What a weekend for the club.
British Champion( Weynay Ghebresilasie), Scottish Champion (Fionnuala Ross), Scottish Team Champions (Ladies Team), International vest ( Katie Woods) and winners all over the place.
If we start with the London Marathon and send our congratulations to Katie Woods who made her international debut in the Mini Marathon, when finishing 61st in a high -quality field on Saturday. Elaine Mackay was one of the team mangers for the young Scotland teams.
Weynay Ghebresilasie made sure the club had the highest profile on Sunday proudly wearing his club vest, he placed 9th in a new PB of 2hrs 11mins & 57 sec and club record in the World Class Field. What a run– he passed a message back to everyone at the club who have supported him over the last few years – A big thank you! We all hope this will open a few more doors and he gets the extra support to take him to the next level. Spencer Barden,the elite organiser of the marathon, has been fantastic but to make the next step he needs a sponsor – Can you help ?
Weynay was not alone on the London start line with his club mate, Mark McKelvie, finishing 44th in a time of 2.28.06 (PB)
The Great Scottish Weekend is always a great weekend in Glasgow, starting on Saturday with the young athletes getting a chance to run. We had three individual winners with Rowan Lennox, Indie Connelly and Zoe Roberts winning their age groups and waves. Matthew Fox was 10th, Charlotte Reilly 8th and Leia Connelly 32nd.
Thank you to Liz Burns who supervised our young coaches who provided a Come and Try event in the George Square- Hopefully some new members to come.
On Sunday we started with the 10km. Blue and Gold was well to the fore with Jamie Burns (30.22 PB ) taking 3rd place in the men’s race just out kicking his new team mate, Taha Ghafari, who placed 4th . With 8th men in the top 30 we were by far the most successful men’s club. Eilish McColgan was in fantastic form running one of the fastest ever times in Europe in the ladies’ event, winning with a time of 30.18. Ruth Joss, for the club, joined her on the winner’s rostrum when finishing 3rd and with Holly Morrison 5th, it was a highly satisfying day. All the other results for the 10km can be found on the Great Run website.
Next up was the main event of the day the Scottish 1/2 marathon championships and Fionnuala Ross took the title and led the ladies to a win in the team event with Avril Mason 7th and Aoife Carr 8th .First home for the men was new member Philip Neilson 18th (72.10).Across the 10km and 1/2 marathon 38 club members took part ,many of them setting PB performances. Well done to them all.
Last be not least Lachlan Oates set another fast 10km for a Shettleston athlete when he won the River Ness 10km in a fast time of 30.24.
Fantastic weekend for the club and well done to everyone who works hard on twitter ,facebook and other media channels to promote the club.
Next weekend sees the start of the cross-country season with the West District Cross Country Relays event due to take place in Kings Park ,Glasgow.
Parkruns
With the Great Scottish Run on the Sunday most club runners were focusing on the 10k or half marathon. However there were still a handful of Shettleston Harriers who ran on Saturday at the usual Parkruns in challenging weather conditions !
Firstly over to Greenock for some interesting weather conditions where Mark McColl secured a first place.
At the Burgess Parkrun Iain Burns was 3rd place.
Andrew Shields was 33rd place at the Victoria Parkrun.
At Drumpellier Parkrun James Burns finished 3rd place.
Finally to the Holyrood Parkrun where John Duffy finished 11th. Many club members will remember the 5k course which ran annually on the same day as the Edinburgh great cross country in January. The parkrun is the same course with an uphill first half before levelling out and then a long fast descent to the finish.