Track league 10000 metres

I see that at the AGM of the Senior Men's Track League that there will be a 10000 metres race in the third meeting instead of the 5000m. About time too - there should be both! In 1986 I asked the League to intriduce the 10000 metres (the only international standard event not in the programme - and they agreeed to have ot on two meetings each year. It was held at 12 noon so that it did not add time to the programme - the first track event is normally at 1:00 pm. And it was a great success until it was dropped for reasons unspecified in the early 21st century. Guys like John Hanratty, Bobby Young, Hugh Watson, Willie Goldie, Bobby Rosborough, Phil Dolan and others all ran it for the club - and all gained a lot of points! Welcome back!

MASSIVE Personal Best

Of all the club performances at the weekend, many very good, the best had to be Peter Bowman's 800 metres in 1:57.93 which took two seconds from his best - and he was onlu inside two minutes for the first time two weeks ago, then there was a pb pver 1500 at Stretford, Manchester, and now another pb! Well done Peter. Ryan nelson was second in the B 800 in 2:16. Peter had already run the B 200 metres where he was fourth in 24.85 seconds. Travelling companion to Stretford, Johnathan Farrell had been the A string here and was second in 23.11 seconds.
Johnathan had already been third in the 100 metres in 11.51. Peter Bowman also ran in the 400 metres where he was sixth in 54.9 seconds. All three are Under 20 and were racing against Senior Men. It gets better - B string in the 1500 was Under 17 Man Tony Dolan in third place in 5:02.4 while Ryan was seventh in the A string in 4:59.5. Unfortunately no seniors were available for the 5000 metres race but in the steeplechase David Brown (another Under 20) was fifth in 11:34.43. Sixth in the 4 x 100 metres, the team was disqualified in the 4 x 400 on a technicality. Best of the field eventers were David Brown who was eighth A String in the Long Jump and sixth A String in the Triple Jump and Johnathan Farrell in the Shot Putt where he was seventh A String.
In the points contest the club is now sixth in the nine team league ahead of Kilbarchan, Falkirk Victoria and Dunfermline and West Fife. The team was made up entirely of Under 20 athletes with one Under 17 runner. Very well done, lads, the club can be proud of your efforts.

Manchester Results

On Monday Ian Robertson drove down to Manchester with Peter Bowman and Johnathan Farrell to take part in the Open Meeting at Stretford on Tuesday. They stayed overnight, made their way to the track and did themselves and the club proud. Peter ran in the 1500 metres and set a new personal best when he finished sixth in 4:14.14. That was his second personal best in less than a week having run sub-2:00 for 800 on Saturday. The other Under 20, Johnathan, turned out in the 100 metres, the event in which he had won bronze at the Under 20 Championships on Sunday, and was third in 11.37 seconds, just over two tenths behind the winner. Ian who had done the not inconsiderable drive the day before ran in the 800 where he was clocked at 2:04 - a bit outside his best but he has not been able to train for a couple of weeks so it was a good run. They returned on Wednesday.
These Stretford meetings are the Monthly Mecca for endurance runnersbecause the BMC races are at 8:00 at every meeting - 800 one month and 1500 the next - but regardless of your event it is good to change the events and competitors from time to time. If you only race the locals, then you can pretty well predict the outcome of the races before they start: travelling to a race freshens you up, presentes a new challenge and puts the domestic scene into some kind of context.
Well done guys, when's the next venture? In the meantime the Senior Men's League match is this Sunday and all three should be competing.

Young Athletes League

The young athletes were out at the Scottish Young Athletes League match at Wishaw on Sunday and the team spirit was remarkable and there were several very good performances with victories on track and in the field events. Detailed results will be posted when we have them but there was no shortage of officials on the day either. Phil is doing a good job of organising the teams - that's three teams he is managing for the club right now - the Senior Men, the Central and South of Scotland League and the SYAL.

