Calderglen Harriers Blog

Tuesday, 31 October 2017

Quiz Night - This Friday

The annual quiz to raise funds for Jim Holmes' mum's church takes place at 19:30 this Friday in the British Legion in EK. Entry is £5 per person at the door. Lets try to get a team or two together. No race on Saturday to save yourself for. Calderglen have regularly displayed their ability (I'm not saying what level of ability though) at this fun event!
Alan

Wind Swept in Cumbernauld

Joanne on a charge downhill

It is often wet and windy in Cumbernauld for the annual National Cross Country Relays, so we had to count ourselves lucky that on Saturday it was just windy. Very windy! After a strong start to the season by our ladies, we had a somewhat reduced turnout for Cumbernauld with only Joanne McEvoy and Frances Ferguson taking part to form half a team of four. However, this meant that there were good Grand Prix points available for both Joanne and Frances. Joanne was on the first leg of the undulating 4km course. Underfoot conditions were not as muddy as they sometimes are however, the winds were gusting to 50mph and were directly against the runners on the longest ascent up the middle of the course, making forward progress difficult in some cases. Joanne ran strongly to finish in 17:15, 12 seconds faster than last year and one of her fastest times on this course. Frances also set one of her fastest times for some years, gaining a few places to cross the line in 18:11. Although difficult to work out from the official results (as W50's running for senior or F40 teams are listed separately), this looks like a 6th best F50 time in a very large field.

Frances on leg 2 (leg 1 is off the ground)

The men had two teams of 4 and an M50 team of 3 competing. However, first task of the day was putting up the club tent which had been driven to the venue by Kenny and then manhandled cross country by Eddie and Gordon to our chosen spot in a natural hollow slightly out of the wind. All would have been well had we not lost all the tent pegs meaning that the club tent briefly became the club hang glider as it took off in a strong gust (we were not the only club to suffer this). Top scavenger Jim Holmes and others came to the rescue, finding several large tree branches with which to weigh the tent down. We also needed Harriers on permanent ballast duty, sitting on a chair inside the tent. I acted as a tent peg for a while too and that was pretty much my best contribution of the day as I was struggling on the running front.

This tent is going nowhere!

The A team was led off by Mark Saez who battled in the midst of a huge field to finish in 14:57 in 69th position. Andrew Buchanan intention was to run a more consistent effort than he had the previous week and this he did, pulling back 11 places to finish in 14:50. Stephen Phimister had not raced here since 2008 and due to recent injuries/missed training was not particularly looking forward to the race. However, he is now back and has the taste for these short, sharp races after running a time of 16:51 and 68th position, a drop of only a minute in 9 years which is not at all bad. Finally, having provided the branches to anchor the tent, Jim Holmes now had to anchor the team. Jim finished in 18:41 and 73rd position.

Andy Buchanan stretches out

Richard Lawton was first leg runner for the B (Masters team) and demonstrated that although he is not yet in the form of last year, he is running well enough, recording a time of 18:45. Gordon McInally continued his Grand Prix campaign on leg 2 with a time exactly one minute behind Richard, 19:45. Russell had a chance to shine on leg 3 for a change and hauled himself around in 21:14, only about 48 seconds down on last year. Finally, John Boyd did his first every cross country race. The last leg is a lonely experience and pace judgement is difficult with no runners around to latch on to. Therefore John ran well to record a time of 21:04 and he will hopefully get the chance to build on that first experience at other cross country races this season.

Gordon showing good form

The M50 event was contested by teams of 3. Our team was led off by Andy Henderson who called upon all his experience not to get dragged out too fast by the younger runners around him. Andy brought the team home in 20th position in a time of 18:01. I took the second leg, although would gladly have taken a final leg, due to suffering from a temperature and streaming nose since Thursday. The field was well spread out but I was catching teams at regular intervals which gave the illusion that I was going fast. In fact I was 40 seconds slower than last year, pulling the team up to 14th position but disappointed to be well down on many of the M50's I had been ahead of in recent weeks and months. Eddie Reid had also been struggling recently with both normal and bizarre injuries breaking the consistency of the training that he needs to get back to his true form. Eddie held on to 14th position in a time of 17:52.

John on the well trodden trail

Well done to all who competed and to Kenny for enthusiastically supporting us and transporting the tent. Thanks to Frances for the photos.

