Lasswade athletes have had a busy few weeks competing in various league competitions, Border Athletics Games ans schools competitions. It’s also an increasing number also competing in the Open Graded competitions for extra competition opportunities. These are really good competitions to try something new or even get more experience in your favourite events. Hopefully I haven’t missed any competitions in the round-up but if we have, please let us know and send any photos and a mini-report of the competition. Thanks.

Glasgow Milers Meet, 31^st May Scotstoun

There were plenty of PBs for the endurance runners but the highlight was Andy Brown’s Scottish Record for the M45 800m.

Andy Brown	M45 800m	1:58.79	M45 Scottish Record
Innes Wright	U20M 800m	2:00.57	PB
Cerys Wright	U15W 800m	2:13.28	PB
Freya Brown	U15W 800m	2:16.16	PB
Harry Henriksen	SM 3000m	08:12.56	PB
Andrew McWilliam	U20M 3000m	08:25.96	PB
Laurence Ward	U17M 3000m	09:24.93

Scottish Schools Pentathlon Championship, 1st June Grangemouth

Full Results

Beth, Emma, Yvie and Isla represented Dalkeith High School.

Earlston Border Games, 1^st June

The opening fixture of the Border Games for 2024 saw Keith, Charlie, Petter and Eloise take part in the sprint events.

Petter reached the x-ties (semis) of the 90m and cruised into the final of the 200m with ease.  Unfortunately, coming into the home straight, Petter was badly balked by a runner pulling up and despite recovering well had to settle for 3rd place.

Keith also reached x-ties of the Open 90m and the final of the Vets 90m finishing 3^rd.

Charlie was our only representative in the final of the open 90m where he finished 5th.

Eloise ran well in the final of the 400m and was the first lady to cross the line but a bit behind the eventual winner. Hopefully see a kinder mark from the handicapper in the future will see her challenging for the prizes.

FVL Match 2 – Livingston 2^nd June

Provisional Results

With a busy week of school athletics competitions leading up to the fixture, the team was a little depleted due to athletes having a well deserved rest or having picked up an injury (boo!). 

Stephanie, Esme, Olivia S , Daniel and Leo all made their track debut for the club and acquitted themselves well.  A great run from Esme in the U13 girls 1500m saw her work steadily through the field to finish 2^nd overall behind Isla M which meant we took first place in both the A and B events.

PBs came from Lachlan in the U11s 200m, Antek got his PB in the U11s 600m, Ollie was another runner to get a 200mPB and Lara had a fantastic day with PBs in both the 600m and high jump.

Provisionally Lasswade were 6^th on the day but with the high jump points have been included, we could be lifted into 5^th place.  

Thank you to Fiona, Zee, Ruth, John and Joanna for helping officiate on the day and to Alison who was part of the start team.

Our final fixture for the FVL is on Saturday, 31st August. If anyone is willing to help act as team manager for this fixture please get in touch with Keith.

Scottish Schools Championships, 7th – 8th June, Grangemouth

Results

Strong winds prevented most of our athletes recording PBs in the majority of their events but nonetheless, great performances from our Lasswade athletes. 

In the middle distance events, Cerys Wright won gold in the 1500m; Freya Brown took silver in the 800m and Andrew McWilliam took bronze in the 1500m. 

Entry to the Scottish Schools championships is organised by the athlete’s school so it can be quite tricky sometimes to get more of our athletes competing in this competition. A quick scan of the results shows Lasswade having at least 20 athletes competing – well done to all of you.

Peebles Border Games, 12^th June

Murray, Keith, Eloise and Charlie all raced in the 110m sprint where Charlie and Murray reached the final where they finished 3^rd and 6^th respectively.  It was a fine achievement for Murray to reach the final – his 2m handicap after his win in Jedburgh last year left him too much to do in a good quality final.

Eloise ran a great race to qualify for the one lap final where she finished 5^th.

CSSAL Match 2, 9^th June Grangemouth

Results

After a great team result in the 1^st Match,  Match 2 was going to be a more challenging competition as the timetable featured a large number of sprint hurdle races where we’ve yet to re-establish a hurdle group.  Lasswade was only able to fill a small number of spaces on the team sheet in the hurdle races and our athletes who filled in did well to earn us some valuable points.  Despite this minor setback, there were good performances in the remaining events to make up lost ground. 

In the 200m, James ran a fantastic first race for the club winning the U17 men’s B race.  In the U15 girls B race, Aoife S, recovering from a sore ankle, won her race too.  Kyle and Eva covered the A races and ran great times – Eva running almost a second faster than her first 200m in the FVL just a week earlier.  More great runs for Bethan and Abbie in the U17 200m – their times would have been PBs but for the strong wind behind them.

Double wins for Charlie and Petter in the senior 200m.  Despite having run the 200m twice the day before at the Scottish Schools where the windspeed was too strong for legal PBs, Petter did get finally get rewarded with a new legal PB of 23.34 (0.0 windspeed – the same time as one his runs the day before which had a +4.0 wind!).

