Monday 29 April 2019

Race roundup 27-28 April


Lots of action this weekend with Moorfoots up and down the land!

Highland Fling
On Saturday Ross Grieve was racing at the Highland Fling 53 mile Ultra Trail Marathon which doubles as the Scottish Ultra Trail Championship. The route follows the West Highland Way through the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, with a total climb of 7500 feet/2300m.
Ross had come 2nd Vet 50 to Billy Reid’s (East Antrim Harriers) 8.55 finish, 8 mins behind, Ross’ strategy was to start this year’s event a little faster, and “slow down slower”. Leading from the start, he held his pace well,  improving on all his splits from the previous year coming in 15minute faster in  8:47:57( 27th place overall) and beating Billy’s time from last year.  Problem is, so did he!!
Ross got so close but not quite enough to take the win, with Billy coming though strong with 5 miles to go to finish in 8:40 and in 18th place overall.  With about 750 starters the race on the day with about 650 finishing it was an undoubtedly amazing achievement and huge congratulations!
When asked if he had a nice day? He said:
“Constant drizzle, cold, pushing the effort from the start -  it was a suffer fest and  one of those days  to just get it done, so, yes ,I suppose -   a good day out !!

15 mins faster than last year so am delighted….. and sore!”

Full results here: https://highlandflingrace.org/

Highland Fling 2019 - Ross Grieve 2nd M50 on the podium (on the right)

London Marathon
Richard Edge and Paul Nichol were in London taking on Mo Farah, Callum Hawkins and Eliud Kipchoge in the second fastest marathon of all time, and rose to occasion with excellent runs.
Richard finished in 3:28:20 with Paul in 3:31:38. Amazingly the both clocked the identical half way split of 1:41:31!
Paul finished a very creditable 231st in the 55-59 age category and commented:
having turned in a decent time at London I was still troubled by my left quad / knee seizing up at about mile 14 even though there was never a problem during training.”
Great run nonetheless
In his first ever road marathon Richard was running for the SiMBA Simpsons Memory Box Appeal Charity and smashed his pre race target raising £3,789 to date surpassing his £2,000 (details here: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RichardEdge6 )
Richard’s report:
Pacing was pretty much what I was going for, until mile 20 then the wheels fell off a little. Good experience. I’ve gone from thinking this might be my one and only road marathon to I might give it a go next year...if I get in! I was on the TV a couple of times though I wasn’t looking great haha! However, the experience is something I have never experienced before. Bands at every corner, crowds of people only wanting the best for you. Unbelievably inspiring! Tower bridge was probably my highlight, although I did feel uncomfortable at the amount of people watching me bumbling about the road. The start was incredibly well organised...I had spoken to several previous who warned me about the merging of other starting groups around mile 3/4, but due to the changes it never affected the space around us too much. Making sure I got in front of the ‘running Big Ben’ and the running ‘4 man tent’ certainly increased my speed a few times

Derwentwater Dawdle
Lucy Colquhoun was in the northern Lake District taking part in the Derwentwater Dawdle. This is a challenging but beautiful 23 mile(ish) self navigated route that takes in three tough ascents totalling 4300ft as you complete a full circuit of Derwentwater.
Lucy ran with her dogs Isaac and Otto were all placed joint 12th on the results sheet https://www.ascendevents.co.uk/results/ in 4:48:20 each collecting a medal!
“Joint first placed dogs at the Derwentwater Dawdle, plus one bedraggled owner. If they hadn’t been attached to me they’d have finished in half the time 😬🐶”

Yorkshire Three Peaks Race
Colin Williams was at the Three Peaks Race in Yorkshire which explained is on its website as: https://www.threepeaksrace.org/
‘Three Peaks Race - The Marathon with Mountains’ - The Three Peaks Race traverses the famous Yorkshire Dales mountains of Pen-y-ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside is one of the oldest, most famous and best organised fell races in Britain. First run in 1954, the Race covers 37.4 kilometres with 1608 metres of ascent and descent (23.3 miles and 5,279 feet) over the most rugged and spectacular countryside in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, taking competitors to a height of 723 metres above sea level.
Colin's report:
Good day out and a real experience. Pretty mixed weather with a fair bit of rain and wind. It’s an amazingly well organised race and I’d recommend it. It even had it’s own beer brewed!

I finished 170th in 4:04:02 in the biggest fell race I’ve ever taken part in with 750 starters. It’s pretty humbling to know that first runners were back 1 ¼ hour before but I’m happy with my run – anyone I spoke to warned to hold something back for the later part for the last hill and I keep to that and I think it paid off. You dib at various points on the way round and I was 264th at the top of first hill so picked up almost 100 places as the race went on so fairly well paced although I was still completely stuffed at the end! Looking at the map you think you have an easy decent for the last 7km off Ingleborough but you hopping and skipping over limestone payment trying not to do yourself a mischief!
 

Monday 15 April 2019

Scott is East District Masters Road 10km Champion

Scott McDonald was racing in Grangemouth on Sunday 14 April at the Round the Houses 10k - incorporating East District 10k Road Championship (and Scottish Students Road Champs).

We get so used to Scott excelling but his performance was simply astounding clocking 33:16 to win the M50 prize at the race and become the East of Scotland Masters 40+ 10km champion (two M40s were quicker than Scott on the day but as down were members of west clubs didn't count for the East prize).
He finished 19th overall - and would have finished 5th in the Scottish Uni Champs he went so fast, and his time was over a minute quicker than he set last September winning the Scottish M50 title in Stirling (34:21) !!
Scott commented: 'a perfect race all round, new m50 age PB'
Full Results here: https://www.stuweb.co.uk/race/2cF/



Monday 8 April 2019

Coledale Horseshoe Fell Race 2019


Saturday hosted the annual Coledale Horseshoe Fell Race (Distance: 13.7km / 8.5m, Climb: 915m / 3002ft)from Braithwaite by Keswick in the northern Lake District. A classic fell race it attracted a very strong field and was attended by Scout Adkin, Andy Cox and Pete Hall (in his Cumbria Fell Runners colours as he’s still a member of them too).


After the midweek surprise dump of snow on the tops, there were fears foe the worst for race day. However, the sun came out with hardly any wind at all and Scout was even sporting sunnies!
In total there were 315 who took to the startline.
Scout had a very strong race to finish 8th woman, in 1:41:33, Andy was 52nd overall in 1:32:32 and Pete broke 2 hrs in 1:59:31, 31st in M50. Full results here: https://www.fellrunner.org.uk/results.php?id=5542

Come cracking action photos here:
Pete https://carlosreinaphoto.arcadina.com/events/coledale-horseshoe-fell-race/first-hill-to-grisdale-pike/coledale-horseshoe-0429