This weekend, the British Masters Athletics Federation published the final results for the BMAF 5k Relays in which we entered our fastest male and fastest female team from the Scottish Athletics 30 minute for distance event held earlier in June. It is a while since we have contested a BMAF team event and we certainly did the club proud. The men's team were entered in the M45 to M54 category (a team of 4 to count) and the women were entered in the W35 to W44 category (also a team of 4 to count). In both cases, we raided the Harriers' archives for some older vets to complete the teams as they also happened to be amongst the fastest of our 4 possible contenders in each team.
Both our men and women got their 5 runners out early in the 7 day long competition window (we had chosen 6 to run but injuries to Graeme Lindsay and Lorraine Buchanan meant that neither could race) with the result that both of our teams briefly lead the field. However, as the week wore on and particularly on the final Saturday, many of the fastest runners got their results in and both our teams slid down the rankings.
The final results were as follows (first 4 to count in each team, sum of times):
W35-W44
39th overall, 5th Scottish Athletics team
Julie Beveridge (20:14) 47th W35, 9th Scottish W35
Karen Allen (21:04) 81st W35, 20th Scottish W35
Alisson Lessells (22:41) 133rd W35, 33rd Scottish W35
Frances Ferguson (23:06) 47th W55, 7th Scottish W55
Julie Thomson (24:05) 160th W40 overall, 46th Scottish W40
M45-M54
48th overall, 6th Scottish Athletics team
Alan Derrick (17:56) 17th M55 overall, 2nd Scottish M55 (actually, it was Cambuslang's Eddie Stewart, an M60, who beat me, as always!!)
Gerry McParland (18:14) 64th M50, 28th Scottish M50
Ian Hughes (18:43) 89th M50, 35th Scottish M50
Martin Howell (20:04) 171st M50, 53rd Scottish M50
Stephen Phimister (20:14) 182nd M50, 54th Scottish M50
Well done all. Punching above our weight again! Roll on the Scottish 6/4 stage virtual relays in mid-July.
Possibly the most impressive time of the event was Irish M60, Tommy Hughes, who ran 16:11 to lead the 55 and over categories, achieving an age grade ranking of 98.7%, a stupendous performance (he ran a 2:30 marathon last year and represented Ireland at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where he ran 2:14, so an incredible athlete who somehow has managed to sustain that form for another 30 years).
Alan
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Listened to a podcast interview with Tommy Hughes and his son Eoin last year, they came across as genuinely nice, grounded folk. The kind of people you might meet in any running club in fact...
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