Water, Feeding Stations, etc

I have been surprised by the response to the post about water bottles. Three days later I have had one phone call and three emails about it! Basically, what do you do if you can't drink bottled water. Apart from the rather facetious and obvious tip of just use tap water, all I can do is say what was done in the olden days - and don't slag off the olden days. What goes around, comes around.
When I started running road races, the only ones where water/drinking were allowed were the marathons. In the Scottish marathon, the first drink station was at 6 miles then they were at 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 and 23; sponge stations were at intermediate intervals of 10.5, 13.5, 16.5 etc. The organisers always provided water or orange squash at the drinks stations and sponges soaked in water in between - most runners sucked the sponges.
However all competitors were allowed to have their own drinks at the water points so long as they were properly sealed and approved by the medic at the race before the start. In the absence of commercially prepared drinks, most people used the old formula of one pint of 'diluting orange' with one tablespoon of sugar and one teaspoon of salt. This was divided up into smaller bottles and collected at various points on the course. (at the last Olympic Games to be held in the USA (1996) the official drinks supplier was Coca Cola. They invented a drink for the marathon and it was provided in powder form to be mixed by the athlete. I asked the US rep at a meeting in Manchester how the drink compared with the one that we used to mix and the reply was simply that ours was cheaper! In addition because of the USA Food and Drugs Act, they could not say that there was added salt!)
When Phil and I ran in the Boston marathon in 1977, we were offered water, orangeade, gatorade, root beer, real beer, orange slices and ice cubes! On another occasion a Springburn runner who was a qualified chemist mixed his own - on the principle that you needed lots of sodium ions he mixed lime juice with salt with the result that he was very, very sick at the first feeding station.
Nowadays you would not be allowed, I don't suppose, to mix your own and have it in sealed containers. The advice would be to stick to water or to some commercial potion that you have tried in the lead up to the race. The problem with orange juice is that it gets sticky and if you spill some you end up after about 20 miles getting irritated with it and spend too much energy trying to scrape it off!

Press Report week ending 8th March

Last weekend was the final event in the LAP series of events for the junior Clydesdale Harriers – the Cross Country Championships. Final scores had Peter Bowman winning the Partnership Boys Title with Tony Dolan coming third. The girls had Kirstie Kelly coming second and Rachel Busby coming fourth.

On the 28^th of last month the Playdrome hosted the annual Sports Show where the juniors and seniors helped demonstrate and explain a lot of the events that the Harriers take part in on a regular basis including what we do in training eg agility exercises, for the members of public. It was acknowledged as another successful day.

Several of the senior Clydesdale Harriers were warm weather training for a week in Fuerteventura along with members of other clubs (organized by the Scottish Veteran Harriers Club). Plenty of training was undertaken (and overindulging – but that’s another story!) including, in the middle of the holiday, a 5k race was organised. Winner of the race was Mark Rudzinski (18.52), followed closely by Pamela McCrossan (18.55), Hugh Watson (19.32), Marina McCallum (19.48), Stuart Allison (20.03), then a few places further down was Peter Rudzinski (21.15), David Mitchell (21.33) and Laurie Pearson (26.47). The course was run on an out and back undulating course with temperatures in the 80s so all did well to cope with the heat – something we haven’t had to deal with at home for a while!

On Sunday 8^th was the Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon – results next week.

Next race for the Harriers is our own organised race – the Clydebank 5k - this Saturday 2pm starting in the Clydebank Business Park. Entry on the day only at the Playdrome.

Marina McCallum
Press Officer

Clydesdale Harriers Are Not Of The Rangers Stamp

In the early years there were many sports journals and newspapers in Glasgow and the one which pursued the Clydesdale cause was 'The Scottish Umpire' - started up by a senior member of the Rangers FC and the one which sniped at the club was 'The Scottish Athletics Journal' who championed another organisation altogether. When Clydesdale held their first fixture at Rangers' Kinning Park ground and then started training there, the Journal was most critical, slating the Rangers support, the ground itself and the area in which it was situated. I quote one small part of the article: "I should strongly advise the Clydesdale Harriers to move their quarters from Kinning Park. Several prominent athletes have told me that so long as these handicaps are run on the Rangers grounds they will not compete. I expect that several names will be missing from the next handicap on account of the language used by the crowd and also because Kinning Park is not well adapted for running purposes. I know Clydesdale Harriers are not of the Rangers stamp and hire Kinnning Park because none other is available."

