Auldhouse Time Trial - End of Season Special Edition

This Thursday 1st September is the final Auldhouse 5k Time Trial for this year. As a celebration of some great 5k performances through the season this one will be a little bit different. The time trial will start and finish outside the Auldhouse Arms and once everyone has finished the plan is to have a drink (soft or otherwise) in the Auldhouse Arms before a gentile run back to the club. So a few things to remember:

• be at the club before 7:30 so I can record names and work out the starting order (or e-mail/txt me if you are going direct)
• bring some money for your drink
• bring some bright clothing for the run back (probably via the boardwalk so only about 1km on road).

Lets have  a record turnout for the last one.
Alan

Final Chatelherault Times of the Season

Good conditions for our last official night at Chatelherault. I should be an expert at running in the dark after the past week's activities. Please record your times using the usual form and see how everyone got on here.
Alan

Midnattslöppet Göteborg - A Wash Out!

It is rare for me to pre-enter a race well in advance but as Gothenburg is where our Swedish office is and as lots (17) of my colleauges from that office were doing the Gothenburg edition of the Midnight Race, I kind of felt obliged as the one with the running reputation. After spending a day in the office on Friday and emerging into 24 degree evening sunshine, I thought that Saturday's race could be perfect. Wrong. The rain bounced all day Saturday and as with most cities in the rain, Gothenburg looked (and was) bleak. The fact that I also had the club Speed of Light cold didn't help my motivation through the day as I tried not to expend too much energy and wondered if I should even do the race.

At 6pm I emerged for a 1.5km jog to pick up my number and chip and then a similar jog back. Soaked! Three hours later and it was time to go meet my colleagues beneath the fountain in the park. Sounded like a good meeting point on Friday afternoon but not in the pouring rain. Anyway, there were only 5 of the 18 in evidence and it looked like the company was going to acquire a reputation as a bunch of fair weather runners. Pre-race talk was not what I am used to with the Harriers; how to fix i-Phones to arm bands, whether to walk up the hills or not, whether they would make the midnight cut-off time (2 hours after the start), etc. This was not helping to fire me up! 45 minutes before the start and I thought I should go and leave my gear at the baggage tent and try a warm-up. Unfortunately the queue for the baggage tent was about 10,000 people long and I started to panic, which did help warm me up. Evaluating the options, I decided to run the 1.5k back to the hotel, get changed into my vest and racers and run back. This would be quicker than standing in the queue and would get me warmed up. I was in the elite start group which meant a pole position starting place in the by now flooded starting pen. As the clock ticked down to one minute to go the starter announced that the police were not ready with the city centre road closure and we would have to delay a few minutes. This turned into a half hour delay by which time my warm-up was history. The started announced in Swedish, 1 minute to go and then 5 seconds later the gun went off (accidentally I think) with me facing the wrong way! As my Garmin subsequently shows, the first km into the darkness sent my heart rate to 106% of my theoretical maximum kind of confirming the way I had been feeling. A Kenyan quite literally disappeared into the darkness as is to be expected and I latched onto a pack of Swedish club runners. The race was torture, dozens of 90 degree bends, slippery city centre tarmac, manhole covers, cobbled side streets and tram lines with the added element of surprise brought about by huge puddles hiding pot holes. I went too fast at the start and struggled the last 3k letting a few places slip. In the end I crossed the line in an official time of 35:35 in 29th position out of 14 000 but I was disappointed to see that the course was 300m long. My Garmin shows I went through 10k in 34:16 which I would have been happy with as a season's best.

There were plenty of live bands, cheerleaders and crowds around the course but I still think the Stockholm edition of this race is the original and the best (although I haven't done that one in the rain!).

