Golden Colours in Baillieston

Davy Watt and Kevan Harvey lead the Calderglen charge.

Unseasonably mild weather and the full spectrum of Autumn colours turned Baillieston into an (almost) running paradise this afternoon as a small but quality contingent of clubs from the East and West and all the Scottish Universities congregated for the annual Allan Scally Road Relay. Run over 4 x 4.8 mile (3 laps for the ladies) of what seems like just about every residential street in Mount Vernon, this race is certainly a lot more complex and a lot more enjoyable than the old, "traditional" Edinburgh Road course.

Kevan Harvey flies to the line

Calderglen fielded 3 men's teams and a partially complete ladies' team. On first leg duty we had a very much in form Davy Watt for our vets team, Kevan Harvey making his club debut, Richard Lawton looking to challenge his pb and Frances Maxwell hoping to demonstrate continuing great form on the back of her marathon fitness. From the off, Davy settled into 4th place with Kevan only a few places behind; I can't remember the last time we had two teams up among the leaders, particularly when the field was loaded with young talent from the various Scottish University teams. Davy continued to worry the youngsters all the way around the lap, only really fading on the final climb to the finish, crossing the line in an incredible 8th place in a time of 27:08. This immediately put David Herbertson under severe pressure as he took over on leg 2, despite being given a "keep the heid" briefing before he started. Kevan had a slight niggle from Thursday and was not feeling too comfortable on his lap but still recorded a fine time of 28:39, especially since he had not raced for a few years and had not seen this course before. Kevan is definitely going to leave the rest of us behind soon if this is how he performs off only a limited amount of training. Richard had been trying to hang on to Frances but inevitably, the marathon endurance and strength decided the outcome as Frances opened the gap on the final 1km climb to the finish, crossing the line in 34:40. However, Richard was not disappointed as he smashed his previous course best by 35 seconds to finish in 35:29.

Frances Maxwell heads for the line

Meanwhile, Davy Herbertson was using his local support team (the family were stationed at an aunt and uncle's house about 1 mile into the course) to keep him motivated and only a handful of runners slipped by, Davy completing the lap blowing heavily in a time of 31:56 in around 12th or 13th position, about a minute faster than last year. Kevan had passed on to Charlie McDougall who was thankfully over a niggling injury which had kept him out of action last weekend at Cumbernauld. Charlie would certainly be the fastest M65 out there today, completing the lap in 32:40. John McBride had taken over from Richard and was hoping to continue in fine form. Unfortunately John wrongly identified a park about a mile from the finish as the park in which we were finishing and started his push for the line way too early. We have all done this and there is nothing more embarrassing than powering past someone (a Bellahouston Harrier in this case), only to fade 30 seconds later and be re-passed! However, John's time of 35:59 was only seconds outside his previous best from a few years ago, so nothing to be disappointed about there. Ruth Kelly was testing out a long-term hip injury today but unfortunately the hip only lasted a mile or so before the pain started to build. Ruth carried on to finish in 44:25, a time she can easily beat were it not for the pain I am sure.

Ruth Kelly starts off pain free

As the leg 3 runners came in, a familiar veteran harrier in an incoming Shettleston vest convinced me that the home club had taken the veteran team lead from us. Jim Holmes was therefore instructed to chase down the Shettleston vest in front to regain the veteran lead. Easy enough to say but in practice, the Shettleston runner ran out of sight of Jim within the first mile. Jim continued to chase and exchanged a few places up and down with other clubs, crossing the line in 32:35, several seconds faster than last year, so again, a fine performance. Stuart Waugh was on leg 3 for Team B and showed just how well he has recovered from his long, medical break this year by running an excellent 33:40. The impressive thing is that Stuart ran a low 20's park run this morning with his grandson so had every reason to be tired! In fact Stuart was 5 seconds faster than his previous appearance here in 2013. Hugh Simpson was also on leg 3 duty and his main ambition was not to be caught by our A team 4th leg runner (me). There was no danger of this as he had at least as 20 minute start but he was not to know that when he set off. Running scared resulted in a time of 38:09 for Hugh.

Charlie McDougall accelerates from the line

As the legs became ever more spread out, the 3 Calderglen 4th leg runners were facing a lonely time on their runs. As I took off for our veteran A team, it looked like I had about a 5 minute gap to make up on what we thought was the leading veteran team. In my head I knew this was not possible to make up but the heart never says give up until the line is crossed so I set off in full chase mode. Unfortunately it was a total solo effort with no runners (except one ladies' team who I passed very quickly) to be seen for the entire lap. With no-one to gauge my effort against and blowing out my ears, it felt like I was crawling although in fact I was probably going too fast in the early stages and certainly suffered in the final third of the course when the long climb to the finish began. Only in the final 400m did I eventually see another team in front of me but had no energy to catch them. I crossed the line in 28:36 which was faster than last year by about 20 seconds but slower than all my previous runs on this course, so a little disheartening. Meanwhile all the remaining 4th leg runners had been set off together about 5 minutes after I had started. This gave Jim Mearns and Russell Couper a bit more of a race than they might otherwise have expected. Jim was the fastest of that final group and pulled away from them all to finish in a fine 34:01. Russell had a strong run, improving on last year by abut a minute to finish in 44:04, rounding off not only a fine Calderglen performance but also a fine representation by the club at this local event. We were all impressed by the marshalling on the course; there are a lot of turns and junctions and every one was arrowed and marshalled clearly. We were particularly motivated by one young, bespectacled marshall who had unique words of encouragement for all of us as we passed his corner.

John McBride strides out.

The final icing on the cake was that the assumed veteran Shettleston team we had been chasing but failing to catch was not in fact a veteran team, so our A team of Davy Watt, David Herbertson, Jim Holmes and Alan Derrick were the veteran team winners, much to our delight (Davy, I may as well just give your prize of a tenner straight to Russell as no doubt by the next time I see you, you will owe Russell money for something!). This continues to be a great road relay on our door step and there is no obvious reason why we should not have double the number of Calderglen teams there next year. Thanks to all who participated for your enthusiasm and also to Frances' young nephew Michael for his patience watching all us adults running around all afternoon.

Three quarters of our winning vets team receiving their prize from the Shettleston Harriers president

The above times are subject to confirmation when the official results are published.
Alan

Postscript: the effect of aging. I have now run this course 4 times (2009, 2013, 14 and 15), all wearing a Garmin and heart rate monitor. The graph below shows my heart rate against the distance around the course. The 2009 run was my fastest and is the blue (highest) line in the graph below, sitting at about 165 to 170 beats per minute once I got beyond the first mile. For the last three years my heart rate has been around 5 beats per minute slower and I have also run slower, illustrating that to run fast, you need to burn enough energy in the muscles to provide the power which means getting enough oxygen to the muscles which means getting the heart to pump fast enough to deliver that oxygen to the muscles. Most people's maximum heart rate slows down with age (approximately 1 beat per minute per year for fit, active people) so this is one explanation why we get slower and is well illustrated in the graph. However, by focusing on hard effort training, we can slow down the rate at which we lose maximum heart rate. That is why we "burst our guts" doing hard interval sessions at the club! The old saying "if you don't use it, you lose it" is very true in this case.