world though…. More details, results and… FEATures (boom *tisch*) about this famous hill race at http://www.bennevisrace.co.uk/
Update: Entries to 7th November have been posted here. A list of all entries received to the Jimmy Irvine Achilles Heel Bella 10k, so far (31st October, 2010) is available here. If you’ve entered, please check your details are on the list, and get in touch by e-mailing info@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.uk if you’re not on the list as you’d expect. If you’ve not entered yet, there’s still time, but the event is filling up fast. See the event pages for entry details, and get your form in the post. The course maps have been updated on the Events page also. If you have been studying the maps, you’ll now notice a slight change in some of the markers to reflect the fact that the course has now been accurately measured by an approved measurer. This resulted in a change of position for some markers, and a new finish point.
After last year’s gale force winds, the weather gods were slightly kinder to the 95 runners at the Bella Ben Venue Hill Race today, with a torrential downpour on the start line and only 30mph winds on the ridge to contend with.But the weather did not stop some fast racing, with the lead changing hands many times between the top group before Matt Sullivan (Shettleston) & Peter Devenport (Bellahouston) used local knowledge for a good line on the final downhill on the open hillside from the ridge into Gleann Riabhach, and managed to pull away from the others. Matt held off Peter to win in a time of 1 hour 10 mins for the 8 mile course, but if Peter had not been forced to stop and tie a shoe lace in the run-in, the finish could have been even tighter. Finishing close behind this pair were the Shettleston duo, Tom Owens and Jethro Lennox.In the ladies competition, Jacqui Higginbottom (Carnethy) used her speed (& long legs) on the steep trail section to overcome Shona Robertson of Westies, while Ellie Homewood, also of Westies finished in third.In a tightly fought male vet race, the eventual winner was Bruce Smith (Carnethy) from Will Manners (Strathearn) and Alan Gilkison (Westerlands). In the ladies vet competition Fabienne Thompson of Carnegie held off the Carnethy pair, Joanne Anderson & Joan Wilson.The teams prizes were split to the east & west of the country, with Shettleston winning the men’s (Matt Sullivan, Tom Owens, Jethro Lennox) and Carnethy winning the ladies (Jacqui Higginbottom, Fiona McKinnon & Joanne Anderson).Being a new race, not everyone took the optimum route today, and I’m sure everyone knows of places where they can shave off a few seconds in the big race next year, but spare a thought for the runner who took a very non-optimum route, and ended up at Kinlochard, resulting in a 12 mile taxi ride back to the finish!Ben Venue is one of the SHR championship races in 2011, so with this being the first race over the full course, we are keen to learn from your experience, so please send any comments or suggestions for improvement to benvenue@bellahoustonroadrunners.co.ukThe race doubles as a fundraiser for the Lomond Mountain Rescue Team, so many thanks to all the runners, marshalls & helpers who helped raise £500 for team funds.Hope to see you all next year! Results available as either a PDF (link) or Excel (link)
Sunday 8th August was a fine day for the Achilles Heel Bella 5k race, with the sun making a pleasant appearance for the first time in a while.152 runners took part in the event, 35 from the host club Bella Road Runners. Achilies Heel Bella 5k Results 2010Winning the mens race in fine style was Paul Sorrie from Shettleston Harriers in an excellent time of 14:59, a new course record. Eilis McKechanie from HBT won the womens’ race in an equally impressive time of 18 mins. Paul was followed by David Millar, Irvine AC who took the M40 prize and third was Bella’s own Kenny Richmond. In the ladies race Garscube Harriers runners Lesley Chisholm and Kirsty Husband took second and third place respectively and Lesley first FV35.First Male Team prize went to Bella Road Runners: Kenny Richmond, Ciaran Dougherty and Craig Ross. First Female Team was Garscube: Lesley Chisholm, Kirsty Husband and Jill O’Neil.A fine selection of food was on offer after the race in the Palace of Art for runners and helpers to savour and enjoy the excellent sunshine. Many thanks to all of the volunteers who helped provide such excellent support to the event. Photos will follow soon. Thanks to Gerry Scullion for the race report!
Photos from the 2009 Ben Venue Hill Race are starting to appear. Check back for further pictures, or post a comment with links! Pictures in the forest of all runners from Alasdair McLeod: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43183046@N05/sets/72157622514811606/ Above the forest by Ian Nimmo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishhillrunners/sets/72157622387565595/ And from the finish by Chris Upson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisupson/sets/72157622392072319/ The weather looks lovely!