Postscript: The official results confirm that almost all of my colleagues did in fact take part, they just had more sense than to go to the fountain in the pouring rain. Some official photos of the event here. I was spared having to wear the official orange T-shirt as I was in start group 1A and was flying the Calderglen colours.
Alan

Speed of Light - Harriers become Gazelles

Prototype Suit of Light

Tuesday evening and 7 Harriers struggled through the rush hour traffic at somewhat less than the speed of light to get from EK to Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh for the first rehearsal for the Speed of Light, a celebration of landscape art through running (?!?) which will be Scotland's contribution to the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, paralleling the Sporting Olympiad. Unusually (perhaps a first), Martin and Mandy were there before the rest of us and were preparing to stall proceedings until the rest of us arrived.

There were maybe about 100 runners assembled (50 short of what was required) and we were quickly split into equal sized groups, the bulk of the Harriers ending up with a team from Portobello Running Club under the team name "Gazelles". David Herbertson jumped ship at the first opportunity and joined a team called "Frogs". Big Mistake, the clue was in the name! Martin was hived off to "Echo" I think. That left the rest of us (Eddie and Sandra Reid, Stephen Phimister, Karen Sturgeon and myself to cement the reputation of the Harriers in the far east. A team leader had been pre-selected and had participated in course recces last week so the pressure was off, all we had to do was to follow the leader around 3 pre-determined patterns up, over and around Arthurs Seat. Each pattern had been designed by a choreographer (flown in from Holywood apparently, although it could have been Holyrood, I wasn't really paying attention) who was now sitting with a film crew and walkie talkie high up Arthurs Seat co-ordinating all from above. So the idea was to follow your leader with everyone spaced out at 5m intervals. The first of our team's sequences started with a 5 minute pause which we all managed fine although we did have to endure a lesson from one of our team on what a 5m gap should look like. Then we went from stand still to an immediate near vertical ascent which blew the team apart within about 30 seconds. After a severe climb to the summit (with several stops to re-calibrate the 5m separations) we hit the summit and noticed a vertical drop off the crag only a few metres to our right which will be interesting when this takes place for real next summer in the pitch dark! Then it was an even more severe descent down a rabbit trail through long grass with several hidden vertical drops and rocks to keep you focussed. Sequence 1 was over after about 13 minutes and only 1.2km of running. Sequence 2 sent us away on a different route but still started with another steep ascent. We were now under instruction to run 10 seconds apart as we were too close. This we mastered quite quickly and were soon showing our true artistic form. This took another 13 minutes or so. Finally we ran sequence 1 again. The whole event proved a success and last nights volunteers are guaranteed a place in the real thing next August (18 nights, 2 performances per night, although we can choose to do just one or two nights only!) when 150 runners will perform before a paying audience from 10pm to 1am. Yes really!

Only 6 prototypes of the suit of light were on display last night (see picture above, great for the pub run) so for the rehearsal we had the slightly lower tech solution of high viz vests! Further details of Speed of Light.

Alan

More Islay Photos.....

Sandra took loads of photos on the Islay weekend and they have now been added to the on-line album here. Scroll towards the end for Sandra's photos. Regarding the photo on the left, don't ask but you will notice that I am keeping well out of it!
Alan

DHL Stafetten 2011 - sometime things work out at work!

Arriving in the Danish town of Aarhus for a week of meetings, the omens for at least getting some good running in for a change were positive when I spotted this tower block displaying the Calderglen Oyster Catcher. The fact that the hotel our hosts had arranged for us was on a beautiful sandy beach on the entrance to a coastal, forest park with miles of very hilly trails was even better and even prompted me to get up for a pre-breakfast run on 3 of the days.

The biggest surprise was yet to come when our hosts mentioned that there was an annual running festival taking place over 3 evenings that week and it was based only 500m from the hotel. The running festival consisted of nightly 5 x 5km relays (Stafett in Danish) on a different course each night around the country park and it was spread over 3 nights because there were literally thousands of teams entered. I jumped at the chance when the company hosting the meetings mentioned that they had spaces available in one of their teams if any of us wanted a run.