Phil will be getting some help on the coaching front soon from Donna Campbell for track and field, and Peter Halpin for track. Coaching young athletes is a difficult job - even schools are sometimes a bit confused at what they want! For instance it is usually easy to get results in the short term by simply drilling the children rather than coaching them. A local PE teacher who was heavily into athletics and a Grade Four coach used to get great results with his Under 12 teams in the Scottish Schools Cross Country championships but if you look at the programme even today his teams won less as they went up the age groups. A different local teacher in the 1980's said two things - he wanted the children to have a healthy lifestyle, enjoy athletics and keep it as a lifetime sport but he also said he wanted results NOW.

An American College coach went to ludicrous lengths to get victories for the College. He got a big squad together and then had them lap the track at 85 seconds a lap (their racing speed). When they were more than ten metres off the back of the pack, they came off the track until the next lap when they jumped back in. It was drilling in the race pace on five days out of seven. And his teams won lots of team prizes but none of the athletes had an individual career worth talking about. And of course there were injuries ................ overuse injuries ........lots of them!

But I'm away from the meeting on Sunday. It was good to see the boys and girls getting on so well together: when Andrew was hurtling towards the finish battling for first place, there were lots of team mates out shouting him on; when Roisin ran so well in the 1500 metres, it was great to see (and hear!) the support. And so it went on all afternoon.
Roll on Dumfries!!!

CSS League

Phil was talking last year about entering a Clydesdale Harriers team in the CSS League next summer. The Central and South of Scotland League caters for boys and girls as well as Senior Men and Women with selected events for all age groups. There were some difficulties last year with girls not getting the events they were best suited for in the YAL because selection for the Girls team was not really in our own hands and while there is no move to withdraw from the YAL, the CSSL is a step to address the problem. It will mean the boys of all ages and Senior Men competing together and the Girls and Junior/Senior Women competing as a team. The Men's League is at a separate venue from the YAL and there is an artificial divide between the Under 17 Men and the Juniors and Seniors which makes the move up an age group more difficult than it need be. Donald is tackling it by giving Under 17's a run in the Guest 100 and the relays as well as putting them into the Jumping events where there is no standard.
The last time that there was a team in the Women's League was in the late 1980's/early 1990's when it worked very well. This League has all women's age groups taking part from Under 13 to Seniors and CoG used Sandra Branney a couple of times last season. The results for us all those years ago were amazing with young athletes like Julie Bain, Nadia Hashemi and Caroline Evans progressing and thriving in the competition. The very young Seniors like Ann Murray and Lynn Hardware were the real leading athletes and the senior women road runners took part in the other track events: it was wonderful to see Marjorie Small and Hylda Stewart taking part in 1500's and 3000's and Shelagh King was a super example taking part in things like 400 metres hurdles. I have already mentioned the Sunday when her times were not good because she had raced the Ben Nevis race the day before.

The standard in the CSSL is not at all on a par with that of the Women's League or even the Men's League but it pulls the club, men and women, together and can only help morale. The women of the 60's were excellent - but there was no women's league then for them and there was a distinct lack of seniors. I don't know what stage Phil's negotiations are at but I can only wish him the vey best of luck. It is his baby and I have no part in it but if asked to be an official and it's not raining, I'll be available!

Weekend Races

This weekend there are several events on where you can see club members participating. The Under 17 and Under 15 Scottish Championships are on at Grangemouth on Sunday and no doubt many of Phil's finest will be taking part as well as some of the young sprint and field events competitors. Who would I expect to see in action? Well Peter Bowman and Tony Dolan for a start, possibly Claire Reid, Cameron MacLeod, Anton Russell and Andrew Cusick as well. Also on Sunday Johnathan Farrell is competing at Crieff Highland Games and Prasad is off to the North of England for the Commonwealth Trials. Best of luck to them all!
Finally Donald tells me that Graeme Reid is running in the last Track League match at Grangemouth on 30th August.

Another Active Weekend

With events all over the country it was an active weekend for most of the club. This was especially true of the young athletes who went through to Grangemouth on Sunday for the Under 20 Championships and young athletes relays. In the Under 20 Championships, Johnathan Farrell qualified for the Final comfortably enough but was unfortunately run out of the medals in the Final. Then in the 200 he ran outside 23 seconds which was not fast enough to bring home a medal either. Phil and Donald plus several parents were there with a Boys Under 15 3 x 800 metres team and a Girls Under 17 3 x 800 team. The youngsters enjoyed themselves and although they were outside the first three valuable experience was gained.