Sarah Donnelly won her Masters 200m in her first race for the club.  Sophie B having jist returned from a warm weather training jaunt with her university ran well for 3^rd in the 200m and despite still being very tired from the travelling, still managed to score important points by competing in the 1500m and discus.

Having had a busy few weeks competing in schools competitions, Beth and Emma picked up important points covering events that they don’t normally train for.  Both ran the 70m Hurdles and finished in the exact same time.  Beth also picked up points in the High Jump and Long Jump.  Emma set a fantastic PB of 1.40m to win the U15 girls high jump. 

Lara and Isla H both recorded new PBs in the 600m (Lara’s 2nd PB over 600m in a week!).  Lara also won the LJ in a new PB.

Isla M and Esme ran well in the 1200m, with Isla taking 2^nd and Esme backing Isla up well to win the B race.  Bethan K scored more points in the 1500m with 3^rd place in the U17 Ladies ‘A’ race, the same position as Olivia in the senior women’s race.

Lachlan was our only U11 Boy competing in the CSSAL today.  As always Lachlan competed with a smile on his face and recorded a PB in the long jump.  Big brother, Ollie also recorded a PB in his LJ and has now added nearly half a meter to his PB from last season.  Well done, Ollie.

Petter picked up more vital points in the LJ, gaining a second PB of the day in the process.  Both Petter and Ken also score useful points in the SM shot putt.  Kyle finished 2^nd in the U17 javelin. 

Luke B threw well in the javelin – not too far off his performance last season’s club competition.

Struan was well pleased with his 22second PB in the 1500m although he just narrowly missed breaking the 5 minute mark.  Next time Struan!

Aaden took over 12 seconds off his 1500m PB in the Under 17s age group.  He was narrowly beaten into 2^nd place with a hard fight down the home straight.  Definitely more to come from Aaden. In the Masters 1500m, Ken took maximum points again with a 1500m PB.

Lasswade finished a credible 5^th place on the day and sit 3^rd in the league overall.  Our next (and final fixture in the CSSAL League is on Sunday, August 25th.

Big thanks to Ross Milne and Scott MacIntyre for diligently recording all the results on the day; Sam Kitchin for volunteering to be the stadium announcer and to our officials/helpers, Harry Baird, Susan Outerson, Ruth Szymanski and Kelly Grieve.

SuperTeams National Final, 22nd June Ayr

Our team of Kupa, Lara, Anatswa and Lachlan did superbly well to finish 13th overall out of 35 teams across the whole of Scotland.

It’s worth noting that the long jump distances were recorded from the point of take off rather than the usual method. Lara’s and Lachlan’s jumps are around 30cm further than their official PBs and a good indicator that there are plenty more PBs to come from them both.

Thank you to Darren Winters for helping out as team manager and chaperone.

Falkirk Harriers Open Graded: June 26^th, Grangemouth

Results
Highlights for Lasswade were two PBs for Sophie B in the 100m and 400m; Emma T and Aaden in the 1500m. Well done to all of you.

Sunday 9th June, Grangemouth

The team selections for Sunday’s competition have just been emailed out. If you haven’t received an email please check your spam folders and get in touch if not received.

Anyone who has borrowed a vest recently but isn’t competing on Sunday, please bring these to training on Thursday.

As part of National Volunteers’ Week, from June 3rd to the 9th, Lasswade AC wants to thank each and every one of our brilliant team who give up their time to make our club function.

Whether it’s our coaches, officials, committee, admin, social media………. Whatever role you play we are extremely grateful and want to say: THANK YOU! 

When members attend training this week we invite them to thank their coach or any other volunteer. This can be by handshake, fist bump or simply saying thanks.

We would love to recruit more volunteers. So, to see what is involved, how you will be supported and where we need your help please see here In particular we need to bring a new Treasurer on board at the next AGM – further info is within the link above.

If you are interested in joining our great band of volunteers please email Harry on lasswade.cdo@gmail.com for further info.

We’re still looking for a few more athletes for the Forth Valley League at Livingston on Sunday 2nd June (especially in the boys teams). Please sign up as soon as possible so that the teams can be finalised.
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Sign up can be made from the links on our Track and Field page.
http://www.lasswade-ac.org.uk/club/track-field-comps-fixtures/

Also a reminder that the CSSAL League fixture for all age groups takes place on the 9th June at Grangemouth.

Apologies for the short notice…. training for the multievents groups has been cancelled tonight due to the exceptional amount of rainfall in the last 24 hours.. Please share and spread the word.

*** update: endurance and sprints training still going ahead but will be a reduced session in most cases with training expected to finish at 8pm for the endurance group ***

Borders Athletics Fixtures 2024

Venue	Date
Earlston Games	Saturday 1st June
Hawick Games (note that this clashes with our CSSAL fixture!)	Sunday 9th June
Peebles Games	Wednesday 12th June
Selkirk Games	Saturday 15th June
Kelso Games	Sunday 30th June
Jedburgh Games	Saturday 13th July
St Ronan’s Games	Saturday 20th July
Langholm Games	Friday 26th July
Morebattle Games	Saturday 10th August

Lots of great results this weekend from Grangemouth including a triple win for Archie in the U13 boys 100m, 200m and LJ. Archie’s 13.4s; 27.15 times for the 100m and 200m were both PBs, as was his 4.94m jump.

