East District Cross Country Relays – 01/10/2022

The first cross country race of the season took place in Galashiels on 1st October. This race was held in Galashiels last year and it was the same challenging hilly course in the majestic border’s countryside. The rain did threaten in the afternoon but we were lucky and the weather held, it was much kinder to us than last year with a mild dry afternoon.

There was a big difference in the number of Lasswade AC teams this year. Last year we initially had eleven teams entered for the event over all age groups and ended up fielding eight teams on the day. This year we initially had seven teams and ended up with five on the day.

The first event to get underway was the young females and u13 girl Beth McWilliam got her team of to a great start finishing the first leg in 5th place. Freya Mowbray was our second leg runner for our first team and she had a solid run to finish her leg and hand over to Olivia Meikle in 4th place. Olivia ran well on the final leg with the 3rd fastest time of the day for an u17 to maintain 4th position, a great start to the day’s events. In our other young female team Lucy Ward had a strong run to finish in 19th place on first leg and hand over to Emma Thomson. Emma an u13, stepped up to run our u15 leg and ran well to hand on in 20th place to final leg runner Bethan Kitchin. Bethan an u15 was also stepping up and running the u17 leg and had a strong run to finish in 20th place. It was great to see two teams competing and a number of the girls running amongst the fastest lap times for their respective age groups.

In the young males we also had two teams and our u13 runners were Struan Milne and Francis Ovani-Finnegan both running well on the first leg to hand over in 15th and 18th place respectively. Jonathan MacQueen and Lauchie Welsh were our u15 runners having solid runs and handing over to our final leg runners in 20th and 21st place. Andrew McWilliam and Rowan Taylor both ran well on the final leg with Andrew pulling his team up to 13th with the 4th fastest leg of the day. Rowan wasn’t too far behind in 14th and with the 7th fastest leg of the day.

The next event was the ladies race and Lasswade had placed 3rd in 2019 and won it in 2021. Sadly there was no defence of the title as we were unable to field a team.

The final event of the day was the men and Lasswade AC initially had two teams. However, with one athlete withdrawing due to injury others followed as the team was incomplete so it was scrapped and we ended up with only a Masters team competing . On the first leg Ken McWilliam got the team off to a good start in 31st place overall (14th in the Masters) to hand over to Andrew McGlone. Andrew had a solid run to hand on to 3rd leg runner Steve Brown in 33rd place (18th in Masters) . Steve was our next runner and ran well over the 4k course to keep us in the top 40 overall and top 20 in the masters. Our final leg runner was Derrick Brydon who had a good run to bring the team home in 38th place overall and 16th masters team.

A great day’s athletics with some fine performances from six of our young athletes getting amongst the fastest times of the day in their respective age groups.

Congratulations to everyone on their performances.

For full results click here

Thanks for all your help on the day especially Stuart Meikle for arriving early and helping us erect the tent.  

See you all at the National Relays!

Kirk and Linda

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Multi-Events – Thursday 20th October

Our Multi Events coaches will be taking a well deserved break on Thursday, 20th October so there will be no training session that night.

Training for all other groups should be on as usual (unless your coach tells you otherwise!).

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HBT Pentland Hills Junior Hill Race

Sunday 25th September saw some of Lasswade’s junior endurance runner turn out for HBT Junior Hill Race in the beautiful Pentland Hills.

Full results can be found here.

Spoiler: Francis 4th U13 Boy, Eilidh 3rd U13 Girl, Bethan 4th U15 Girl, Rowan 1st U17 Boy, Laurence 3rd U17 Boy.

Well done to all the Lasswade athletes.

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Scottish Athletics Indoor League 2022 (SAIL)

Dates for the Indoor League have been announced.

Match 1: Sunday 27/11/22
Match 2: Saturday 10/12/22 
Match 3: Sunday 15/01/23
Final: Sunday 05/03/23 (subject to team qualification)

For anyone who hasn’t competed in the SAIL before, these competitions are held at the Emirates Arena Indoor Track in Glasgow, which is probably the best indoor athletics venue in the UK and was the venue for the 2019 European Indoor Championships. Check out these photos from the last time Lasswade competed in the league in 2020.

As it’s an indoor track the events range from 60m to 800m (including 60m hurdles) and field events are restricted to Long Jump, High Jump and Shot Putt.

The competition is open to athletes in the U11 to U20 age groups. Anyone wishing to compete in the league please speak to your coach or email competitions@lasswade-ac.org.uk as soon as possible so that we can gauge interest and work out how many teams we need to enter.

