Club Training Thursday 30th December

Thursday's run is a continuation of the Avondale Hill Reps progression. This time we are on 8 x Avondale reps (all the way to the post box), starting from the wide part of the pavement as usual. Jog down to recover. Run the reps at about 5k effort (not flat 5k pace as this will be too hard going up hill).

Stick to the wide part of the pavement until around the corner with a full view of any traffic coming down the hill. As always, the aim is to be consistent on every rep; the same time to within a second or two on every rep and no saving it up for a sprint on the last one. Let's end the year with a quality session.

Alan

Club Training Monday 27th December - The Pub Run - 6PM

Monday's session is The Pub Run which starts at 6pm at the Sports Club (and stays there). Please fill in the training registration form before arriving if you are taking part or observing. Eddie has all the details as usual. Have Fun!!

Alan

Club Training Thursday 23rd December

For Thursday, the steady paced run is that old favourite, the 4-hills. As noted a few weeks ago, we are focussing on strength for a month or two now with hill reps and cross-country sessions part of our regular training. The 4-hills is a good combination of endurance and strength. To make it a little bit different, could you put in an effort on each of the following hills, regrouping into your packs at the top of each hill.

Effort 1: Markethill (short and steep and then recover and regroup down to East Mains Rd)

Effort 2: Glenburn Rd in College Milton (medium length, steep hill. Recover and regroup between the top and the Queensway).

Effort 3: Dunedin (short and steep and recover and regroup from the top to Mossneuk/Westwood Hill)

Effort 4: Lickprivick (long and steep, all the way to the water tower. Regroup along past the school)

After re-grouping, pick the pace back up to a steady pace and stay together in your packs. Make sure nobody gets left behind.

Merry Christmas to all.

Alan

Club Training Monday 20th December

 Monday's Brancumhall XC session is as follows:

5 x 1 lap at 5k effort with 1 side of the quadrangle as a jog recovery.

Therefore each effort will move around to start at a different "corner" until the 5th one which starts in the same place as the first one.

Note that I say 5k effort rather than 5k pace. It is not possible to run at 5k pace on soft ground so the pace will be slower than road 5k pace.

Alan

Club Training Thursday 16th December

Thursday is a steady run. Run down the Queensway all the way to the Holiday Inn and then turn right and follow the Stewartfield by-pass all the way to Kingsgate. Turn right again towards the Whirlies and then up the Kingsway and back to the club.

Steady pace means something like half-marathon pace, so, for those who did Brampton, quite a bit slower pace than that. Finish the run feeling as though you could go on at that pace for another 2 or 3 miles. As always for these longer club runs, I will try to have a larger number of small packs rather than a few large packs (as we do when running reps).

Alan

Club Training Monday 13th December

As we have a little bit of a gap from Grand Prix races through the festive season, now is a good time to switch back to hills and some strength training. We shall do a gradual build in volume of reps at Avondale over the coming month or so.

This Monday is 6 x Avondale at about 3k effort level (definitely not sprinting but strong, fast paced running). Jog down to recover.

As always, safety comes first, so please keep to the wide pavement on the right to round the corner until you have a clear view of any traffic up the hill and can step onto the road if clear to do so. If the roads and pavements are icy but still runnable, then take extreme care on the way back down and do not push too hard on the way up the hill in case your feet slip and jar a hamstring.

The warm-up is the usual Strathaven Rd, Churchill Avenue, round the back of Lidl and turn right onto Avondale. Start the reps on the wide pavement just after the junction on the right. Cool down via the direct route from Avondale back to the club.

During this wintery period, remember that if on any club night where a road session was planned but there is significant snow fall, then any planned road session should switch to a steady cross-country run on the golf course. Should we have a significant number of days of continuous snow cover, then the Blog sessions will give a more specific rep session on the golf course.

Alan

Harriers XMAS Handicap - Juniors to the Fore

 

Relatively mild conditions greeted a brightly coloured field of senior and junior Harriers for the annual festive handicap. This new beginning for an event that had been held every year since the club's formation (with the exception of 2020, as with most of our events) brought together many of the regular senior Harriers and an encouragingly large (and fast) contingent of junior Harriers contesting the 5 undulating laps of the main drive through Calderglen Country Park.