Among the older athletes recently. Brian Campbell - one of the Three Amigos who have been cleaning up all the team races in England for several years now - has not been idle in recent weeks. First M65 prize at East Kilbride Half Marathon, first M60 prize at Girvan Half Marathon and first M60 prize at the Islay half marathon. Excellent work all round!

Scottish Championships

On a day of mixed weather - warm and sunny, wet, warm, very wet, dull: the usual Scottish summer - the only real Clydesdale Harrier running was Johnathan Farrell in the 100 metres. Drawn in the same Heat as Nick Smith and with only one sure to qualify he was run out of the Final in a time of 11.55 in the heaviest rain of the afternoon. Two men who run for us in the track league were also taking part. Ross Cannon fron West Dunbarton ran in the fastest 400 metres Heat and was timed at 51.47 seconds which was a new personal best taking three tenths from his previous mark. Had he run in the first Heat he would have had fourth place and in the third Heat he would have had third, either of which would have given hm a faster time. Kevin Cornes from Kirkintilloch Oympians ran in the 800 metres where he took the race from the fron right from the gun on ly losing touch with the front three in the final straigh and being a close up fourth in 2:00.9. I think Johnathan is the only one racing tomorrow.

Health and Safety G*n* M*d!

Just read on another athletics website about the coach who saw that the local schools 100 metres hurdles championship was won in 11.6 seconds. Being quite excited he contacted the organisers to ask if the race had been run over 80 metres instead of 100 to be told that it had been run over 100 metres, but the hurdles had been lowered for health and safety reasons in case any of the athletes fell and injured himself. He was subsequently informed that it had been reduced to 80 metres and the hurdles had been reduced!

I have a vision of lightweight shot being used in future plus maybe an elastic bar for the high jump in competition. Whatever happened to the old events like heading the shot and catching the javelin? Or the old English sports of cudgelling (fighting with sticks) and shin kicking, which were genuine sports events!

Men's League

On a glorious afternoon in Grangemouth when not even the timekeepers (always in the shade of the stand at Grangemouth) were chilly, the club athletes performed well. Unfotunately the team was short handed because of illness, injury, holidays and reluctance of distance runners to support the club. Mark Doris made a welcome return to competition and doubled with Johnathan Farrell in the 100 and 200 metres races where they finished in the top half of the field every time. The wind which had been absent for the 800's suddenly sprung into action for the 100's and they had to face a headwind. Johnathan clocked 11.93 for the A race and Mark 13.3 for the B race. In the 200's, they were third and third in 23.6 and 24.8. Ross Cannon ran well to be third in the A 400 and Kevin Cornes ran inside two minutes for the 800 metres. Peter Bowman who should have been B string in both had injured himself playing f**tb*ll. Paul Carroll was the only club runner in the 1500 where he ran a pb of 4:54 and in the 5000 where in a day not at all suited to endurance running was timed at approximately 18:13. The only field event for which I have results was the long jump where Mark Doris and Kevin Cornes both cleared 4.70 and gained valuable points for the club. Then came the relays where the team of Ross Cannon, Mark Doris, Johnathan Farrell and Andrew Cusick was fourth in the 4 x 100 metres and Johnathan Farrell, Ross Cannon, Kevin Cornes and Mark Doris was third.

It was a good day and everyone enjoyed it - let's hope that the turnout will be better for the next match.

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Leagues

Right now the club takes part in two leagues: the Scottish Young Athletes League in which we share athletes with West Dunbartonshire AAC and the Scottish Athletics League which is a Senior Men only league. It has not always been this way.

