I sometimes get quite nostalgic, of course my regular clients will know this as I use Alsop’s Fables to illustrate a point. It was whilst in reminiscent mode that I decided upon this week’s blog. I was taken back to a great day when I was unexpectedly thrown into the thick of it and emerged a National Champion. I am of course referring to my debut run for Edinburgh AC, though in those days they were named City of Edinburgh (and there was another name they were referred to by our friendly rivals the Hunters Bog Trotters).
But before I go into any details about the great day in question, let me start by explaining a little how I ended up a member of Edinburgh AC. Since starting to run, at the age of 24, and turning 40, I’d only ever had one club. It was my local club, Belgrave Harriers, and such was my attachment to them, I served my time as Road and Cross Country Captain and also held the position of Honorary Club Secretary. I had no intention of leaving them but around the time I turned 40 there were a few circumstances that came together, the result of which was that I switched allegiance to local rivals, Herne Hill Harriers. Soon after this switch my marriage broke down, which was taking the Belgrave/Herne Hill rivalry a little far (my ex-wife being a member of the Belles). With the marriage over I had nothing to tie me to London, and, having worked abroad as a contractor before, I started thinking about all the exotic locations I might go to work.
Having mentioned my good fortune to my boss and in my usual honest way, commenting that I didn’t anticipate staying in London much longer, I found myself being offered a promotion and relocation to the Edinburgh office. A move which would cement my future in the Bank, I so enjoyed working for. To cut a long paragraph short, I found myself living in Edinburgh by November 2005. As I was still making regular trips back to my home in London I didn’t really do anything about getting to know the running scene in Edinburgh, in fact it wasn’t until Boxing day (I had worked Xmas day so needed to get out and do something) that I ran my first race in Scotland. The race in question was a 14k multi terrain handicap race at Beecraigs. It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally have done on Boxing Day but faced with a miserable lonely day in a small flat it was a mighty relief. Thanks to my friend, Jim Buick, who provided the transport but also gave them information on my best 10k time, achieved 12 years earlier, I found myself going off scratch. Needless to say I had a lonely run, went off course and managed to punch myself in the face on a descent of the Cockleroy. I did however finish 2nd fastest so it wasn’t a complete failure.
My second race in Edinburgh was on New Year’s day 2006, in the Portobello 4 mile Road Race. It was nice to get out on New Year’s day, for some company, I’d spent a lonely New Year’s Eve and retired to bed early, having received my only New Year’s Eve greeting from a prostitute hanging out of a window on my walk home. Mind you going to bed early on New Year’s Eve in Edinburgh guarantees nothing other than being woken up at midnight by exploding fireworks. At the race I ran well and finished 4th but first man over 40, so not a bad start to the year. It was around this time that Jim Buick emailed me, asking if I’d joined a Scottish club yet. My cheeky response being that nobody had asked me resulted in Jim forwarding my reply to Alex McEwen and thus contact was made with City of Edinburgh. I’ll admit to being a bit hesitant at first, after all I was in a club already, and we were successful, but I knew I would be getting down to London a lot less once I’d settled in Edinburgh and the UK Athletics rules allowed me to run for both Herne Hill and Edinburgh.
So I joined City of Edinburgh and, due to other commitments, lined up my first race at the Scottish National Road Relays on 1 April. Of course being an oldie, and knowing that Edinburgh had more than 6 men better than me I expected to play a part in their Master's team. The week before the race I had spent in London, on a course, and as I flew back on the Friday night I figured that Edinburgh’s Masters were so strong it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t on full cylinders so decided to have a couple of glasses of wine to assist in enjoying the short flight. When I arrived back at my flat it was like walking into the Sahara Desert, without the sand. I’d moved in only the week before and my central heating hadn’t been working. I’d left keys with the workmen whilst I was in London and they’d fixed it but then left the heating on full output for four days. Despite turning it off, and opening windows, it was still the height of summer in my flat when I awoke from a restless night. So I hadn’t had the best preparation for my debut for Edinburgh. Still I was keen to run, get to know some of the local lads and set down a marker.