The runners were set off in descending order of predicted completion time over the 4 mile course. This year the handicaps were based on recent or estimated 5k times as due to the lack of road races, this was the only distance for which there was reasonable data for most of the Harriers. In some cases, pure guesswork was applied! Between the first runner and last runner being set off, there was a gap of 11 minutes to be made up. The handicap race is decided by who completes their five laps first. As the race progressed, the gaps between runners gradually decreased and by the last lap all the runners were on the same lap and the win could have gone to any one of several of our juniors who had worked their way back towards the front. Francis Santangeli appeared first on the home straight, striding out to a comfortable win in 25:46, clearly showing his potential. A gap of 2 minutes ensued before things became a little bit hectic. Four of our junior runners finished in close succession; Anna Lindsay followed up her recent cross country races finishing with the fastest lady's time (28:54), with Kai Wheeler (27:35), Angus Wilkinson (23:19) and Orla Tracey (33:51) following in close succession. Angus backed up his recent championship cross country successes by recording the fastest time of the day. Our second fastest lady was Alison Lessells (29:30) who was also one of the most colourful competitors. Second fastest man with a heavy duty soldier's uniform to hold him back was Chris McCarron in 23:53, an excellent time given what he was wearing! 

The full results are listed at the link below (note that the individual lap times are not all accurate as the splits were being taken mainly to count completed laps and the timing tablet screen was not behaving in the cold air).

Click here for results

Whereas many Harriers often shed weight as the handicap progresses, throwing bits of costume off after every lap, Ian Campbell actually gained weight as his dog, Rum, decided that 4 laps was enough and had to be carried under arm for some of the last lap! Well done Ian. An impressive range of costumes were on display again this year, from the Santas and Elves, through to a fully ripened banana. Unfortunately, Wonder Woman's super powers deserted her during the first lap, suffering from a calf strain. I hope that recovers soon Russell. 

Well done to all the Harriers running today, to Kenny for helping out on the finish line and to Eddie for keeping me right with the names of all the new members.

Alan

Club Training Thursday 9th December - EARLY START!

As the Harriers' AGM takes place at 8pm on Thursday evening, the run starts early at 7pm and is short in duration.

The route is down the Kingsway to the Whirlies. Turn left onto East Mains Rd and continue all the way down to Kirktonholme then turn left again past the railway station and onwards to Lidl. Turn right up Churchill Avenue and back to the club via the NEL roundabout.

Alan

Club Training Monday 6th December

The good thing about cross-country races is that, barring big falls, there are usually no aches or pains afterwards due to the low impact surface. But there is a lot of muscle fatigue. Therefore, those who were racing the West XC at the weekend will do this Brancumhall session as an easy run without any efforts whereas those not racing will do the efforts (those doing the easy version can catch up with their pack during the recovery section after each rep).

The session is 16 x 30 second with a 2 minute easy recovery (no stopping after the 30 seconds, just slow down). The aim is run light and fast (say 4k pace, so similar to the short relay pace) and relaxed despite the (possibly) muddy underfoot conditions. By not stopping after each rep, this will ensure that the efforts do not turn into sprints and should keep the pace in the correct range.

Alan

West District XC - Balloch

 

The Senior/Masters Women charge away from the start line

Better underfoot conditions and a slightly modified course greeted large fields in all the age groups as we returned to the West District XC Championships for the first time in two years. The Harriers were represented in the Under-15 girls, the senior/masters women and the senior/masters men races. Good to see us represented through the age groups. The seniors definitely got the better of the weather though as the younger age groups were exposed to very rainy and cold conditions, so well done to Anna Lindsay on a fine time of 20:16 for the U15 girls' 4km race, ably supported by dad Graeme who had to spend a good few hours keeping loose between the U15 race and his own senior/masters men race later in the afternoon.

