Racing and Coaching

The best single result on Saturday was was Iain Robertson's fourth place in the Scottish Closed Indoor Championships at Kelvin Hall. He set a new personal best for the distance of 4:14.7 and bearing in mind the differences between indoor track and outdoor track then it must be worth much less on a 'real' track. It confirms his running before Christmas when he went better on fast trails such as those at Irvine than on the slippery, sliddery courses such as Kirkintilloch for the County Championships. Roll on the National on a good runner's course at Falkirk.

Meanwhile at Bishopbriggs we had ten runners out in the Jack Crawford Memorial race. It's the first time I've seen Gerry Montgomery run this winter - he's missed the championships and these are the only ones I've been at - but he had a good enough run to be first club runner on the day. Paul Carroll made his comeback after missing a couple of months after changing jobs to finish two places back and Brian Gallagher had one of his rare races this winter to record 38:36 for the third club runner home. All three will be good counters for the club at Falkirk. Of the rest, John Foley was well down on last year's time but that's only a temporary set back I think and Bobby Rosborough and Peter Rudzinski had solid runs.

Pamela McCrossan was again the first lady and was only 9 seconds behind Bobby with Ann Murray on 42:40 winning the duel with kath Scott. Kath beat her in the County Championships, Ann struck back in the Hannah Cup and on Saturday she took over half a minute out of Kath's time. Roll on the next round of this fascinating battle! Fiona McCue was the fourth Lady in the race and she ran 44:27 for the 10K trail.

On Friday I went to the coaches meeting at Grangemouth and with about 20 coaches present - almost all Level 4 - it was a good meeting and there will be regular follow ups but the average age was over 50 I think. Where were all the younger coaches???