Still not knowing many people I drove to the race on my own, taking the long way round by getting lost twice. When I finally found the Edinburgh guys it was apparent Alex wasn’t around, he was on race marshal duty and had left the team in the hands of Mark Johnston. It was then that I was told I wasn’t going to make a difference to the Master’s team, I was actually last man into the A team for the Seniors. I looked at the team names, recognising nobody except Darren Gauson and Mark Johnston. I then noticed Martin Ferguson’s name in the Master’s team. ‘Surely’ I said ‘Martin is running better than me’, I’d seen some of his results and he was going well, I was beginning to regret having drunk two glasses of wine and sleeping in the oven. It was then I was introduced to Martin Ferguson, who had been standing next to me whilst I was singing his praises. Clearly happy to have someone say something nice about him Martin declined the place and was sure Alex knew what he was doing. I was beginning to wonder if Jim Buick had mentioned my times from previous decades and this had bumped me up the entry list. Oh well in for a penny.
I wasn’t nervous as the race started, I was on leg 5 and knew nothing of the team chances or the opposition. I had a lot of experience running and winning relays for Belgrave and Herne Hill so I was prepared for anything that came my way. Before the start I’d been introduced to the other 5 team members, but I knew very little about them and they knew even less about me. In the following few paragraphs I’ll describe the race as I saw it, with thanks to Mark Johnston who sent me a link with the full results. For any statos out there here is that link http://www.salroadrunningandcrosscountrymedalists.co.uk/Archive/Road%20Running/Road%20Relays/Results/2000s/2006%20ALL.pdf
It was Mark Mitchell who set us off on leg one. Still only 17, Mark was highly ranked in the UK in his age group for the 800m. But it was a big challenge to pit him against some of the strong runners on leg 1. Mark ran a fantastic short leg 16:17 to bring us in 3rd, just 11 seconds off 1st.
Grant Stewart, more of a hill runner than a road runner, took over from Mark on the first long leg. His time of 30:18 was 5th fastest on the leg but good enough to gain us 2nd place. In front a 29:21 from Irvine's David Millar had moved them from 8th to the lead.
Then it was the turn of Darren Gauson. Darren had been running well and was on his way to an American college, but before that he was to take us into the lead in this relay with a superb leg of 15:41. Great as it was this was only the 2nd fastest on the leg as Kilbarchan's Ross Toole ran the day's fastest short stage at 15:39, which brought them into 2nd place.
Half way through and we were leading, things were looking promising. Relays can fluctuate from leg to leg so being in the lead didn’t necessarily mean we had it sown up, still it does you no harm. I was one leg away and beginning to psyche myself up.
Mark Johnston was on 4th leg and although he had an 89 second lead he had some strong opposition on his long leg. Mark did a great job, running the 6th fastest time on his leg but couldn't hold of Irvine's Lee Richardson who brought them back into 1st position from almost 2 minutes back. I should point out here that Mark was at the Beecraigs run and was fastest man, running a minute quicker than me, that’s probably why he got the long leg and me the short – but I wasn’t complaining.
Not knowing for sure how long the long legs were I was at the start line early. I was enjoying not having to small talk with people, then an old gent came up to me and said ‘are you going to win this for Edinburgh, we’ve never won before’. Well history is one of my favourite subjects but my knowledge of City of Edinburgh’s lack of success was sadly lacking so all I could say was ‘I’ll give it a go’. At last the leader came in sight, and it wasn’t Mark. Irvine had taken the lead and they seemed to be a long way ahead, though it was actually only 16 seconds. Irvine’s 5th leg man set off and seemed to be pulling well away before Mark showed handed over in 2nd place.
