Club Training Monday 11th December

Monday's session is at Langlands Place, however, the first rep starts on the pavement just after the vehicle entrance into Sainsburys. From there, run the first rep up to the junction with Langlands Drive and then continue down and up the hill to the junction with Langlands Place. This first rep is approximately 750m and is undulating, however, do try to maintain a 5k race effort. Take a 4 minute standing/jogging around recovery and then do 2 sets of 6 x 400m at 5k pace on Langlands Place with 1 minute standing recovery between reps and a 400m jog (i.e. the complete length of Langlands Place) between sets. We are working on speed endurance on fatigued legs in this session. The warm-up and cool down are the usual via Strathaven Rd.

Alan

CHRISTMAS HANDICAP FUN RUN 2023

 Just a reminder our annual festive event is on this Sunday 17th December @ EKSC Clubhouse.

The clubhouse will be open from 9.30am with everyone meeting in function hall.

First event of the morning is the Juniors 1 lap run starting at 10am. 

The last event will be the Senior event (with some older juniors added in!) starting at 11am which is 5 continuous laps covering a distance of 6.4k or 4 miles. Make sure you have your season best 5k time to give to Alan so he can suitably time handicap you and make sure we have that lovely blanket finish of all runners!

Remember to wear something festive for the run whether it is a full costume, a hat or a bit of tinsel.  If you want a present bring a present costing max £5 and wrapped.

Afterwards when we have cleaned ourselves up,  the presentation of pressies and winner's trophy will be in the Sports Club bar.

West District Cross Country Championships

 When we woke up to snow on Saturday morning I had visions of running through knee deep snow at the West District Cross Country Championships, so it was a surprise that there was barely any snow at all in Strathaven, however it was still freezing and slippy underfoot for those without spikes. 

Injury and illness depleted the number of harriers running on the day with 2 juniors, 2 senior ladies and 3 senior men competing. 

First up we had Jack Flannigan in the U15 boys 4.1k race who finished strongly in 22:15. Kai Wheeler was in the U17 Boys 5.5k race and despite taking a tumble in the slippy conditions and winding himself got up to finish in a great time of 23:43. 

On the start line of the ladies race I decided I had too much clothes on, however the V for Very old on my back was also pinned through my long sleeve T-shirt so there was no time to take this layer off… Looking around at some people visibly shivering on the start line (even ones with 2 layers) on I thought it probably wouldn’t be too bad to have this extra layer on. Both the senior male and female race was a 3-lap course totaling 7.5k.  The 3 laps meant that there was plenty of support all the way round. It was a relief to get to the top point of the course on the 3rd lap and know it was mostly downhill to the finish now, unfortunately it was only mostly downhill from there and the finish was uphill making it a tough finish for everyone.  I crossed the line in a time of 36:34 with Julia Pechlof not too far behind and finding it slippy in trail shoes in a time of 37:38. 

We had 3 harriers in the men’s race with Jordan Stewart, competing for us in the cross country for the first time since joining being first harrier home, running strongly and finishing in a great time of 29:50, Jim Mearns was next harrier in a time of 36:15 (delighted to beat his daughter's friend's dad) followed by Russell Couper in 46:20. 

Well done everyone and thanks to all who came along to support the runners it was much appreciated, we all agreed that it definitely helped us all keep pushing on all the way round. Thanks to Andy and Lorraine for bringing the tent and to Russell for taking it home again. 

Alison  

Club Training Thursday 7th December - Early Start before AGM

Thursday's run starts at 7pm and is only a short run to allow everyone to get back before the AGM which starts at 8pm (see the separate post about that here). The session is an easy jog to the bottom of Avondale via Chuchill Avenue. Then 4 x a threshold level hill effort from our usual starting point on the wide part of the pavement after the junction on the right to the post box at the top. Jog back down. This is not an eyeballs out sprint to the top, it should be a very comfortable sustained level of effort from bottom to top without the legs buckling near the top. Then an easy run back to the club.

Alan

Next batch of Grand Prix Races

The next batch of races in our Grand Prix are listed here. Races listed without a confirmed date will most likely be in the Grand Prix and the list will be updated when further details are known. This list is also accessible from the menu on the left of the blog.

Alan

Harriers AGM Reminder

Just a reminder that the club AGM will be held on Thursday at 8pm (ish). It’s your club so please attend if you can.

We are looking for someone to take on role of social media convenor, if anyone fancies it (post updates to FB)

For those wanting to run first we’ll be doing a shorter than usual run at 7pm. The route will be posted on blog as normal.

Alison 

Club Training Monday 4th December

Monday's session is an XC session on the Golf Course, unless the snow and ice clears through the day in which case it will be a similar session at Brancumhall. The session uses the downhill/uphill loop around the 1st and 17th fairways (1st is downhill, parallel to the line of trees, around the last tree in the line and then back up the 17th on the opposite side of the line of trees, cutting back through to the 1st at the top. The reps and recoveries are continuous around this loop as follows:

4 x 3 mins at 10k race effort, 3 min jog recoveries + 4 x 2 mins at 5k race effort, 2 min jog recoveries + 4 x 1 mins at slightly faster than 5k race effort, 1 mins jog recoveries. Warm up with the usual lap until you reach the start point towards the end of the usual lap. Cool down by completing the short remaining section of the lap to the rugby pitches.

If the snow/ice has gone, then do the same session but using the usual, full Brancumhall lap.

This session is a VO2max development session and will be quite hard work in comparison to say a threshold session. Wish I was there!

Alan