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Athletes say Goodbye to April with a Spring in they're steps.

3 Kilmarnock Harriers were involved in the 2009 Flora London Marathon, the 29th staging of the prestigious event.

Jan McLeod, Willie Duffy and Roddie Pugh all started the race with their individual goals for the race, and despite sweltering temperatures in the last few tough miles which affected all the 35,000 runners, the trio weren’t too far away from their expectations and can be very proud of the fact that the 26.2 miles was completed and all bodes well for the coming Summer Road Racing season.

The previous day at Pollock Park a number of Kilmarnock Harriers team-mates were in action at the latest instalment of the weekly free to enter 5K Park Run. Connell Drummond took a fine 4th position overall as his recent efforts over the same distance on the track begins to pay dividends and full times and positions from the Cub from a huge 238 entrants were –

4th Connell Drummond 17.57, 14th John Cairns 19.03, 20th Kara Tait 19.17, 24th Leslie McDerment 19.40, 26th Alasdair Murray 19.54, 36th Paula Wilson 20.49, 52nd Liz McDerment 21.41, 100th Ian McGaughtrie 24.04.

The Hill racing season recently arrived with a bang with Killie Harriers represented at 3 races in 10 days.

First up was the Anniversary Waltz, a 13m race, 3000ft climb over 4 tops near Keswick in the heart of the Lake District on 11th April. Roddy Pugh and Al Murray crossed the border for this long fell race which attracts over 400 runners. In excellent, clear conditions Al finished the race in 2hrs 19min and 189th place and pleased with this debut, Roddy took it easy as he began the wind down to London Marathon and finished in 2hrs 32.

The following Saturday Roddy made the solo journey to Screel hill race, near Newton Stewart. A short race over 6.4km and 400m ascent Roddy made a top 100 finish in 46.57, incl a brief oversight of a fellow runner who had fallen and broken an arm.

Next up was the first of the Bog & Burn race series, the Whangie Wizz, at Carbeth. This midweek race of 6.8km and only 240m ascent attracted over 150 runners and was to prove the seasons debut for recent Killie hillrunning converts, Keith Haining and Steven McNeill.

The Whangie generally lives up well to its membership of the “Bog” series but this year was as dry as I can remember in recent years. As always the early and finishing parts of the route follow a rutted / rock pathway making footing difficult and a careful / cautious approach is recommended. With this is mind, and after an interval session the previous night and a run on Wednesday morning Keith took the race relatively easy finishing in 31st place in 33.38.

After a less hectic training program Al Murray was a couple of minutes behind in 35.59 and 57th place, followed by Steven McNeill (off even less training!) in 37.34 (70th place) and finally Roddy – 4 days before London marathon and his 3rd hill race in 10 days – in 40.36 and 94th place.

The last Thursday in April saw 24 Kilmarnock Harriers take part in the first of 4 annual Club Races – the Valley Dash.

Starting and finishing in Newmilns, the handicapped run takes the route from Browns Road, along the River Irvine Trails to Galston before heading up Maxwood Road and over the tough Windy Hill, before finishing with the steep and welcome downhill back to Browns Road.

As the race was handicapped, Jackie McCulloch had the honour of being first to set off, while Connell Drummond was last to begin, with the handicappers target being to have everyone crossing the finishing line as near to each other as possible – never an easy task.

New member John McClarty was first past the post , just ahead of the fast finishing Stewart Ferguson who in turn was the fastest man on the night ( although had the aforementioned Connell Drummond not taken 3 wrong turns, he may have run him close ! ). Paula Wilson was quickest lady and also won the prize for being closest to the predicted time while it was also good to see a wide section of the Club take part, including a number of the younger section as well as new members.

Final positions with net times for the 4.5 mile run were –

1 John McClarty 33.27, 2 Stewart Ferguson 28.03, 3 Liz McDerment 32.50, 4th Paula Wilson 32.04, 5th Ronnie Dalziel 30.57, 6th Mike Corson 30.34, 7th John Cairns 28.59, 8th Matt Ferguson 31.02, 9th Alasdair Murray 30.17, 10th Connell Drummond 28.48, 11th Alec Pettigrew 33.26, 12th Kate Todd 33.50, 13th David Mitchell 35.02, 14th Ian McGauguhtrie 39.03, 15th Roddie Pugh 35.22, 16th David Loudon 34.10, 17th Corey O’Hara 38.56, 18th Jan McLeod 39.34, 19th Jackie McCulloch 43.20, 20th Danny Steel ( Snr ) 39.46, 21st Danny Steel ( Jnr ) 41.35, 22nd Ewan Ramsay 41.51, 23rd Colin Crosbie 44.02, 24th Paul Ramsay 43.20.

Well done to all, with mentions to Leslie McDerment for organising, as well as on course helpers including Ed Bollemo and Hugh Rankine, and to the Riverside Inn for the end of race sandwiches.

James Wales took part in his first 800 metres race of the season recently. Running 2.06.1 this was close to James’ best time for the distance and he followed this up by running 57.1 seconds in the 400 metres Relay event. Both these times were very decent early season form and hopefully the coming months will see him improve on this still.

Membership fees are now due, and should be paid by the end of may before a let penalty charge kicks in. The hugely competitive club subs can be paid to any committee member.

10 May 2009 - 21:30 by smartin

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