Race roundup 20th March – 3rd April 2022

The Harriers have been out in force over the last few weekends. Here is a summary of the various races. As always if you have any results or short reports you want included just send them along.

Sunday 20th March 2022

Young Athletes Road Races, Greenock

Well done to all of our junior athletes who took part in the various races. Stevie will send out a report with the newsletter in the coming days.

U13 Girls
Ava Lyle – 14:44

U13 Boys
Johnathon Lamont – 12:52
Grant Munro – 14:10
Oscar Boyce – 14:17

U15 Girls
Summer Taggart – 17:23
Maria McCabe – 18:43
Erin McEleny – 19:05

U15 Boys
Oliver Boyce – 17:24

U17 Women
Ruby McGill – 20:21

U17 Men
Jude Dolan – 17:00
Kyle Johnstone – 17:46

Alloa Half Marathon

Two harriers made the trip through to Alloa for the annual Half Marathon. Liza Brydon was first back for the club in a fantastic time of 1 hour 40 minutes and 54 seconds, a 5 second Personal Best time.  Heather Lafferty came storming home in a time of 1 hour 51 minutes and 12 seconds. This was Heather’s first time racing over the 13.1 miles distance and she will be delighted with this performance.

Liza Brydon, 1:40:54
Heather Lafferty, 1:51:12
(pictured above after the race)

Beith 10k

Rothesay man Wes made the trip across the water to Beith to take part in their annual 10k. Wes has been training consistently for some time now and was a little disappointed with his outcome over the hilly distance. It’s great to see Wes back racing again.

Wes Pattison, 6th place, 37:03

105 Track marathon – Sun 27 March2022

After a fantastic training block, and two races from the track series already in the bag, Fiona MacFarlane headed to East Kilbride to take part in the gruelling track marathon. The track marathon is like no other marathon, it covers just over 105 laps of the track with each lap displayed for you to see as you run. Fiona, with a clear target of breaking 4 hours, started ahead of target pace and managed to sustain this for the duration finishing a whopping 17 minutes ahead of the target. Finishing second place in the marathon gave Fiona second place overall in the series, well done Fiona.

Marathon – 2nd place, 3:42:24 PB
Half Marathon – 4th place, 1:43 PB
10km – 3rd place, 47:01
Full series – 2nd female overall, 6:12:25


Fiona collecting her well deserved trophy

(Super) Sunday 3rd April 2022

A big weekend on the race calendar with 9 Harriers racing in 3 different locations.

Tom Scott Memorial Road Race

At Strathclyde Loch Oliver, Paul and the two Michael’s – McLoone and Follan, raced over the 10 miles distance with hopes of another Scottish medal for the in form V50 Paul. Monaghan set the pace with Oliver hot on his heels. Oliver’s Boston marathon training made the difference as he took Paul with 2 miles to go. Training partners Michael McLoone and Michael Follan with be happy with their times and surely the trio were one of the top V50 teams on the day? Paul will be disappointed to miss out on another Scottish medal but will be looking to make amends at the GGH Docherty Cup 10 mile race this weekend.

Oliver Reilly – 57:48, 38th PB
Paul Monaghan – 58:27, 46th (4th MV50) PB
Michael McLoone – 61:12, 74th (6th MV50)
Michael Follan – 64:27, 102nd (12th MV50)

Self Transcendence 50km Road Race

Perth hosted the Anglo Celtic Plate which incorporated the Scottish & British 50km and 100km championships. Craig Hyslop was the only Harrier to take on the looped 50km course as he continues his excellence block of ultra marathon training. This was Craig’s first Ultra marathon and he can be delighted with this well executed performance over a very tough distance.

Craig Hyslop – 4:27:31, 21st place

Craig Hyslop

Craig delighted with his 50km time

 

Manchester Marathon

Further South it was a hattrick of Personal Best times for the GGH team. First home in the Manchester Marathon was Gordy Hepburn in a time of 3 hours 7 minutes and 56 seconds – a 4 minute improvement on his previous PB. Having recently recovered from Covid Gordy will be delighted with this performance. Following closely behind was George McCallum clocking a massive 9 minute improvement on his best time over the distance, a truly inspiring performance from George. He clocked 3 hours and 15 minutes 28 seconds! Stuart Austin’s West Highland Way training is clearly making the difference in his training as clocked another massive PB of 3 hours 24 minutes and 22 seconds, an 8 minute PB. Lucas Bezian crossed the line a very good time of 4 hours 23 minutes and 47 seconds, a strong performance.

Gordy Hepburn – 3:07:56
George McCallum -3:15:28
Stuart Austin – 3:24:22
Lucas Bezian – 4:23:47

Gordy Hepburn

Gordy smashes his Personal Best

Next up

Our next club race is the Docherty Cup 10 miles on Saturday 9th April. This is a conceding handicap race with the first senior runner starting at 2:00pm. There will be junior races held from 1:45pm. Please join us for refreshments and the prize giving after the race at the Spinnaker Hotel. Thanks to the Spinnaker Hotel for their continued sponsorship and support of this race.

Following this we will head across the water to Dunoon for the Willie Jukes 5 mile club race on Saturday 30th April. This year would have been Willie’s 70th birthday and the family have invited all attendees to celebrate together in Sinbads Bar after the race. Let’s see our usual big turnout at both events. Again massive thank to our race sponsor Travis Perkins for the continued support and sponsorship of the race.

Key race dates:
Docherty Cup – Saturday 9th April
Willie Jukes – Saturday 30th April
Cornalees Hil Race – Saturday 7th May
Chisholm Mile – Tuesday 24th May