On the evening of my race the meetings had over-run and I was stuck in rush hour traffic. However, I had been told that I was doing a last leg, so I would still have plenty of time. I finally made it to the race about 15 minutes before the first leg kicked off and found our host who had the numbers. It now turned out that another person had dropped out of the team and if I wanted I could run 2 x 5km legs. Cometh the Hour Cometh the Harrier, so no problem, I chose legs 3 and 5. It then transpired that we were in the second start wave of about 2000 teams running that night so the 5km loop was very congested by the time lap 3 approached. We had to carry a baton and the changeover was like that in a 4x400m relay with everyone standing on the line shuffling for position (except there were 2000 runners standing on the line and in my case looking for someone that I barely knew what they looked like). Anyway, I was soon off and running and had been warned that the course was hilly and included a constant 1km climb from 3k to 4k, so pace judgement was critical. Being very far down the field and running two legs, I decided it was just going to be a 2 x 5km rep session (25 minute recovery as it transpired) for me and I was going to run at 10km effort and not really go for it. This proved a sensible approach as the course was so congested that even at that pace I was an accident waiting to happen slaloming between the crowds. The course was beautiful being a mixture of sea front esplanade, country park and forest trails, with about 2/3 on tarmac. But it was hilly, especially for Denmark.

Anyway, the nett result was that I ran both legs in identical times of 18:06, set the fastest 2 legs in our team (Team Loads and Aerodynamics Group, very catchy) by a long shot (the others were 22 to 25 minutes) and we finished a totally surprising 13th out of 450 male teams! The team kind of thought it would have been better for the team if I had run all 5 legs but I am glad I didn't. Plenty of pictures here, not sure if I am in any of them but there are many much more photogenic runners there instead!

Alan

Speed of Light - An Invitation to The Harriers

Thanks to the 5 who expressed an interest in doing this (Eddie, Sandra, Stephen, David and Karen). I've advised the organisers and we are in. Further details at the link below but the important point is that we MUST be there for 5:45 on Tuesday (and also Thursday if anyone can make that) before the rehearsal starts otherwise we won't be able to participate at all. So we have to get out of EK/Glasgow sharp to beat the rush hour traffic. We can discuss travel arrangements on Monday at the club. I can take all 6 in my car if you want to guarantee that either all or none of us get there!

The latest details for those invited to take part are at this link. Please read.
Alan

Just one more Harrier required to complete a minimum team of 5 for next Tuesday 23rd. We need to be through at Arthur's Seat for 5:45 so I guess we need to leave EK at around 1600 to stand a chance in the rush  hour traffic.

Is anyone up for this? I would quite like to do it, preferably on Tuesday 23rd but possibly on Thursday 25th (I have a big race in Sweden on 27th so don't want to be running up Arthur's Seat too many times too close to that!). I can take my car through if we can get 4 - 6 people interested. We are doing hill reps at the club just now anyway so this would be quite appropriate training .......... maybe. Leave a comment or drop me an e-mail if you are interested (I am away with work this week).


Alan


I am writing to invite your running club to be part of a unique piece of mass-participatory visual art on Arthur’s Seat, called Speed of Light.

Next year, as Scotland’s official contribution to the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival, Speed of Light will light up Edinburgh’s iconic mountain at night with patterns of moving light, for 18 nights. A major commission for Edinburgh International Festival, we will be inviting 300 runners a night to wear specially engineered light-suits and work with a choreographer to create beautiful patterns on the hill which will be seen by over 18,000 ticket holders.

Ahead of that, we are going to chart the networks of paths on Arthur’s Seat and begin to map running times on the hill. We are seeking runners fromEdinburgh and the surrounding areas to help us do this.

I am looking to gather around 100 runners on 23^rd and 25^th August 2011at 5.45pm at Arthur’s Seat. I have attached more details and hope a team (or several teams) can attend from your running club.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch – I appreciate that this email has come out of the blue and might be an unusual request.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Catrin.

Catrin Kemp

Project Assistant - Speed of Light

Further Details in this file.