Lang Toun 10k

Wednesday 4th June saw the 20th Anniversary of The Lang Toon 10k. It was a lovely summer evening and the club had a fantastic 17 club members dust off their running vests for this race. It was described in The Herald as "one of the most gruelling races in the Perthshire area" but the club managed to produce some fine performances and pick up a stack of prizes, it must be all that training around The Crieff 10k route( in my opinion much more gruelling)!
The race was won Greg Simpson in a time of 36.15 and the women's race was won by Fiona Angus in a time of 44.37. Unfortunately we don't have finishing positions but we managed to get everyones finishing times. The results are as follows:

Will Manners 38.11 1st vet and 3rd male
Graham Johnstone 39.18 (PB)
Ian Beattie 39.21 3rd vet
Phil Tipping 40.44
Ben Wake 42.16
Adrian Wake 43.54 2nd vet 50
James Bussey 45.34
Cathy Tilbrook 46.32 2nd lady and 1st vet
Ali Manners 48.12 3rd vet
Liz Mestecky 48.17
Karen Westley 49.16 2nd local lady
Kona Andrews 50.32 (PB)
Peter Gaylor 55.01
Beth Fotheringham 55.58
Soenaid Roberts 58.33
Fiona Lyle 58.3
George Carson 1.00.43

Finally welcome to Kona and congratulations on a fantastic time in her first ever race!

Harriers All at Sea

This weekend Simon and Phil took part in the 2008 Scottish Islands Peaks Race.

This gruelling test of endurance and tolerance to sea-sickness starts in Oban and finishes in Troon taking in major hill runs totalling well over 60 miles along the way, on Mull (Ben More from Salen), Jura (Paps of Jura from Craighouse) and Arran (Goat Fell from Lamlash) not to mention some epic sailing legs including rounding the Mull of Kintyre en route.

Phil and Simon, aboard the 43 foot yacht, Lady Q (skippered by Malcolm Lamb and ably crewed by Tommy Hunter and Helen - all from Ayr), completed the course in a total time of 50 hours 44 minutes which was good enough to take 16th place (7th in their class) out of the 47 or so boats that set out from Oban on Friday.

In the running competition the two Harriers finished 9th overall in a combined time of 15 hours 15 minutes. A solid run on Mull (5:05.50) was followed by a slightly disappointing performance on Jura (6:12.10) with a lost breakfast due to sea sickness, poor route choices, injury and imperfect navigation in thick mist costing the team well over an hour. However, an excellent 3rd fastest time on the final Goat Fell run, which they completed in 3:57.17, helped to ensure a top 10 finish.

The final cruise across from Arran to Troon in pleasant sunshine and a tailwind gave ample opportunity for the team, aided by plenty of IPA to celebrate their performance and to contemplate how times could be shaved next year...

Full results are at: http://www.sipr.zetnet.co.uk/results_2008.htm.

Well Flung Harriers

On Saturday 3 Harriers, Phil M, Ian and Duncan took part in The Highland Fling, a 53 mile "warm-up" for the West Highland Way Race in 8 weeks time. The race follows the WHW from Milngavie to Tyndrum including the awkward section along Loch Lomond.

In total 137 runners had registered for the race and, in the end, something like 130 hardy souls turned up for the 6am start including the awesome pair of Jezz Bragg and Lucy Culquhoun, both previous winners and course record holders for both the Fling and the WHW race. As the race got under way, weather conditions were good, 8 or 9 degrees and no wind or rain but after half an hour or so this deteriorated into a steady drizzle then full-on rain which stayed with us for the next 2-3 hours until the sun came out for the second half of the race. Underfoot was very wet and, especially in the Loch Lomond section and descending Conic Hill, quite slippy but overall preferable to the heat of the previous two runnings of the race.

As expected, Jez Bragg came home first in a new course record of 7hrs 24 50s, followed by Don Naylor of HBT in 8.03 and then first woman, Lucy Culquhoun in 8.10.03; another course record. All 3 Harriers had excellent performances with Phil M finishing 12th overall in 9.37.28, Ian in 28th and a PB of 10.28.26 and Duncan in 41st and also a PB time of 11.16.31.

This is a great race and strongly recommended to anyone wanting to find out if they fancy having a go at the WHW Race. It's extremely well organized with your own food supplies being transported to the various checkpoints, a bus back to Milngavie if you need it and even a holiday cottage rented in Tyndrum if you need to recover overnight. It's amazing value too costing only a tenner and a medal and a customized Highland Fling bottle of sparkling wine to take home!