We’re also looking for volunteers to help manage the teams on the day. Please get in touch if you can help or speak to Keith or Susan at the track.

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Training Cancelled – Monday 19th September

Due to the Public Holiday for the Queen’s funeral, Dalkeith Campus will be closed and there will be no training sessions taking place for all groups.

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EasyFundraising

Help us with a challenge: We could receive a £50 donation for the club, if we can get 50 people to support us by registering on our fundraising page before the 30th September. 15 supporters have raised £128 so far!
Easyfundraising is a free fundraising platform that allows us to earn when you shop online at over 7,000 brands like Ebay, PetsAtHome, JD Sports, Groupon, JustEat, Dunelm. Free and easy to use, it’s a great way for you to support us without it costing you a penny. Every grocery shop,  Friday night takeaway, and more means we will receive free funding we can invest in our club.

Just follow the link and support us: http://efraising.org/HpyaxlwRPh

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Scottish National Relay Championships

Grangemouth, Saturday 10th September

Great to see some Lasswade teams at the Relay Championships today. The U15 and U17 girls ran well in the 4x100m and had solid baton but unfortunately did not progress beyond the heats.

The U17 Men qualified for the final of the 4x100m as 5th fastest and improved to 4th against strong competition. The eventual winners from Shettleston would have finished 3rd in the Senior Men’s final. Aaron and Kieran made their debut for the club, with Kieran stepping up from the U15s age group to allow the U17s to field a team.

The Senior Men’s team also faced tough competition in the 4x400m relay which included the exact same Kilbarchan team that won the title last year. The team chased hard and left everything on the track to finish 5th. It’s fair to say that there wasn’t much appetitive to pose for photos after their race so this is the closest we got to a team photo!

Well done to all who turned out for Lasswade today and hopefully we can get some more teams out next year.

No Images found.

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HBT Pentland hills junior hill race

Sunday 25 September 2022

Any juniors from U13 and above fancy trying a hill run. Megan (multi-events coach) is organising a junior hill race on Sunday 25th September. The event will be a low key event and a good opportunity to experience hill running.

Entry details can be found on the Scottish Athletics website events page here

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Club Competition 2022 Photos

Many thanks to Terry Sullivan and Barry Munro for providing photos from the Club Competition and capturing some great memories of the night.

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Lasswade AC Club Competition

Report from Susan

The first day of Autumn turned out to be a lovely one and perfect for our Club Competition, the first for quite a few years. One of the aims of the Competition was to encourage our young athletes to compete again after we lost some momentum due to Covid as well as the loss of a number of Coaches. We were delighted with the turn out of around 70 x U17 athletes and most of them entered the maximum 3 events, some trying events for the first time. They all put 100% effort into everything which was wonderful to see and resulted in some fantastic performances which also bodes well for the future. We hope some have found a new “favourite“ event or at least another event they’re not afraid to try again. Congratulations to them all.

There were some very exciting close finishes on the track, none more so than the 110m Invitation Handicap which went right to the wire and all of which provided fantastic viewing for the spectators. Likewise in the Field Events, in particular the Long Jump where there were quite a few tussles for top spot.

Fifteen Relay Teams made up  of all age groups,  all running to clock the fastest times was an amazing way to finish the Competition. The medal presentation, with a beautiful sunset as a backdrop, was a moving experience for the Coaches as it was wonderful to see the Athletes all together, celebrating their own success and of those around them. We were delighted to welcome David Hand, the Club founder, who continues to support the Club at every opportunity, and was happy to present the medals and trophies. It was great to see so many spectators cheering on the Athletes and helping to create a warm, friendly and encouraging atmosphere.

We could not run an event like this without the voluntary support of the Officials  and those who helped them, so a huge thank you to them. We must also acknowledge the hard work of the Coaches who again give up so much of their time to prepare the youngsters for the events like this. Thanks to Leigh for setting up her little cafe providing much needed hot drinks as the evening air cooled. A special thanks to Andy, Keith and Susan for the huge amount of work they put in beforehand and on the evening .

There is no time to rest as we now look ahead to the Scottish Relay Championships on Saturday 10th at Grangemouth where we have entered a number of teams running distances from 100m to 800m . The Indoor Track and Field season starts soon and will take place over a number of weekends throughout the autumn and winter at The Emirates in Glasgow.

Our own Cross Country Competition will take place on Sunday 30th October at Gorebridge and there will be numerous events over the autumn and winter too. Please keep checking the website for further information on the above.

So a final thank you to everyone, including athletes who helped make our Competition such a success. See you next year!

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