Great Scottish Runs

The club seemed to be well represented in the various races at the weekend and although I don't have all club results by any manner of means - and I'd really like to have some more of the younger runners' times/places - what I have heard is that it was a good day for all. Best performance was that of young Roisin McShea who was second Under 12 to finish in the 3000 metres race with her time of 12:29 with Claire Reid being timed at 13 minutes exactly. Gary Dick ran 37:35 for the 10K to be thirty fifth with Yvonne Green in 48:35 and Graeme Reid finishing in 40:41.

The only results that I have for the half marathon are for Paul Carroll who ran well for a pb 78:24 with Kath Scott in 91:08, Marina McCallum in 92:25 and Stephen Baillie in 94:11. Paul took two minutes from his pb and ran the second half faster than the first half of the race. Well done and good on you Paul. As I have said these are only a sampling of results but indicate a whole range of performances across all events with the club being represented by men, women, boys and girls. There were also a lot of supporters on the route - not every one knew all the runners and not all the runners recognised the folk shouting them on, but it was good to have them there. Any more results for the younger athletes in particular would be welcome.

Vets Age Groups

The Athletics Weekly last week had a bit in the Editorial and then a huge piece further through about the decision of the IAAF to vary the age at which runners are veterans. The age is now to be 35 but 40 for non-stadium events! The IAAF has apparently little power over Veterans Athletics but it does have the power to decide at what age you become one. The IAAF rule will now read "a master will be any athlete who has reached his/her 35th birthday for stadia events and 40th birthday for non stadia events." Will it make any difference? It was opposed by the masters' commision and the British Masters Athletic Federation and the UKA are to meet at the end of September to look at the implications of the rule change.

The Club Vest

The club vest has been in existance since 1911 when it was designed by T Barrie Erskine and approved by the club. Prior to that the uniform was just a white T shirt with black edging and the club crest in a shield on the left breast. It is not the only vest in the world which is white with a capital C on it - when Cornell University competed against the Scottish Universities we were surprised (and pleased) to see that it was white with a maroon C front and back. The great Herb Elliot used to race for an Australian club (whose name I can't remember offhand) whose vest was white with a black C. There was a sports shop in the Clydebank Shopping Centre just after it was opened which agreed to do 13 dozen club tops in various sizes. Unfortunately the owner decided to make the C a three dimensional block C. After some hassle he took them back and had to stand the loss - his instructions were quite clear and then we did not receive a copy of the order he had sent to the manufacturer for approval.

Then there are the Clydesdale and Filly Clubs in the United States which are clubs for the 'larger' athlete. The men are Clydesdales and the women are Fillies and their handicap races are based on weight categories - ie the heavier you are, the bigger allowance you get. They enter teams in most of the mass marathons in the States. We have a T shirt from one such club and it is in a murky green colour with a horses head in the centre at the front. At one time and American entrepreneur tried to copyright the name Clydesdale for athletics purposes and a lengthy law suit was pursued and finally broken largely, but not exclusively, because we had been using the name in an athletics context since 1885.

At odd times in the past members have suggested changing the strip - Dunky Wright wanted narrow black and white hoops and in the picture that Charlie Middler had it looked dire. Then there was a wee crusade for it to changed to black and white vertical stripes but that was easily outvoted. The move that could have had some traction was to have the traditional vest for cross country with the black and white vertical stripes for the track and field team. That failed as well. The basic truth is that any classic sports strip is kept because it is that. Many football clubs have changed the colours or orientation of their jersey but the big teams - Rangers, Celtic, Arsenal and company - never change. When we won the Young Athletes Relay in the eighties and became the first club other than Springburn to win it, there was a boy shouting that 'the club with the big C was winning' and everybody knew exactly who he was talking about.

The women's vest has switched back and forth quite a bit since their inception in the 30's. At first the men would not let them use the big C design but eventually relented after they won the SWCCU Championship three times! In the fifties when I joined the club they wore a kind of blouse with a square cut neck edged in black with the C front and back. It changed subsequently to the familiar white V neck with the club crest in a shield on the front and the name n the back and then Jolene Ennis and a couple of others persuaded the committee to allow them to have the black C back again. And what have we now? Well, I think I've seen both in the same race at times!

The design is clear, unmistakeable and has a great tradition.