In the U15 Girls events, Freya won the 1500m in 4:38.93, Cerys and Beth were 2nd and 4th in the 800m (2:16.84 & 2:22.94 respectively) all in new PBs. Mia also set new PBs in the 100m (14.15s) and 200m (30.09s).

In U17s women, Bethan finished 6^th in the 800m final with 2:23.26 having run 2:21.76 in her heat. Eloise finished 3rd in the final of the 300m with 42.84s and Abbie finished 6th in the 200m with a PB of 28.86s.

In the Nation Open events for seniors, Petter and Ramsay had a close race in the 100m with Petter getting the nod in 11.64s to Ramsay’s 11.65s (PB). In the ‘B’ final, this time running into the wind, Petter clocked 11.68 for the win, with Ramsay in 4th with 12.00s. Both Petter and Ramsay cam back the next day for the 200m. Petter set a new PB of 23.67 with Ramsay just behind with 23.87s. In the 200m final, Petter finished 6th in 23.85s. In the high jump, Alec cleared 1.77m for 3rd.

Well done to all who competed, hopefully I haven’t missed anyone in the results.

CSSAL Results – Match 1

Scrutinised results for the CSSAL competition that took place on the 27th April are now available here. On the track, Lasswade in 2nd place just 5 points ahead of Dunfermline but once all the extra points for officials were added, Lasswade ended up a comfortable 55 points ahead. Thanks to our officials Susan, Megan, John, Ruth and Linden for helping secure those valuable points.

League Competitions coming up….

Reminder that the next CSSAL competition is on Sunday 9th June at Grangemouth. Please sign up here. The main events on the track are the 200m and 1500m and plenty of field events too.

Forth Valley League – for Under 11s to Under 15s – please sign up here before the 26th May. The next fixture is at Livingston on Sunday 2nd June.

On behalf of Alison Binns (Assistant Coach/Athlete of Endurance Group and organiser of the Bluebell Trail Run)…

The Bluebell Trail Run happened today, 12th May 2024 at Dalkeith Country Park.

Also, Myles Bax who runs for Edinburgh AC but trains with Lasswade AC, was the overall winner of the 10k in 00:37:28, a fantastic return to great form. Oscar, also ran in the 10k race and finished in 52:13.

Other excellent performances from adults and children in 5 and 10k.

It was also supported by our volunteers from the club, Keith Kong, Sophie Binns (marshals), Susan Outerson (timer) and Alison Binns (starter and organising team).

Here is the link to the Mypas Bluebell Trail Website – https://www.bluebelltrail.co.uk/

Saturday, 4th May 2024, Grangemouth

Coming off a great cross country season, Freya smashed her 800m PB by 9 seconds winning the Under 15s race by the length of the straight in 2m16.4.  Although still very early in the season, this would currently rank her in the top 10 in the UK.

For the boys, Fraser and Moray, who both ran in the CSSAL last week both set new PBs both running over 10 seconds faster than the week before.  Fraser had already taken 9 seconds off his PB last week so to improve his PB by 19 seconds over two races was an amazing performance.

Highlights In the sprints came from victories for Kupa, Archie  and Isla over 100m.  Corrie, Ada, Ollie, Mia and Eva all recorded PBs.

In the field events, Kupa made it a double victory by winning the Shot Putt; Emma added 3 meters to her Javelin PB for 2^nd place 0and backed up by Megan who won the B event in a new PB.  Going home with the biggest smile on his face will no doubt be our jumps coach, Mark Szymanski, who saw Lasswade do the double-double in the U13 high jump competitions.  Archie and Harrison won the boys A & B events and Ada and Orla took victory in the girls A & B events. No surprises, all of these in PBs!

Every athlete should be proud of their performances today.

Another strong performance from Team Lasswade saw us provisionally in 2^nd place officials points to be added.

Provisional Team Results

(Excludes official points, U13s High Jump)

Position	Team	Points
1st	Cumbernauld	477
2nd	Lasswade	453.5
3rd	Livingston & District	424
4th	Central	422
5th	Harmeny ‘B’	402
6th	Dunfermline	357
7th	Lothian	275
8th	Dunbar	208.5

Individual Results can be found here: https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/2024/GBR/fvl-m1-d2/

Thanks you to Linden, John and Ruth for officiating; Dave, Zee and Fiona for helping run the events and to our coaches who are clearly doing a fantastic job with our athletes.

Next competition:  The next competition in the Forth Valley League will be on Sunday 2nd June at Livingston. This time, we will be competing in the morning session. Entries are open now and will close on Sunday 26th May

Grangemouth Stadium Closure

Grangemouth Stadium is one of many facilities that could be closed by Falkirk Council in 2025. Unfortunately, athletics is not blessed with the best facilities especially in the Central belt of Scotland and the loss of Grangemouth Stadium would be a huge blow. Please sign the petition to help save Grangemouth.