For those interested in how the course compared to last year, the image below shows my Garmin tracks. The yellow track was last year, the green/grey/purple track this year. Overall the distance was the same (3.8km) but there were a few wider corners here and there and a few tighter corners that cancelled out the difference. The red arrows inside the yellow circles are the wind direction and strength this year.
Alan

Friday, 27 October 2017

Cumbernauld Teams 2017

The teams for tomorrow are listed here. Note that M50 teams are three legs, all other senior and M40 teams (as far as our entrants are concerned) are 4 legs.

Check out this important Final Information issued by Scottish Athletics regarding the shuttle bus service, parking, chip timing, numbers, etc. Other information, maps, etc are here.

The parking/shuttle bus is at:
St Maurice’s High School
North Road
Cumbernauld
G68 9AG

See post below for further details of when to be there, car sharing, etc.
Alan

Thursday, 26 October 2017

National XC Relays ( Cumbernauld )

A few withdrawals due to injuries and illness tonight so even more places available for anyone that wants to run. Also note that cars will be leaving sports club at 1200 on Saturday for anyone needing a lift. Russell needs the men to be there at 13:45 at the latest (i.e. one hour before the race start) to hand out numbers. I will post the teams Friday evening. Alan

The following are entered for the National XC Relays this coming Saturday.
Alan will select the teams and running order and post on Friday evening.

F Ferguson, ~~E Craig~~ and J McEvoy.
R Couper, A Derrick, R Lawton, G McInally, A Henderson, J Holmes, A Buchanan.
~~A McLellan~~, S Phimister, M Saez, ~~K Leinster~~ and J Boyd. E. Reid

There are 6 places left for the Ladies and 6 for the Men so if anyone wants a run let me know and I will check your on the reserve list.
Anyone named above that can no longer make it let Alan or Russell know.

Performance Award Self-Service

Time to think about performance awards and pb's set during the season from 1st October 2016 until 30th September 2017. Can I ask everyone to follow the instructions below and enter any performances which you believe are eligible. Note the special instructions below in red for those of you using iPhones or iPads to enter the date data (which is assumed to be still valid for even the latest iPads and iPhones). Some of you have already been entering the data as the year has progressed. You can see all the data already entered using the links in the original post below. Thanks to both Julies (Beveridge and Thomson) for entering their performance award and PB data recently. Ask me if you have any questions or problems. You can also start entering data for 2017-2018 season using the same forms below.

I have now had the opportunity to try the data entry forms on an iPhone and can see what the problem is with iPhones and iPads. The problem is that any dates have to be entered in American format (Month/Day/Year) rather than UK format (Day/Month/Year). For example, to enter a race date of 20th November 2016, fill in the date field as follows: 11/20/2016. The iPhone/iPad also seems to default to displaying the current year 2017. Delete that and replace with 2016 or whatever the year you need is.

To make gathering the data for the annual performance awards more efficient, could I ask all who believe they have set a performance standard at 5k, 10k, 10 mile, half marathon or marathon to:

check your performance against the tables for the various age groups (women, men)
use this form to enter the details of your performance.
repeat steps 1 and 2 for each race.

You can see the data gathered so far in this spreadsheet.

Similarly for new absolute or age group pb's, use this form to record the PB details. All the data gathered since we started this system last year are listed here.

Any questions or problems then leave a comment or get in touch with me. As always, these forms are untested on Apple devices but do work fine on Android devices and Windows PC's running the Chrome browser.
Alan

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Allan Scally Road Relay has a New Date and Venue

Shettleston Harriers have been back in touch with Russell to confirm that they have new plans for the Allan Scally Road Relay meaning that this legendary club relay which has run every year since 1969 will continue with just 2017 missing.

The new event will take place on Saturday 3rd March 2018 and will be on a traffic-free course within Glasgow Green, consisting of 3 or 4 legs of 5km each. The event is clearly positioned to stimulate some relay team spirit and form markers about 1 month before the 4/6 stage relays at Livingston. The event therefore still fits in to our current Grand Prix season. The only downside is that it may be the same weekend as the Down by the River 10k, although that may be a week later and on the Sunday.

No further details available at the moment.
Alan

Lanarkshire Cross Country Championships

This race takes place at Drumpellier Country Park in Coatbridge on Saturday 25th November (this is not a grand prix race). Enter the race via Q-buster using the code laaaxc. The cost for seniors/veterans is £4. Closing date is 20th November.

Details as follows:

There will be NO entries taken on the day