The question people were asking this weekend was – Where don’t you find a Shettleston athlete competing? I believe it was 14 different venues and of course not counting the Hill runners training weekend at Pitlochry! Hope I never missed anyone.

On Saturday Chris Bennet was competing for GB in Leira, Portugal in the European Throwing Cup He finished 9th in a world class field with a season best of 72.66 and yet another Commonwealth Games Qualifying distance. Chris is off to the USA in the next few weeks with help from the Jack Kean Bursary. He will surely continue to improve as the season goes on.

Meanwhile in Tasmania (Australia) long term club member Stuart Gibson proudly wearing his club vest took first place in the 50km Tasmania’s Adventure run in an excellent time of 4hrs 45.07. Stuart emigrated a number of years ago to Australia but is still proud of his club and the blue and gold is a regular feature in ultra- events down under. Full results

Closer to home but not in Scotland Lachlan Oates finished 13th (1st Scot) at the inter-counties Championship in Loughborough. (England) This secured Lachlan’s win in the Scottish Cross Country Grand Prix. The club was also  represented in team management at the event with Elaine Mackay and Gary Woods supporting a very successful West of Scotland squad. results

Lachlan having a well deserved sit down following his great run in Loughborough. Photo – Neil Renton

Jamie Burns made a significant improvement in his 5km road time at the StreakflyPodium5km event at Barrowford Lancashire. His time of 14mins 30secs improved on his time of 14mins 45secs set the previous week at the Allan Scally Relay. Jamie was supported in his travel by a grant made possible by Alistair Blamire. Alistair recently donate a sum of money to support our young middle athletes to travel to high quality events.

Even closer to home but not in Glasgow -Paul Sorrie travelled to Edinburgh to take 3rd place in KB 5mile road race in Edinburgh on Saturday.

The Shettleston tour continued on Sunday with a group of athletes travelling to Inverness for the ½ marathon. Peter Avent confirmed his recent excellent form just losing out in a sprint finish to local man Sean Chalmers of Inverness H recording a PB of 66.21-Just 3seconds behind Sean. Chris McGarrity in finishing 9th 67.29 PB helped the Shettleston team take 2nd prize along with Tom Owens in 19th position in a time of 71.49. Other Shettleston athletes who made the long trip up North were Sam Lesley 75.46 (44th) PB, Fergus Donnelly 77.44(54th) PB and Iain Burns 84.25 (113th) in a field of over 3000 athletes.

Avril Mason in her final preparations for the Manchester Marathon finished 4th 81.20 and first F40 in the lady’s race in Inverness. Full results from Inverness

In the two 10km taking place in the West of Scotland Shettleston athletes shone. Daniel Bradford (31.17) took 1st place in the Jack Crawford Memorial Race in Bishopbriggs supported by Dan Lowe (35.29) 9th and Adam Peters (35.49) 10th taking the team prize. Meanwhile at the Callendar 10km Michael Paxton (35.44)   4th just missed his PB on the testing course. Full results here

Last but not least our field event athletes travelled to Kilmarnock for the early spring throws meeting. Young U/15 athlete Chloe Fox secured a new club record of 25.80m and of course a PB. David Little (M40) Hammer opened his season with a 46.21m throw. Teddy Techoudja moved to number one in the UK with a PB performance of 14.34 in the Shot. With Chris Bennet also number 1 not sure if ever this happened  in the club history !

Parkruns

Tollcross

3rd Adam Clifford

4th Katie Woods 1st F

6th David Murphy

11th Arlene McKenna 3rd F

25th Joanne Harkins

Springburn

1st Matthew Fox PB

13rd Gary Fox

21st Katie Burns 3rd F

56th Andrew Shields

Strathclyde Park

34th Jessica Grant PB

Levengrove

1st Ruth Joss

Greenock

4th Scott McKelvie

for everyone’s parkrun times go here

Thanks to John MacKay for the report and keeping on top of all the results

Leave a Reply