Finally, a huge vote of thanks to the support teams: Liz M, Ali B, Kerry and Maddy who kept the Harriers' bodies and souls together throughout and special thanks to Liz M for getting up at 3am on a Saturday morning to transport the runners to the start.

April Races

Just a quick catch-up on some good performances by Harriers in recent races.

Clachnaben
James Bussey enjoyed his run at the Clachnaben hill race on April 19th. He finished in a creditable 40th place out of 63 runners, but his official time remains a mystery - for some reason there are still only a few assorted official finishing times available, and James' is not one of them. Well done anyway!

Kinross 10k
On a pleasant evening on Thursday April 24th a surprisingly high turnout of Harriers - Beth Fotheringham, Cathy Tilbrook, Phil Tipping, Matt Mclay, Gordon Morrison, Graham Johnston and George Carson (plus Kirsty McKay as a Wee County Harrier) - ran the Kinross 10k.

In his first ever 10k, Graham was first Harrier home in 40.53 and 31st place. Phil T was close behind in 41.41, not bad for a return to racing after a layoff with injury since October last year. Full results are on the Scottish Athletics site at http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/index.php?p=80&itemType=fixtures&itemId=6748

Highland Fling
Finally, as reported extensively on the club forum, Ian Beattie and Duncan King ran well in the 85k Highland Fling race on Saturday 27th, and Phil Mestecky ran a stormer!

Knockfarrell

On Saturday April 12th, Will and Gordon made the trek north to Strathpeffer - charming spa town north of Inverness - to compete in the second SHR Championship race of the season.

The Knockfarrell course is just under 5 miles with a bit of everything including mud, gorse, short sharp climbs, very runnable sections on grass and rock and some crazy downhills. Excellent!

The normal field of 50 runners shot up to nearly 150 because of the SHR Championship status this year, and the race was won by Jethro Lennox in 37.42. Will delivered another excellent performance to finish 13th in a time of 42.47 which last year would have put him in 3rd place!

Gordon ran a solid 53.05 to finish 75th out of 149 and pleased to be ahead of some runners who have previously beaten him in other races.

A long drive but a good day out!

Results are here http://www.shr.uk.com/RaceResults.aspx?RaceID=RA-0025&RaceYear=2008, and hopefully some pictures will also follow.

Inverness Half

1064 runners turned out on a cold but surprisingly sunny Sunday afternoon to do battle with the streets of Inverness. 6 of that number were Harriers and I think without exception everyone was pleased with their days work. Times and race positions are as follows:
Ian Beattie 1.24.30 (59) Simon Wake 1.27.21 (87) Doug Flint 1.34.26 (193) Cathy Tilbrook 1.48.19 (490) Vic Johnstone 1.48.34 (496) Fiona Lyle 2.00.18 (773)

Will power at the Carnethy 5

Great runs from all the Harriers yesterday (including the 2 mysterious Griffiths who once again entered the race as Harriers!). It was a great day for it. Cool, sunny with no wind and 461 runners turned out to enjoy it.

First Harrier home in an amazing time of 56.36 was Will Manners. Will is clearly beginning to establish himself in the upper echelons of hill running and should begin to pick off the odd prize this year. Here he finished in 32nd place, which may not sound amazing but in a race of this calibre is a tremendous performance, and in the process claimed the scalps of messrs Upson, Gorman (Westies) and Davis (Carnethy) to name but a few.

Next home was Phil M in 79th place and a time of 1.02.04 - a PB for him by over a minute in his third time running the race.

The next three Harriers had a rare old tussle with positions changing place throughout. Kaz Nicholl seemed to have the strength on the uphill but Gordon and James B both had the advantage of experience (and proper fell shoes) over Karen on the downhills.

In the end Gordon made it home first of the three in 276th with a time of 76.10. Then came James B who went over on his ankle on the final descent. James finished in 76.27 and 283rd. Karen followed close behind in 296th and a time of 77.58. Given that this is Kaz's first real hill race I think she should be well pleased with the result.

Also very well done to Ali Manners who exceeded her own expectations to finish strongly in 91.34 and clearly had a really enjoyable run judging by the size of her grin at the end of the race.

Full results are now up.

By the way, if anyone knows how to contact the two Griffiths (father and son?) who registered for the race as Harriers but ran incognito, we need to collect several years membership fees from them!

Extra
A few pics here from SHR - sorry couldn't find any of Ali or James
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/whitecroft/Carnethy5200802