Sunday 29 December 2019

57 Varieties

57 is the number of races I've completed in 2019, starting and finishing with Victoria Parkrun.

This keeps my batting average going of more than 1 race per week for the past 20 years.

The shortest sharpest race was 4:44.73 in Heat 4 of the Scottish Open 1500m on 12th January. 

Only 2 races were longer than 10k.  These were the Round Cumbrae and Derwentwater 10-milers. A good bit over the hour for each, with 63:26 and 64:24 minutes respectively. 

The longest race time-wise was Cort-ma Law, my only hill race of the year, in 1:08:43.



I managed to pick up 4 individual national Scottish medals in the M55 category:
  • Gold in the 10,000m track race at Carluke - 37:41 in very windy conditions
  • Silver in the Emirates 3000m on 4th January (Guy Bracken took gold)
  • Silver in the Emirates 1500m on 17th February (Dave Clarke took gold)
  • Bronze in the Masters XC at Hawick (behind Colin Donnelly and Stan Mackenzie)
I also collected 3 national team medals:
  • Senior Team Silver for Cambuslang in the National Trail Championships (with Alasdair Campbell, Justin Carter and Richard Cooper)
  • M50 Team Silver for Cambuslang in the National Cross Country Relays at Cumbernauld (with Mick O'Hagan and Colin Donnelly - Perth RR took gold)
  • M55 Team Bronze for Scotland in the British & Irish Masters Cross Country at Aintree (with Ted Gourley, Denis Williams and Dave Eckersley for Team Scotland, behind England and Republic of Ireland) 
Not sure what 2020 has in store.  All being well, it will be my 21st year of racing.

I'm contemplating entering the European Masters in Braga, Portugal in March 2020 with a view to racing the 800m, 1500m, 3000m and 5k XC.