Senior/U20 Event Report 13th April 2026

Another month, another moment of disbelief that it’s been so long since our last report – feels like yesterday!  Time flies, but luckily so do our athletes so there is a lot of good news to report since March.

We start this report with a trip to Lee Valley in London for Jennifer Beattie for the England Masters Athletics Inter Area invitational meet, unfortunately the morning after the awards night!  A late night and early start are never ideal prep, but a 67.64 season opener for 4^th in the 400 and another 4^th in the 1500m (5:27.08) made the long day worthwhile prep for the forthcoming European masters.

Our road athletes are emerging from a winter of training and starting to race, and on Sunday the 22^nd of March we had 3 athletes take on the Alloa Half marathon – traditionally considered a good fitness test for spring marathons which all of these Harriers are aiming at!  First back in 59^th place was Scott Masterton (1:18:44), followed by Kirsty MacKay in 1103^rd (1:53:53) and Amy Mitchell in 1428^th (2:05:31).  Meanwhile a little closer to home, Allison Mair took on the inaugural Paisley Half marathon where she finished 650^th overall and 3^rd V60 in 2:01:22 – well done Allison!

The following week saw the start of the EMACI European Masters indoors championships in Torun.  This event ran from the 27^th of March right through to the 2^nd of April with over 4000 athletes competing for European Masters titles.  On day 1 of competition, Jennifer Beattie competed in the heats of the W40 400m.  A 4^th place in heat 1 with a new PB of 64.78 was not enough to progress to the finals, but was good enough for 10^th overall.  Monday the 30^th saw the heats for the 800m, where Jennifer was once again in action finishing 4^th in heat 2 (2:29.63) to take a q position for the final the next day.  Second claim athlete Graeme Gemmell was also running in heat 5 of the M60 category.  Such was the quality and depth in this age group that a 2:19.90 saw him miss out on a spot in the final, but to finish 12^th overall of 31 athletes was still a great achievement.  The following evening saw Jennifer toe the line in the W40 final, unfortunately it was not to be on the day but she was 9^th overall with a 2:29.99.  The final day of competition saw the 1500m, where the W40 race was run as a straight final.  Laura Haggarty had a great run in a very tactical race to claim the silver medal in 4:52.93, and Jennifer was 6^th in 5:12.21.  Amazing to see Laura lift another European medal – what an inspiration to the young athletes she coaches!

Meanwhile back home, 4 Harriers took part in the March edition of 3k on The Green on Friday the 27^th.  It was a win for Jordan Phillips in a very fine 9:16, followed by Ross Granger in 4^th (10:12), Mark Alexander in 5^th (10:25) and Lynsey O’Connor in 16^th (3^rd female) in 11:24 – well done all.  Sunday the 29^th of March was the return of the Tom Scott 10 mile road race, and it is safe to say that the weather did NOT get the memo – conditions were truly horrendous out there, huge well done to all that ran or supported on the day.  First back was Craig Ferguson in 19^th overall (55:39), followed by Matthew Monachello in 34^th (59:07), and Scott Masterton making up our trio of sub 60 runners in 38^th (59:34).  Next back was David Anderson in 106^th (1:06:59), Gary Martin in 109^th (1:07:10) and then the first of our ladies Bethany Ross who was 169^th (1:16:06), Natalie Sharp in 226^th  with a big PB (1:23:21) and then Lauren Carter in 247^th (1:26:28) – hope you’ve all finally managed to thaw and dry out!

This weekend saw our first marathon of the year, with Kirsty MacKay taking on some brutally windy conditions at the Boston (UK) marathon on Sunday to complete the course in 4:28:18 in 795^th overall, 159^th lady and 28^th in her age category – well done Kirsty!

Also suffering with the windy conditions were our team of athletes taking part in Match 1 of the CSSAL League at Ayr Riverside.  First out on the track were Jennifer Beattie and Amelie Adam in the combined senior and masters 3000m race.  Jennifer took the outright win, battling through the wind to finish in 11:56.58 and Amelie was 2^nd senior lady in the A string in 13:34.60.  Next out were our senior men in the 800m, where Jamie Work came out top of the A string athletes in an excellent 2:01.94 and Gregor Samson took the race win outright with his first sub 2 mins (1:59:43).  Excellent running from both of these young men in really challenging conditions, and great to see us take maximum points here.  The masters men also picked up some great points, with A string Ross Granger finishing 3^rd in 2:21.83 and B string Mark Alexander also finishing 3^rd in 2:23.42.  A quick turnaround into the 400m events proved no issue for Gregor, who finished 5^th in the A race in 54.93, and Ross Granger stepped in (and up) to the senior races at the last minute to gain us valuable points for 7^th in the B race (68.08).  Finally in the 100m events, Adam Todd was 8^th in the men’s A race in 12.97s, Alistair Craig was 7^th in the masters A (13.22s) and Douglas Dickson was 5^th in the masters B (14.25s).  Jennifer Beattie rounded up the masters sprints with a win in the ladies race (14.79).

In the field we had a few gaps, however the men made sure we took maximum points in the shot with Logan Mitchell winning the A group with 11.71m and Alistair Craig taking the B win with 8.16m – great work guys!  Meanwhile Laura Mitchell threw a javelin PB of 15.09m to finish 5^th in the ladies A group and Jennifer was 3^rd in the B section with 10.64m.  

Hopefully we can field a bigger team at the next match on the 10^th of May at Crownpoint – details to follow on socials shortly but this is traditionally the event with the sprint hurdles and 200m/1500m runs, field events still TBC.

Our first summer league race takes place next Wednesday at Eglinton Park for the Ron’s 5k, hope to see lots of you there!