In the 1970's we had a team in the Young Athletes League ( a boys only set up) with Derek McGinley looking after the Under 13's, John Tonner the U15's and myself the U17's. We then joined the Men's League in 1985 and the Women's League in 1988. The difference was that the men had a rather abrupt gap at the end of the YAL where U17's had to move to a totally different men's team. They had no idea of the standards and some were a wee bit feart about making the jump to the big boys competition. The Women's League was a marvellous affair. Ther age groups went from Under 13 to Senior and the transition at U17 was seamless. The club did well in that league with senior road running women competing on the track with younger track specialists. Ask Ann Murray how successful the team was and how much fun it was!Unfortunately for various reasons (some of the athletes moved away - Nadia Hashemi to Leeds, Hylda Stewart's job changed and so on), the two main organisers, Agnes Gibson and Emily Hardware, left for family reasons and the team had to be withdrawn.

The situation now is that we have a men's team in their league and a young athletes team in their league. No women's league. Where do we go from here? The plan is to keep both these leagues going and add in the Central and South of Scotland League as Clydesdale Harriers. This has a limited number of events but has the virtue of including boys and girls, senior men and senior women at the same venue. The whole club will be represented. It also adds in four competitions to a shrinking season - ie no county championships and (apart from the U15 and U17 athletes) no district championships.

With coaching now available for all field events and recruiting being stepped up, the existing teams should start to progress again.

District Championships and Superteams

The new meeting to replace the district championships and Scottish Closed Championships took place at Wishaw over the weekend. The new format meant that there was no individual competition for the Under 13 age group, the Senior events were replaced by an inter district competition and only the Under 15 and Under 17 athletes had proper district championships. Unfortunately there were no medal ceremonies for the winners which was a shame for Peter Bowman - probably the best club athlete in action. Peter won the Under 17 West District 800 metres in a new personal best (his second in a week at Wishaw) of 2:00.61. He was only 0.23 of a second ahead of the second placer after a sprint finish. Well done Peter - just keep hacking that pb down.

The Under 13's had four events to contest as a team and the girls competing in the Superteams competition all performed creditably. In the 800 Roisin McShea ran 2:47, Lauren Butler 2:59, Kirsty Kelly 3 minutes and Rachel Busby 3:07.6. After this event the girls were second from 27 teams competing. In the second event, the long jump, Lauren and Kirsty jumped over 3 metres, Roisin 2.30 and Rachel 2.17 metres. The team was now in fourth position. The third event was the javelin and here they all threw about 10 metres. This saw a drop in position which was npt surprising because there has been very little in the way of field events training done. The new Monday night Field Events only sessions should help sort that one out.

Finally there was the 4 x 100 metres relay: The girls ran really well to finish third in their event but unfortunately they were disqualified for passing the baton outside the box. This was a big disappointment but it can be easily rectified and if you watch the big Games meetings on television you will see that the British Men have a seriously bad record in this event! The girls had had a long day but the team spirit shown was considerable and bodes well for the future.

Reports on the day were varied but there were some negatives: The day was very long! After getting there for 10 o'clock the relays were at 5.30 pm. The weather was so bad that the Perth Strathtay team left after one event and went home. Before the first event a team manager was heard in the corridor leading from the Sports Centre to the track giving a wee team talk and the words "Now, have any of you not done an 800 metres before?" were heard. 120 teams were entered and something like 45 teams turned out. The girls all deserve credit for working so hard over such a long period and the parents who were there all deserve a huge vote of thanks for their organisation and work on what was not an easy day.

Field Events

Field Events training will take place at Postie's Park in Dumbarton on Monday starting at 7:00 pm. Bobby Bell will be there to coach any throwers wanting to do some work while Mary Anne Savage will be looking after the Jumps with Paul Doherty (High Jump) and Donna Campbell (Long Jump). See anything interesting about the names? You've got it in one - there are two women involved. That's the first time for some time that we have had two women involved in coaching in the club. Bobby Bell has a superb record in working with throwers having worked with some top class hammer throwers (Lachie Carter was often over 50 metres) and shot putters (several over 14 metres) and we are lucky that he is now available again.

The Local Athletics Partnership Championships are at Linwood on September 13th this year and as usual the bus will be starting from Helensburgh and making its way to the venue via Dumbarton and Clydebank. Over the past few years the club has done well there and with the new field events assistance should do even better this time around.