Well I’ve done some pretty good relay legs in my time and I wasn’t about to let an old Edinburgh gent’s dreams get shattered. I set off after Irvine’s man, with a vengeance. Just before the 1 mile point I was metres down. It was at that precise point that I caught a quick sight of the Edinburgh lads, with mournful faces. It was only later that I realised they weren’t too happy with me because they’d seen Mark, on the previous leg, a long way ahead and, because they didn’t know me, they’d assumed I’d just lost the lead, it wasn’t until after the race that they realised I’d run ok. I pushed into the lead and, though I tired towards the end, the cheering Edinburgh lasses helped me on my way and I brought the team in 1st. My time of 16:26 was 2nd fastest on the leg, only 2 seconds down from one of Scotland's greatest athletes, Bobby Quinn, who'd brought Kilbarchan up to 3rd.
Matt Bell had the task of holding onto the 44 second lead I'd given him. As usual, I went for my cool down back along the course to cheer Matt on. I had no idea if he was going to hold the position and it was a long wait before he turned up, but he was and remained in the lead running the 3rd fastest time of the last leggers with 30:35. We’d won in a time of 2 hrs 20 min 50 secs and made an old gent happy, actually make that two old gents as I was pretty chuffed too, my first race for Edinburgh and I was a Scottish National Champ at the age of 41. 22 seconds behind us William Richardson had brought Irvine back up to 2nd and a further minute and 7 seconds behind were Ron Hill Cambuslang.
A couple of interesting post notes. The Irvine man I passed on my leg turned out to be Colin Miller. He was 48 years old at the time, so he’d had a tough task to try to hold first place, even if I was only a few years younger than him. We subsequently met up when we both represented Scotland, later in the year, and have become good friends. And here’s one for my Cambuslang friends, a lot of people made remarks about how it was a slow winning time. But do I care, no, the results speak volumes, it’s City of Edinburgh who were Scottish National Road Relay Champions in 2006, beating all those great teams who ran even slower and my medal states National Champion, not National Champion from a slow race.
Now 5 years on it’s interesting to see what has happened to Edinburgh’s team. They’re all Facebook friends of mine but we all live different lives in 4 different countries.
Mark Mitchell, still a young man at 23, he left Edinburgh at the end of the 2010 track season and is now putting in some good performances with Birchfield Harriers. I saw him on the TV yesterday, running in the UK Champs 1500m, along with another ex colleague Kris Gauson (brother to Darren). Mark ran a pb 3:44.44 to come in 8th with Kris two place back in 3:46.76.
Darren Gauson is still in America, he’s now coaching at Butler University, where he’s been joined by brother Kris. He’s still running and not bad too, having got close to 4 minutes for the mile this year. Interestingly both Darren and Kris also represent my old club, Belgrave.
Grant Stewart, born on the same date as me but 11 years later, just in time to enjoy one of the UK’s hottest summers, he’s also now a Master. He’s had some success with Mountain running but it appears he’s given up the running now to concentrate on being a Doctor.
Matt Bell was always a reliable runner, he also seemed to prefer running hill races. He’s now moved to Melbourne, Australia. Another one who has reached the age of Master, I hope he manages to find some good races in Australia.
Mark Johnston was the first to leave the club, moving to Bellahouston Road Runners within two years of this victory. Mark trained with the Bellahouston guys and felt a growing affinity with the club. He’s still running, and not badly too as he gets close to his 40th birthday.
And of the others;
Alex McEwen is still coaching at Edinburgh and I have him to thank for helping me when I was in training to become a Level 1 coach. As well as all the other athletically minded things he did for me whilst I was up in Edinburgh. A true club man, dedicated to seeing the success of athletics in Edinburgh and the sort of club man who should be given a leg of the Olympic torch relay. But don’t give him whisky, he doesn’t drink it. Incidentally he’s marked down on the Power of 10 as 40, which is quite interesting as I’d have said he saw his 50th birthday some time ago.
Jim Buick is now training to become a Personal Trainer and is already qualified as a Fitness Instructor and Run Leader. Jim has helped many people to pace their marathons, being a bit of a marathon expert. We still keep in touch and Jim pops down here sometimes to try out English races, I’ll have to get him along to Pennington Flash one weekend.
That was a good day indeed - us girls took bronze in a hard fought battle. Didn't know that was your first race for EAC, Rog! Kudos to you xx
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