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.
~
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 ***

Interested in competing in the Borders Athletics games? The 2024 fixtures are below and are self entry via EntryCentral. The Borders Athletics races take place on grass tracks and are open to all runners aged 9 and above. Races range from 90m to 1600m depending on the venue and are handicapped so that slower runners get a bit of an advantage by starting further up the field.

Lasswade athletes have done well in these races over the years with Murray Blair winning the top prize at Jedburgh in 2023.

The first fixture takes place on Saturday 1st June at Earlston and entries close on Sunday 19th May.

Borders Athletics Fixtures 2024

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.

Francis was 1st overall in the 5k race in a time of 00:19:33, beating an adult from Penicuik Harriers.

Rosa was the 1st female in the age group of 10-15 in a time of 00:25:24.

Kyle, who trains in the sprints group finished in 28:53.

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

Just a week on from our first competition of 2024 in the CSSAL league, Team Lasswade was back at Grangemouth, this time for the Forth Valley League.  We had a good number of PBs from athletes last week but what happened today was pretty spectacular – every athlete who competed today was either competing in an event for their very first time (so therefore setting their PB) or set a new PB – over 20 of them!   Wow!

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.

In the Under 13s, Isla, also coming off a great debut season in the cross country ran her first track race for Lasswade in the Under 13s 800m and like Freya, had a gun to tape victory solo-running 2m38.2. 

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)

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.

Central and South Scotland League – 2024 Match 1 Grangemouth

This interview by Frank Dick, former National Scottish Coach, has been around a while but for those who haven’t seen it please do take a couple of minutes to watch it before reading on….

The first track and field league competition of the summer took place on Saturday at Grangemouth.  Now competing in Division 2, it was important to get a good team out to build on the success from last season.  Not going to lie, it was disappointing to see quite a few blanks on our team sheet when we know we have athletes training hard and running well but not representing the club.  That said, the team that we did manage to put out were absolutely fantastic!

Some performances worthy of mention:

Joella took a staggering 24 seconds off her 600m time from last season and running confidently to take 3rd place.

Alec Miller smashed his high jump PB twice and joined the “6 foot” club, by clearing 1.80m and then 1.85m.

A great series of races in the 800m – Beth and then Bethan ran almost identical races in the U15 and U17 races; both sitting just off the lead for the first 500m and then picking up the pace down the back straight to make their bid for glory.  Beth’s turn of pace gave her a 4 second victory and a PB by nearly 3 seconds.  Bethan had to work a little harder for her victory but her strong kick with 120m to go will be a great confidence booster for the East Districts championships in a fortnight. 

Not to be outdone by his daughter Beth, Ken’s gun to tape victory in the Master’s 800m earned him a 16 second victory and a 5 second pb.  Pocket money negotiations in light of the two PBs in the McWilliam household will be interesting conversations although Beth also won the javelin with an impressive 18m throw so should be the happier of the two. 

Aaden continued his great form in the 800m from last season, finishing fast for 2^nd place in the U17s age group.  His time of 2m10.28s takes nearly 5 seconds off his PB. Aaden also ran his first 400m race earlier in the day running a great time of 55.34s which would have been good enough for 2nd in the Senior’s race.

Our under 11 mixed relay team of Corrie, Lachlan, Lara and Antek showed the future is bright by winning their race with some great baton changes. 

Thanks to the officials, coaches and parents for bringing our athletes to the competition. Thanks also to one of our younger athletes who also convinced their parent to compete – they have reluctantly admitted they enjoyed it too!

Going back to Frank Dick’s interview: Nineteen athletes recorded PBs in various events; three athletes competing for the first time (Eva, Elsa and Kyle) and many athletes competing in new events that they can improve on for next time…  That’s definitely winning!

Provisionally, Lasswade finished in 2^nd place with Shettleston taking the win by over 100 points.  3^rd place Dunfermline were just 2 points behind so those blanks spaces on the team sheet really do make a difference.

For those wanting to compete at the next CSSAL fixture on the Sunday 9^th June, please complete this form. The timetable and list of events is here.

We are convening at this competition so if you’re able to help, please get in touch. Anyone fancy being the stadium announcer?