Word is that the track at Scotstoun will be open for use from late October this year - I suppose that is a 'give or take a few days' estimate - and that might include access to the 135 metres indoor straight under what used to be the only stand there. Meanwhile back at home we still wait for the information about the opening for use of the track at the new St Peter the Apostle School although work is well under way there. The authority seems reluctant to let out the playing fields at some new schools across the area - and that includes football pitches - but we have approached a councillor and some officials to try to find out more about it.

Finally, the Startrack Scheme in Clydebank this summer will be at WHITECROOK TRACK where we used to train and which is currently used by the rugby club. We were turfed off with all the other user clubs in 1992 because Strathclyde Region thought it too costly to run. It is the only 8 lane, 400 metre track in West Dunbarton, East Dunbarton or Lomond and Bute and is not available for athletics. One of the officials who had recently seen it for the first time was amazed that it was there, that it was so good and that it was not used! Just take a wee wander down to Dean Street when the Startrack is on and see what you think!

A Result and some talking points

The result first. In the Open Graded Meeting at Grangemouth on Wednesday, Johnathan Farrell was first in both the 100 amd 150 metres races in his season's best times so far. In the 100 he was timed at 11.49 seconds and in the 150 he ran 17.34 seconds. The intention is to peak for the Scottish Championships which means that he will require to get faster and faster as the year goes on. So far, so good!

There are several things in this week's "Athletics Weekly" that deserve a wee look - well more than a wee look. I'll mention two of the letters this time. Bill Adcocks, one of Britain's best ever marathon runners has one responding to an earlier correspondent who said that criticism of the current crop of marathon runners was just maligning them. He refutes this and goes on to say that if runners are really doing 120 miles a week, then their times are not showing any effect from that. It may be that the content of the 120 mpw needs looking at. Even more important is that there are fewer good quality races and fewer international fixtures for those at the top. Omitting the second point becuase not all are up to it, his point is that there are more races but not of the appropriate standard. There are many rungs missing on the competitive ladder. Here in Scotland we know all about that with the loss of the District Championships this week. Read his letter and see what you think. Maybe more controversially there is a letter from a Yorkshireman lamenting race ageism. He is an Over 70 runner and complains that race prizes stop at Over 55. His request is for awards at 5 year intervals right up to the oldest competitor in the race. A wee bit over the odds I think! Ten year age groupings are maybe appropriate but when vets now start at 35 the additional expense is considerable. In the current situation when up to two thirds of a field is made up of vets of various categories and at times the first three vets are the first three finishers, should it be the case that the first vet gets the first vet prize even if he wins the race?

Finally, Doug Gillon in the "Herald" today talks about scottish athletics persuading a New Zealand athlete to compete for Scotland. Not just any NZ athlete but the best shot putter in the world! OK, so she competed in the Scottish Championships as an U15 and U17 but has since declared herself for New Zealand and although she is a bit peeved at her national association, it doesn't seem to me to be any reason to poach her. Poaching is rife nowadays in international athletics. Kenyan distance runners now run for at least five other countries as well as Kenya - I'd exempt Wilson Kipketer from the criticism because he married a Danish girl and lived there for three years before competing as a naturalised Dane. But Scotland in the past poached Alice Butler from Canada, tried to get a Cuban triple jumper and is currently trying to get Stephanie Twell from England. To try to talk another country's athlete into competing for us seems to me to be just immoral although everybody's at it! England (US 400 metre runners for a start), USA (Bernard Lagat), Qatar (anybody Kenyan) and so on. Comments on any of these welcome!

Men's League

Team Manager Donald MacLeod and his Men's Team went all the way to Edinburgh on Sunday for the first fixture of the season. A very young team produced the best performance for some time in ideal conditions. In the 100 metres A String Johnathan Farrell was fourth A string in 11.8 seconds and Alan McColl was fourth B string in 12.83 with Under 17 Cameron MacLeod second in the Guest race in 12.25 to the winner's 12.24 seconds. The sprinters moved up to the 200 with Johnathan sixth in a fiercely competitive A Race and A Newman was fourth in the B race in 24.25. Newman was third in the A 400 metres in 52.5 seconds.