News Report week ending 6th September

The last Men's League Match was held at Grangemouth on Sunday 30^th August with a good turnout of athletes from Clydesdale Harriers and there were several personal best performances as well as some surprising debuts and a comeback. The revelation of the day was the running of Ross Cannon (see picture) in the 400 metres hurdles and the steeplechase. He had run neither of them before but following his 63.98 seconds in the hurdles for third place he won the A string steeplechase in 10:54.5 - more than a whole lap ahead of the second placed athlete. Superb. Two of the youngest athletes there on the day - Andrew Cusick and Cameron MacLeod - covered four events each including all three jumps. The Under 17's gained most points in the Triple Jump with Andrew's 11.34 metres being fifth A string and Cameron's 10.72 winning the B String. In the Long Jump, Cameron was fifth in the A with 5.53 metres and Andrew fourth B with 4.76 metres. Cameron cleared 1.50 metres in the high jump. The other Under 17 athlete, Peter Bowman, was third in the A 800 metres in 2:01.89 and in the 1500 metres Ryan Nelson was just outside his personal best with 4:53. Former Scottish cross country champion (2003) Graeme Reid accompanied Gary Dick in the 5000 metres. He would have made two of his former self but made his was round to finish over a minute behind Gary who ran 18:07. Graeme is promising to run in as many of the short relays as he can starting with the George Cummings in September as a start to making a comeback!

The sprinters all performed nobly as well. Jonathan Farrell, protecting an injury ran only the B strings in the 100 and 200 where he was second in the 100 in 11.43 ands first in the 200 in 23.10. Mark Doris had a hard working day starting with the A 100 metres run in 11.45, ran in the 400 metres in 55.34 and finished with a run in the 4 x 400 metres relay. Cameron MacLeod and Alan McColl took part in the guest 100 metres where they were second and fifth respectively in 12.45 and 12.75 seconds. Both relay teams finished fourth of the eight taking part. The 4 x 100 quartet of Andrew Cusick, Cameron MacLeod, Alan McColl and Jonathan Farrell ran a time of 46.55 seconds and Ross Cannon, Mark Doris, Cameron Macleod and Peter Bowman clocked 3:45.50.

It was a good day with what we think was the best league placing of the season but the result was not available when we left. The making of a good team are there with most of the members being quite young (ie U17 and U20) and returning athletes like Alan McColl and Graeme Reid needing only a good winter's training and racing to get them fit for next summer's campaign. A huge debt of gratitude is due to Donald MacLeod for his organising of the team in the face of a multitude of call offs over the summer.

On the same weekend was the Paisley Vision 10k Road Race. In near perfect conditions fastest finisher for the club was Paul Carroll (36.48), closely pursued by Gerry Montgomery (36.51 and 1^st vet over 50), Donald Cameron (38.38), John Foley (39.45), Brian Reilly (40.43), Alan Lorimer (44.38), Marina McCallum (45.00), Watson Jones (45.43 pb), David Mitchell (47.23), Christine Duncanson (47.38), Yvonne Green (48.26 pb), Colin Gray (51.14). The women were winners of third female team and the first three men were fourth team.

Marina McCallum
Press Officer

Cliff's a Swimmer

Last weekend Cliff Brown competed in the Great Scottish Swim against approximately 800 other swimmers and performed commendably well. His finishing position was 134th but in his Over 50 Category he was seventh. Good stuff, Cliff. The time was 33:30 for the mile distance: I remember Frank MacKay who was a very good runner (he decamped to Vicky Park at one time but saw the light and returned) saying that he was training hard at swimming and going for 25 minutes for the mile. That was doing a mile in a swimming pool on his own. Clif started with a group of 200 swimmers and it must have been as he says like swimming in a washing machine with the water churning up all around him. Never mind Cliff - you have plenty sharp elbows to make space for yourself. Like all endurance events you need some specific training and racing and with more of the same he might get that 25 minutes that Frank was looking for. More power to your elbow and roll on the next triathlon.

Prasad selected for Commonwealths

Although the team was known unofficially it is now official that Prasad Prasad has been selected for the Inaugural Commonwealth Mountain Running and Ultra Distance Championships at Keswick on 17th September (continuing to 20th September). He has been selected for the uphill only race - the women have been picked for the uphill only and the up and down hill events but the men have only got the one race. However there is an open up and downer the day after his race and if his assorted injuries hold together he will have a go at that one to see how he compares to the international racers. Well Done, Prasad!

