Harriers Victorious! – Paisley 3K / Cumbernauld 1K

Young athletes in the junior section continue to benefit from their training and deliver impressive race performances.

The annual Paisley 3K took place on Sunday 28^th August and is an event open to adults and children.  For the 3^rd year in a row Mark McKenzie took part in the event and was 18^th overall, and achieved 2^nd under 11 Boy overall.  He ran a pb time of 9:51 mins, improving his time by 1:30mins from the 2010 event. Mark received a lovely silver engraved plate to mark his victory.  Well done Mark!

Continuing the club success Emma Lawton took part in the Cumbernauld 1K on Sunday 11th September.  The organisers of the event grouped all the children into their respective Primary School age group and gender for P5, P6 and P7 and ran 6 1K age/gender group races.

Keen to defend her success from last year of being 1st P5 overall and 1st Girl, Emma was 1st P6 Girl.  Her time was 3:36 mins and pb by 22 seconds on last year’s race.  Emma received a trophy to mark her victory.  Well done Emma!

GSR - A Junior View



Emma on podium

The junior events took place on Saturday 3^rd September in Glasgow Green with the established 3K run and the newer 1.5K event which is steadily growing into a popular event.  Both races attract young athletes from 9 years to 17 years, from new runners to club runners.  For the second year Emma Lawton ran the 1.5K to help her develop her experience running at big events and challenging herself against the many Glasgow based runners.

I know I speak with some bias, I always expect Emma to compete well in a race but she surprises me how well she does.  The plan, as we did last year, was I stay with Emma at the start of race and my wife Sarah is at the finish.  As a concerned Father/coach I tried to pass on some wisdom to Emma but she assured me she knew what to do and with that she lined up.  After a brief mass warm up the runners were under way and my task was to get round all the barriers to the finish line which is no mean feat in fact, it’s near impossible!

As Emma’s race started so did mine - to get to the other side.  I managed to get to the finish corridor next to the monument in Glasgow Green and as I did this I saw Emma in the distance on the back straight.  I eagerly looked at the finish line and eventually spied Emma coming over the line at 4:58mins.  At this point I got a frantic call from my wife saying she thought Emma might have a got a podium finish.  This started a frantic 20 mins trying to track Emma down, find how well she did and locate my wife Sarah and other daughter Melissa.  After hassling stewards and negotiating barriers I eventually saw Emma being marched away and we had a happy family reunion in the VIP tent (the nearest I will get to this is the physio tent!).  So after tucking into free coffee and Danish pastries we were shown out to the presentation area where Emma had her hard work rewarded.

Emma, age 10, was 6^th overall in the 1.5K event and 3^rd female (1^st female was 12 years old and 2^nd female 14 years old) and her time of 4:58mins was 10 seconds shy of matching the 1^st female.  The award ceremony was the full works with a special trophy, flowers, and dignitaries along with photographers.  It was great achievement and experience for Emma and great for raising the Calderglen Harrier club profile.

Apart from Emma’s notable achievement there were other young athletes from the Harriers and even though they may have not received a podium finish, it is always fantastic to see the junior Harriers competing in races.  I strongly encourage this as you never know when your day will come to win a trophy.  The 3K runners I saw on the day were Mark McKenzie (12:48), Drew Gordon (13:54), Kate Kane (14:40), Mark Phimister (15:43), Liam Woods (15:43), Emma Phimister (15:56) and Sarah Crawford (sister of Alistair) (18:32).  My apologies if there is anyone else I have missed.

A special thank you to Drew and his family for cheering & supporting Emma at her award ceremony.

2K Fun Run - Wednesday 7th September

Hi Folks,

Further to my announcement at the club tonight I am just reminding everyone what I said.  There is a 2K fun run organised by East Kilbride Athletic Club on Wednesday 7th September at 7pm.  The race is for young athletes in Primary 6 & 7, S1 & S2.  The race cost £2 and is located at the John Wright Sport Centre running track in East Kilbride.

If any young eligible Harrier whats to do the race please go along for 6:30pm/6:45pm to register (yellow/black portacabin next to the track) and pay.  If not the usual training session will still be going ahead at 6:30pm.

Richard

Glory at Lanarkshire AAA Track & Field Championships 2011

Saturday 27th August, saw the annual Lanarkshire Amateur Athletics Association’s Track and Field Championships being run at the John Wright Running Track in East Kilbride.   This is the Harriers 2nd outing at this Championships with Emma Lawton making her track debut last year at this event.

Emma returned this year to improve on her overall 4th position in the u11 800M in 2010 and the 2011 squad was Emma Lawton, Rachel Johnstone, Louise Brown and Megan Anderson – u11 800M, Kirsty McMonagle – 100M & Long Jump and Emma Campbell – u17 800M.  The two outstanding performances of the day came from the two Emmas’.

Emma Campbell lined up to do the u17 800M alongside Shettleston Harriers and EKAC athletes.  Emma started off well chasing the Shettleston Harrier around the 2 laps of the track trying to close the big gap.  Emma did fantastic to push herself all the way to the finishing line fighting with the EKAC athlete for second place in a time of 2:54 and claiming a Silver medal.  With the bar set next on the track was Emma Lawton hungry to improve her finishing position from last year.

She set off at a cracking pace opening up an early lead and by the first lap she was some 50 metres in the lead with the rest of the field strung out behind her. This decisive lead running paid off for Emma as she maintained this in the second lap and she romped home through the winning tape with a PB time of 2.41.9 minutes beating last year’s time by 20 seconds claiming a Gold medal and Lanarkshire u11 800M Champion title.
Well done to Rachel Johnstone (3:15.9), Louise Brown (3:16.3) and Megan Anderson (3:16.4) having the hard task of running the u11 800M at a fast pace putting the Harriers training to full effect. Tremendous effort from Kirsty McMonagle who broke the mould and made a challenge at the 100M (20:20) & Long Jump (1.92).  Well done Team Calderglen!

Race results link
http://www.scottishathletics.org.uk/index.php?p=80&itemType=fixtures&itemId=13508