The remark about none other being available is not strictly true - Partick Thistle had a good pitch at Meadowside but the Harriers/Rangers link was invaluable to the club in it early years as, indeed, was the connection with Glasgow Celtic after it was founded in 1888. But the fact is that the writer was michief making - who ever heard of bad language at football grounds?!

Bottled Water

The phrase in American publications these days is 'bottled water drinkers are the new smokers'. There are articles on the subject in many publications but I'll only give you two. Julia Whitty in www/motherjones.com and Giles Coren in www.treehugger.com. What's the argument? Well it starts from the findings of researchers at the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, that bottle production alone wastes 50 million barrels of oil a year. Add the energy needed to process the water, label the bottles, fill the bottles, seal the bottles, transport them, cool them prior to sale and so on and the picture builds up.
The solution seems to be to use tap water in a re-usable container! Check the sources if you're interested and they will even direct you to other articles.

Annual General Meetings

Although the club's Annual General Meeting has tended to be in the Town Hall in recent years, this has not always been the case. When I joined it was held in Kilbowie Primary School and the same classroon was allocated every year. It was in fact used twice each year - we had a Half Yearly Meeting as well. The AGM was in September/October and the Half Yearly in April. The winter fixtures were produced by the club captains (men and women) at the AGM and the track championship details were divulged by the captains at the April Half Yearly. No last minute jiggery pokery - the captain was responsible for producing the details and dates with the Committee ratifying them. The swankiest venue for the AGM in my time was when Gerry Kennedy had it in the Beardmore Hotel at Dalmuir. The corridors were of a higher standard of furnishing than most venues have been and as for the room for the meeting! There was even a table at the rear with various fruit squashes and coffee and tea available for those attending. The least salubrious was the Hut in Thomson Street.

In the beginning, the meetings were held in Miss Cranston's Restaurant, the Bath Hotel and other such establishments but the one I would MOST have liked to attend was when the club hired a steamer, had the AGM on board as it headed down the Clyde and then a sports day was held at Rothesay before having dinner on the boat back. Are you listening Peter, Yvonne, Jim? It's probably too late for April 17th this year, but see next year????

LAP Cross Country Championships

The last race for the Local Athletic Clubs Partnership was the National Cross Country Championship with Peter Bowman winning the Partnership Boys title despite not running at Falkirk. The top four places were 1. P Bowman (CH) 40 points; 2. C Wilson (HAAC) 20; 3. T Dolan (CH) 20; 4. R Kennedy (HAAC) 20.
In the Girls Championship, Kirsty Kelly was beaten by a mere two points for the Trophy. The result: 1. M Robertson (HAAC) 59 points; 2. K Kelly (CH) 57; 3. M Robinson (HAAC) 40; 4. R Busby (CH) 39.

In the Boys competition, seven Clydesdale boys were in the first nine and in the Girls there were five in the first nine. The numbers are encouraging and with a bit more experience they could all do even better.

Road Races and Championships

The last winter championships are almost on us with the Young Athletes Road Running Championships on 22nd March and the Senior Road Relay Championships on 4th April. No doubt Phil will have the younger member primed for the road championships - the weather is usually good, the opposition is strong, the fields are large and it usually a good day for runners and spectators. I think our last winner was when Mark Rudzinski won the Under 20 10000 metres five or six years ago. We have never won the Senior Relays although there have been many excellent individual and team performances. The men have a six stage race and the women have a four stage race, both going on at the same time. The stages are alternate three and six mile distances and part of the art of team selection is getting runners over the best distances to produce the best results for the team. We should do well, with the women possibly doing better than the men.

With the summer coming along it is always good to look at what event will be your main one of the year and then plan a racing programme to include longer distances for strength and shorter ones for speed or pace. Unfortunately there are far too many races at 10000 metres and half marathon with very little in between that and the full marathon to serve the purpose! There used to be 12 miles (Balloch - Clydebank), 14 Miles (Babcock's), 14.5 Miles (Shotts or Gourock), 16 Miles (Clydebank to Helensburgh), 18 Miles (Rothesay), 20 Miles (Strathallan) and 22.6 Miles (Edinburgh - N Berwick) which helped arrange a sensible racing programme. Is it time to bring the Balloch back to 12 Miles?