Just Go To The Pictures

Colin Youngson (Forres) has the story of the teenager who approached distance running legend Alastair Wood and said that he wanted to give up football and take up running, did he have any advice for him? Alastair who was known for being direct said "Son, running is harder than football - do yourself a favour - go to the pictures!" That running is harder than football is not in doubt. A local example is that of Gary Higgins who had been a professional football player before taking up running after a series of injuries. Within two years he was running 1:53 for 800 and 3:56 for 1500 and could do a good 4 x 4 relay leg as well as run cross country. He then just gave it up in favour of playing Junior football. When asked why, he said that to be even mediocre in athletics you had to train at least 6 times a week but you could do two nights of 'noddy' training (his words)and get your place in a team. You could of course do two nights of noddy training and try to be a runner as well but you wouldn't get very far. If all you want to do is keep fit then do your two nights, go for the occasional walk and eat properly and you'll be fine BUT...
if you want to be a good runner, it IS harder than football and you DO have to do at least six sessions a week. When Peter Fleming was at Langside College and just starting out as a senior athlete, he normally ran to College (two and a half miles) and back (two and a half miles) with a run at lunchtime as well and on one day a week he did four runs in the day. And of course there was the race or hard run on Saturday and the long run on Sunday. Donald MacNab Robertson of Maryhill who won the first ever SAAA Marathon Championship in 1946 and then again in 1947 is said to have done four 20 mile runs in the week and a 25 miler on Sunday. I could list the people who have done well in road and distance running and they all did some things that were their own but the one thing they had in common was that they 'got the miles in'. And strength builds speed - all the top runners said so and all the top coaches say so.
We are fortunate that we have in the club just now a couple of runners who also believe in that work ethic. Paul Carroll is running in the Tom Scott 10 this weekend and should do well - he has the strength for it and has run well in the Six Stage Relays being well inside his pb from last year and picking up four bodies on the way round. He then goes on to the London Marathon where given reasonable weather and, although you can never tell with the big one, the right pace early on he is capable of another pb. Gerry has had a good winter but does not have as many races under his belt as Paul but he should do well in London too. I don't know who else is competing at either race but I was impresed with the whole team at Livingston with Kevin's time jumping right off the page at me! The c;lub seems to be on the right track for some good distance running results and with the return to active service of Mark Rudzinski, the future's bright, the future has a big C on it!!!

AGM

Supporting Yvonne's reminder of the date of the Annual General Meeting of the club and the appeal for members to come along, I would urge all members who can to go along to the Town Hall that night. Members of all ages have the right to attend - and I would go even further and say that they have a DUTY to attend. It is your only chance to call the Committee to account, to congratulate them on their conduct of the club's affairs over the past year or to make sugestions as to what the new Committee might do next year. The two main officers in the club are the secretary and treasurer - presidents come and serve three or four years and move on to another office on the Committee but the best Secretaries and Treasurers go on for years. We are fortunate in having Yvonne and Jim in these positions and the club really needs them to stay on if they possibly can. Peter has done a good job as President as have the remainder of the Committee. There are two issues that I think need to be addressed.
The first is about the future training premises of the club. To determine that we need to know when the track at St Peter's is to become available. This is something that the Committee will have to start chasing up. Information seems hard to find. The Committee should write regularly or even frequently to get the information and any update available: don't expect the Local Authority to keep a letter we sent in 2009 in mind and reply as soon as they know what is happening. Anyone with connections on the Council should be asking them about the topic and anyone with contacts in the Regional Offices should be using that contact for the benefit of the club. Once we know that then it will be fairly clear what we will have to do. The second is what do we do for summer training premises in summer 2010. It is bad enough that the Seniors and Juniors never - or seldom - meet, it is worse when the Juniors do not have a single training venue that they can advertise to potential recruits. I would dare to suggest (it's OK for me, I don't have to do the work these days but I can see what works) that they train say twice a week at Scotstoun for a start. It is busier than Linwood but much, much easier to get to. Almost all school pupils in Clydebank and District know where it is. It is not expensive and it offers all the facilities we need. We used to use Crown Point into the late 90's and it is further away - all the athletes and their parents were happy to go there. And it was shared with Shettleston, Cambuslang, Glasgow Ladies AC, Victoria Park and many others. Scotstoun could be a go-er. The only exception would be field events which are difficult to access. I would suggest either Kelvin Hall or do a deal with West Dunbarton to use Postie's. That would give us Scotstoun on Tuesday and Thursday and the field events venue on either Wednesday or Saturday morning. You can criticise the above if you like but if you do, you need to come up with something better. The matter can't be left in limbo. So the two things I would ask the Committee would be (1) work as hard as possible on access to the new track; (2) Sort out this summer's training for the Juniors and for track athletes generally.

Important Announcement - Annual General Meeting

The Club's AGM will be held in Clydebank Town Hall on Friday 16th April 2010.
Meeting starts at 6.30pm - all Club members welcome.

Yvonne Green
Club Secretary