The seniors/masters were running a 8km race of two laps. The course was essentially the same as two years ago but without the spur off to the middle of the course for the start/finish. Instead, the start/finish was at the highest point of the course more or less in front of Balloch Castle. Although this provided for a very narrow start straight with a big tree in the middle of it to split the field after 50 metres, the benefit was that the first two thirds of each lap was essentially gradually downhill and hence fast as the course wound its way down to the lowest point of the course almost on the banks of Loch Lomond. This was all good underfoot with plenty of firm grass and efficient running. However, as soon as the course turned up hill for the final third, underfoot conditions became decidedly more tricky. The course climbed and then traversed the slope on a narrow, extremely slippery, muddy footpath. There were plenty of fallers in the senior races on this part. Then it turned to climb steeply to the top level brining the runners back towards the castle. As the runners reached the castle, the course dived steeply down the grassy slope (and some runners did take a dive on this slippery slope) before doing a treacherous U-turn and heading up hill for 150m to the start of the next lap and the finish line on the second lap.

Frances chases down another place on the uphill finish

We were represented by Kirsty Wilson and Frances Ferguson in the senior/masters women 8km race and they turned out to be very closely matched. As the first lap unfolded, Kirsty took a slight lead of what seemed like around 15 to 20m and carried this through to lap 2. However, Frances timed her effort perfectly and by the time they came back into view on the final climb to the finish, Frances had established a lead, running powerfully up the hill to finish in 40:34 and 4th W55 overall. I don't know what training Frances is doing outside of club training and body pump, but whatever it is, she is well on the way back to top form. Kirsty was only a short distance back and finished in 40:42. Despite still being somewhat uncomfortable with cross-country, Kirsty also showed good form up that final hill and will carry the strength benefit from this race into future performances.

Kirsty powers away on the final hill

Callum sprints to the line

We had good numbers out for the men's race, being one of only 15 clubs to field a complete team of 6 (we had 8) and as always, every place counts! As this was my first proper head-to-head rather than relay race since pre-pandemic, I was a little bit nervous and wasn't expecting much on lining up on a very tightly packed start line in a field approaching 300 in number. I ran more or less a steady paced run, not really fit enough to take anyone on head to head or target someone to chase down but as the course unfolded, particularly on the second lap, I found people coming back to me despite me slowing. On both laps I had a few near falls on the slippery traverse but otherwise it was great to be out pushing myself (might wear spikes if we come back to this course though). I finished in 33:22 and also 4th in the M55 category. Callum Wright was our next Harrier home in what looked like a close battle with Graeme Lindsay. Callum finished in 35:26 with Graeme in 35:57. As both Callum and Graeme are relatively new to cross-country, I fully expect them to develop into stronger XC runners through the season as suggested by their road pace and evolving training history. Kevin Farmer is piling in the miles on the road just now and is a little bit wary of the country resulting in a cautious 37:45. Jim Holmes continued a strong Grand Prix season with a time of 40:39. Gordon McInally has made a remarkable recovery from his foot operation and in what I think was his best race performance post-op so far, finished in 41:25. David Wardrope is an out and out road runner but is taking the strength benefit of a cross country season in his stride, finishing in 41:31. Russell Couper had a much less eventful run than the last time we were here when he had multiple falls in the mud. This time he stayed on his feet to finish strongly in 48:45. As noted above, our first 6 counters (Alan, Callum, Graeme, Kevin, Jim & Gordon) formed a complete team and were 15th in the team competition and our first 3 masters (Alan, Graeme and Jim) were 18th in the masters team competition.

Thanks to the club members who carried the tent up the hill and set it up and to Geo for enthusiastic support and photography. An album of Geo's photos and a few from me are here and can be added to if anyone has any.

Alan

Club Training Thursday 2nd December

Thursday's run is an easy pre-race run. The aim of the run is to not sap strength as strength will be needed by those doing the West XC on Saturday. The route for the run is down the Queensway (switch to the left side at the underpass just before the petrol station) and then turn left onto Hairmyres Rd and then left again onto Westwood Rd. Follow Westwood Rd all the way to the Murray Rd, past the Crooked Lum and back to the club. Do 5 or 6 x approx 50m strides on downhill or flat stretches of the route.

Alan