In the first of the, 800 metres races Under 20 Ryan Savage was sixth in the first race in 2:05.27 which was a pb while Under 17 Peter Bowman was second in the B race in 2:03.67. In the 1500 metres Iain Robertson was fourth in 4:15 with Kevin Cornes second B runner in 4:09.

The relay teams really were the stars of the show and I don't think anyone would quibble about that. The 4 x 100 team was a very close up second in a time of 46.73 and the 4 x 400 team also second in 3:33.08. The heroes in the sprint relay were Cameron Macleod, Ryan Savage, Alan McColl and Johnathan Farrell - the oldest one there was second year senior McColl. The 1600 metres squad was A Newman, Peter Bowman, Kevin Cornes and Ryan Savage. Again it was a very young team. And did you note that Ryan S ran in both relays?

There is also room for improvement - the 5000 metres had no runner from the club because of work commitments and injuries and that is bound to improve. The Jumps are also bound to improve since we only had one jump registered and that was by Paul Doherty who was third with 5.71 metres. He injured himself warming up for the high jump but there will be no slip ups next time and the field events will be fully covered for the next match at Grangemouth.

It was undoubtedly the best performance from the track runners as a group for several years - long may it continue and well done boys!

Ayr Open Meeting: Sunday 12th April

Clydesdale Harriers had seven members travel to the meeting held in Ayr in sunny conditions for most of the afternoon. Rachel Busby was the youngest competitor from the club being a first year Under 13 athlete. In the 1500 metres race - which was by all accounts the best race of the whole afternoon she set a new personal best of 5:46.9. There were two other club runners in the race - Mirren Wright and new girl Roisin McShea who was in her first track race. Mirren was first across the finishing line in the low 5:40's (not all times were available on the day) with Roisin having a great debut being fifth in 5:46.4. Rachel then went on to the discus where she was third with 7.42 metres. Roisin also took part in the long jump where she cleared 2.84 metres. The 1500 metres was a very good race indeed with the U13 and U15 groups being combined. For her first race, Roisin ran very well starting quickly but slowing a bit towards the end. Mirren showed a good tactical sense and was first of the U15's to finish. She also tackled the 100 metres where she was fourth in 15.4 seconds. Rachel was another who faced three events - in the 150 metres she was fourth in 24.5 - a new pb with a whole second from her previous best time.

Claire Reid was second in her Heat of the 200 metres and also turned out in the 800. Although no official results were posted she had a good run and set a new (unofficial) pb of 2:47 for fifth place. Kirsty Kelly (a first year U17) was the busiest athlete of the day running in the 200/800/1500 metres treble. In the 200 she gained third place medal behind Claire Reid and then in the 800 was clocked at 3:06. In the 1500 there was a massive pb of 5:49.9.

Claire's 800 and Tony Dolan's 1500 were also of a very high quality with Tony equalling his pb of 5:06.3 for third place. In the 800 he had a new pb of 2:30.8 and looks set for more to come. With 300 metres to go to the finish, Tony was fourth some 15 metres+ behind the third man but he managed to catch him at the start of the home straight and then pick him off with a grand finishing burst over the final 50 metres. Ryan Nelson was second in the U20 800 Heat in 2:19.1 taking four seconds from his previous best.

All in all it was a good day for the young athletes giving them a gentle start to the summer's racing. The parents who transported the children down and provided excellent support all afternoon are to be thanked as is coach Phil Dolan whose work with the athletes over the winter shone through. Incidentally another of Phil's athletes - Iain Robertson - won the club men's winter league competition!

3000 metres track race - seniors only

There will be a 3000 metres track race for seniors and Under 20's only, men and women, run in conjunction with the LAP Championships at Linwood on 14th September. The race will start between 12 noon and 12:30 and is an excellent chance to get a short fast run in before the short relays at the start of October - McAndrews, DAAA, West District and National - after a summer of 10K's and half marathons. It is also early in the day and near home which were important considerations in my young day!