Winter Training

Following up on a chat at the weekend at Grangemouth, if you read a book on Training Theory you will get the winter translated into Preparation Periods One and Two. If you go back to pre training theory as such the winter was regarded as Strength and Conditioning. The differences were (a) that the words nowadays are bigger and (b) guys who are good coaches tend not to be good scientists and the result is that they lose some of their way by trying to be too clever. In the 1980's I had a particularly good squad with John Hanratty, Charlie McIntosh, Alex Gilmour, Graeme Getty, Shug Forgie and others all working hard all winter. The Wednesday night at Coatbridge was long reps and because they helped each other through difficult sessions it gave them a wee edge over the opposition. From October to Christmas they all did hill sesions on a Monday wherever they lived - wee Eck in Hamilton Maryhill guys in Cleveden Road our lot at Thomson Street. The Thomson Street session was simple. In early October there were five reps on the hill with five strides on the car park at the top and then five more reps on the hill plus five reps in the car park This built up until we were doing ten times the hill + ten times the car park twice every Monday. After New Year it was into what would now be called Preparation Period Two with the hill session turning into 200 metre reps on grass on an island on the Boulevard. I had Alex Gilmour coming from Hamilton and Shug from Carluke for these sessions some weeks! The Wednesday stayed constant. Sunday runs were longer with Alex only doing about 15 but fairly fast while most of the rest did about two hours. Results were quite good - Alex had pb's of 64+ for the half marathon and 14:04 for 5000 on the track.
All comments welcome!

Where are they now?

I had an email from Kheredine Idessane recently. You'll probably know that he spends his time following Andy Murray around the world - but the first any of us knew of his tennis interests was when we were in Club La Santa in about 1995 for warm weather training. There were some glamour models there at the same time for a photo shoot and one of them turned up at the flat one afternoon and asked if Kheredine was in. When we said he wasn't she asked if he would book a tennis court for the next day "I'm such an airhead about such things!" Who would have thought it would lead to a beat which in the past year has taken him to Rotterdam, Dubai, Palm Springs, Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid, Paris, Queen's, Wimbledon, Cinncinnati and now New York! As he says it's a change from reporting Scottish football.

Gaining an Advantage?

There has been so much stuff in the news this summer about cheating in sport. In rugby there was the eye gouging in South Africa made worse by the manager saying that it was just normal rough and tumble and of course there was bloodgate where the Saracens player faked a blood injury to allow their goal kicker to come back on to the field. The past week in football has had a phony outcry about diving - all the top teams do it and they would never ever stand for FIFA or the SFA getting seriously upset about it. I remember Ally McCoist when he was a media man saying that it was a difficult call for a striker - if you are touched in the box you have to decide immediately whether it is enough to go down for! Golf and tennis have also had their moments but it seems that athletics at international level has been as busy as any other sport in this regard this summer - drugs mainly but then there was the Semanya business which was incredibly badly handled which added ti the scandal. All cheating and trying to gain an advantage.

But how about at local level? Frank Clement was fourth in the Montreal Olympics - finishing faster than any of the first six or seven he lost first place by only 0.4 seconds. Just at that time there was an experiment in using a home made drink with a bicarbonate of soda base which was said to help delay the onset of lactic acid. It had also been demonstrated to reduce 800 metres times by approximately two seconds in trials. At a meeting in Glasgow Frank Horwill said it was worth a try but Frank Clement just refused to countenance its use. He said that taking anything to make yourself go faster was the opposite of fair competition. Then there were all the wonder drinks (such as maxim) produced in recent years which were said to aid recovery and so increase the amount of work you were able to do. One internationally renowned Scottish coach used to give the athletes in his squad a glass of Maxim after every training session. Other coaches said it was cheating. But what about the fad at one time for marathon runners to drink two cups of black coffee before a race? There was said to be a scientific reason for it (it released the free flowing fatty acids in the blood stream) and I know of several Scottish men who used it for several years. Is that cheating or organising your diet? The most widespread and best known practice was the carbo-hydrate bleed out diet the week leading into an endurance competition whether it was on the road, on a bike or in the swimming pool. It had some drawbacks but lots of us used it and felt that we gained from it. Are things like that cheating?
I would argue that unless you are taking some chemicals that you would not normally take, you are not. The marathon diet is just eating your normal foods but in a psecific pattern and even the bicarb mixture - I never ever knew anyone who actually used it - is maybe OK. But is taking an aspirin two nights before a marathon, to help you get a night's sleep that nerves would deny you, cheating? What do the club members take the day before or on the day of a big race do or take? lachie Stewart used to take handfuls of biscuits but that would just give me diarrhoea!