Senior/U20 Event Report 27th May 2025

We’re now nearly in June, and the focus for a huge number of our athletes in the coming weeks is the small matter of Roon The Toon – not long to go!  In the meantime however, the club has been well represented at events locally, nationally and abroad across a number of disciplines.

We start off this week on the west coast, with Jacqui Sandler taking part in the Kintyre Way Ultra on Sunday the 10th of May.  Jacqui finished a fantastic 69th place overall (25th lady and 7th FV50) – great running on a challenging course, well done!

Moving across to the east on Friday the 16th, we had a strong team of athletes contending the Sri Chinmoy 5k at Silverknowes, which also serves as the Scottish 5k Championship.  It is safe to say that there were some outstanding performances on the night despite the breeze, with a number of PBs being recorded and a Scottish Championship title (and pineapple!) going to Laura Haggarty who dominated the W40 section in a PB of 17:44 to take the win – great to see our club on the podium at this level of event, huge congratulations Laura!  However it was not just Laura smashing it out the park – Matthew Monachello continued his fine run of form and was first Harrier home in 15:46, followed by Owen Walpole in 16:11.  Connor Scobie was next back in 16:38, then Ross Granger in 17:22, Mark Alexander in 17:36 and Lorna Baird rounding up an incredible set of results with 18:17 – fantastic running from everyone.

On Sunday the 18th, we had two Harriers make the trip to a VERY breezy Aberdeen to take part in the second SNAL meet of the season.  Molly Hunter had a fantastic day, recording a 200m PB for 2nd in heat 2 (26.30s) and following this up with a solid 400m for 5th (63.05s).  Meanwhile out on the field, Logan Mitchell took the win in the shot with a 14.88m effort – well done both.  The next SNAL meeting unfortunately clashes with Roon the Toon, but hopefully we will be able to still field a strong team to represent the club on the day – speak to Kevin Mitchell ASAP if you want to compete.

A little further from home, Jennifer Beattie was out in Albania taking part in the EMA Speed Masters event over the weekend of the 15th-18th, coming home with some medals and great racing experience with a win in the 800m (2:31.17), unfortunately just a time trial in the wind and rain in the 400 (67.8s) and then 2nd in the 200m (30.8s), plus a run out in the Balkan relays over 800m for one of the British teams – all in all a good weekend!

Wednesday the 21st saw the next of our summer league races, the Land O’Burns 10k, and it was indeed well supported by the club with a total of 20 registered Kilmarnock athletes competing.  It is not possible to list everyone, but huge well done to everyone who put a toe on the line!  First back in 2nd overall (1st U20) was the in-form Matthew Monachello (35:11), followed by Owen Walpole (35:37) and Scott Masterton (36:22).  For the ladies, Kat Kelly took maximum points and the win in 39:47, followed by Kirsty Girvan (43:18) and Sophie Granger (44:13).  Also taking top 3 category places were Ross Granger (3rd V40), David Anderson (2nd V50), Mike Corson (1st V60) and Charlotte Gebbie (3rd U20).  Well done all!

This weekend gone saw the big one for a lot of our athletes – the Edinburgh Marathon Festival.  We had athletes taking on all of the 4 distances on offer across the weekend, and the weekend started off on a flyer with Lorna Baird taking 1st lady in the 5k race (19:41). We also had Stuart McWaters competing in the 10k on the Saturday, finishing in 56:42. On the Sunday, our athletes were somewhat challenged by some extreme weather conditions (pretty much guaranteed at EMF!) but that did not stop some fabulous performances.  In the half marathon, Gary Martin returned a PB performance in 1:32:41, Kirsty Girvan finished in a fine 1:52:55 and Lauren Carter rounded up the HM results with a strong 1:54:37 – great running everyone!  In the full marathon, despite hailstones, 40mph winds and blazing sun, Nick Carter had a fantastic run with a PB of 3:32:44.  Vicki Dean was first lady back in 5:16:59, and Catriona Hastings completed her marathon debut in 5:24:46 – well done to all.

Also on Saturday, we had two athletes running at the University of Stirling Open Graded.  Laura Jedrusiak was 2nd in her 800m race with a PB of 2:21.31, and Gregor Samson (U20) was 3rd in his 1500m for a PB of 4:11.02 – great running from both athletes, we love PB days!

Linwood was the venue for the Scottish Athletics Throws Grand Prix on Saturday, and U20 thrower Logan Mitchell made his shot putt win really count with a fine PB for the weight of 15.57m.  The rest of the throws squad also had a great day – looking forward to some of these guys moving up to U20 so that we can highlight their performances, our throwers really are a force to be reckoned with!

We finish this report with something a little bit different – on Saturday the 24th Mark Henderson took on the Isle of Jura Fell race. This is an approx. 28km race with 2370m of ascent, but has an element of self-navigation between checkpoints just to make things even more difficult!  Mark completed the race in a fantastic 6:56:43 in 210th place overall – huge congratulations Mark, I think I would still be wandering around up there!

In terms of the summer championships, Matthew Monachello dominates the men’s table having taken maximum points in the first 3 events.  Second is Mark Alexander on 33, with Owen Walpole hot in pursuit with 28.  For the ladies, Kat Kelly maintains her lead with 43, with Sophie Granger and Kirsty Girvan tying for 2nd with 26 apiece.  Plenty still to play for with Roon the Toon just around the corner and people starting to record marathon and HM times – remember that your best Parkrun will also count so consider getting one banked! See the full results here – summer 2025 (2)