Wednesday 3rd June 2026 – Scottish Running Week
The Loch Thom Trail Race is an annual mid-week evening event organised by Inverclyde Athletic Club, which takes place at the Greenock Cut Visitor Centre (Cornalees Bridge) and is a trail-adjacent route heading out from the Centre over paved roads, up the stony trail to the radio tower with some fantastic views overlooking Greenock.
First launched in June 2024, the event is timed to coincide with Scottish Running Week and serves as a direct fundraiser for Athletics Trust Scotland, a charity dedicated to making athletics more accessible to disadvantaged communities and tackling poverty through sport. While previous events featured a 7-kilometre effort out and back from Watermans Cottage, the format changed this year to an out-and-back 5K route for seniors (minimum age 15) and a junior 3K alternative. The course starts and finishes outside the Ardgowan Fishery Café, with a difficult elevation climbing towards the saddle between White Hill and Jock’s Hill before incorporating local trails like Scroggy Bank before turning at the Radio Tower.
It was great to see the event numbers boosted by those in the blue and yellow vests, with 19 Harriers making us the best represented club on the evening, and we also had a great showing in the results leaderboard.
Stephen Trainer was first home for Greenock Glenpark, 2nd place overall after chasing down Inverclyde AC’s Michael Houston but just unable to hold on in the last 500m, his time of 18:27 just 21 seconds behind the IAC man. Daniel Doherty was 3rd overall (18:49) and 1st in the M40 category. There was a clean sweep of top three positions in the M50 category, with Paul Monaghan 1st M50 (19:20), Steven Campbell 2nd M50 (19:36), and Stephen Harrison 3rd M50 (21:16). Oliver Reilly had a great run for 9th overall and 4th Senior Category. Owen Atkinson was 5th M40 with (22:22) despite feeling the difficult climb in his legs, and was followed in by Robert Dolan in M50 4th place (24:08).
Just behind Robert was the first lady home for Greenock, Marian Monk as 1st F50 in 25:12, ahead of Steven Smith 1st in the M60 category with (25:22) and Ced Chesterman 5th M50 (25:31). Lynne Harrison was next over the line in her first attempt at this race, 2nd F50 (25:40) and just staying ahead of Jim Cuffe 2nd M60 (26:22).
Cheryl Thomas had a great run for 1st place F40 with (27:39), and Rebecca McLuckie was 3rd SW with 28:38. Distance specialist Emma Lynch was 4th SW getting in just under the 30 minute mark with (29:28), and the final three ladies of Maureen Doherty 1st F60 (32:02), Mhairi Biggart 5th F40 (32:53) and Fiona Cushnaghan 2nd F60 (34:13) completed the Harriers race, before everyone retired to the cafe for some well deserved hospitality and the charity raffle.
A huge thanks to Sean Gaffney and Inverclyde IAC for organising the event once again.
Results on PROTAY
Thanks to Peter McLaughlin and GBR Photos for the photos used in this report.
