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
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
Entries typically close 2 weeks before the competition.
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 6th 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).
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 2nd 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 2nd place officials points to be added.
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….
What is Winning?
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 2nd 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 2nd place with Shettleston taking the win by over 100 points. 3rd 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 9th 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?
There were lots of great performances from our small team of 12 at the Saughton heat of the SuperTeams today. Over 120 athletes took part in the competition which comprises of a 75m race, a standing long jump and a (turbo) javelin throw. All results are converted into points to decide the overall winner and team placings.
Although billed as an under 12s competition, a late change to the cut-off dates for the competition led to a little bit of confusion as the results were announced and some of under 12s were reclassified as under 14s. However, it did mean that Lasswade walked away with a few more medals! In the under 14 girls, Ada and Katie took silver and bronze and in the under 12s, Lara took another silver home for Lasswade. Unfortunately, with only 2 boys representing Lasswade, we only had one complete team (two girls, two boys) who finished 4th and qualified for the final in June.
Well done to our 12 athletes: Neave, Katie, Lara, Ada, Kupa Ayla, Anatswa, Corrie, Amber, Orla, Lachlan and Isla. I’m pretty certain they all had a great time and it would be good to see more athletes (especially boys) turning out next time.
Thank you to our friends at Harmeny and Corstophine for organising the heat and to our coaches who got the athletes ready for the competition.
The timetable for the first league fixture is now available here. We still need more athletes to sign-up for the competition especially in the male age groups and senior women. There are events for all age groups from Under 11s to Masters.
Being part of this league means that we will occasionally be asked to help play a bigger part in the running of the competition on the day and so Lasswade will be doing so for the second fixture (Sunday 9th June at Grangemouth). We’re looking for a couple of volunteers to help record the results from the day (familiarity with spreadsheets would be an advantage). Please let Keith or Leigh know if you can help. We’re also looking for assistance with team management this season in both the CSSAL League and for the Forth Valley League so please get in touch with Keith if you’re interested in helping out.
Sad to see Ross Finlayson, one of Lasswade’s club stalwarts move on to another club. It’s fair to say that Ross has achieved alot during his (almost) 30 years with Lasswade and has got out of athletics (and club membership) that we hope all members will.
Ross Finlayson writes:
I was just writing as I think the time has come for me to join a local athletics club. I’ve been living ‘up North’ since 2011, and over time the opportunities to compete for Lasswade have been less and less, and with the dissolving of the Men’s League I don’t think there are any team competitions I can make any more.
I wanted to just say a little bit about my love for Lasswade and all the club has done for me… From what I can recall, I came to the Midlothian ‘Come and Try’ athletics at Lasswade high school in 1996. We ran a race and I was narrowly beaten. Almost immediately I had Davy Hand chatting with me, and before you know it, the second I turned 9, I was competing in the U11s cross-country.
From there on I ran cross country every winter, and did track races in the summer. The team minibus journeys are a strong memory for me, travelling through with the people who would become lifelong friends, mentors and heroes. I was naturally tall and strong and so pentathlon was a happy hunting ground – I believe I still have the National Record for this at U13 level. There were Scottish titles and podiums indoors, outdoors, and some great trips across the whole country. I did all the events, and I mean all of them!
I specifically remember my first Men’s league event in Inverness. I was too young to compete in the main A or B stream event but I think I got a guest spot in the 800m, this was all part of Davy’s plan to get me ready for the big time the following year. With Andy Sobik’s help we had a great run in the Men’s League including winning Division 2, and being voted Club of the Year while I was captain. This is a stand-out moment of pride for my life. I dabbled in Pro running at the Border Games events – always wearing the Lasswade vest with pride, and won the league a couple of times, with some great memories along the way. To this day my 800m PB is from a glorious race at Meadowbank in the Men’s League. I knocked over 4s off my time in one day. I’m still not 100% sure how I did it.
I never quite cracked the 1,500m and so with University then work and moving to the North east of Scotland, it took me some time to find my way back to enjoying running and learning that winning isn’t what makes running great. To this day, I miss the club training atmosphere, the characters, the routine, and all the friendly faces turning up week-in and week-out.
I’ve chased the distances all the way up to a 36 mile Ultra marathon, and probably my peak race lately was a 2.48.30 marathon in Boston in 2023.
Joining Lasswade unquestionably changed my life for the better. It gave me a focus, an outlet, and a social group that was absolutely key to making me more confident, happier, and helped shape my future. I could not have been without my club.
So although it is sad to move on, I have so many good memories and the permanent benefits from being a part of Lasswade. I want to thank every single person who was part of that childhood journey. I could share these stories for hours/days/weeks.
Ross Finlayson, third from right in the Senior Men’s Team, Division 2 Champions 2019
If anyone has any pre-loved kit that is no longer being used but still have a bit of life in them, we’d love to help find them a new home. Running spikes, club vests and starting blocks are always in demand. Please hand them to your coach at training or drop us an email.
Participation? It’s not just about Monday and Thursday training nights!
The summer track and field season will soon be upon us and we’ve now updated the Track and Field guide on our website.
For under 12s, we have the superTeams qualifiers at Saughton Park, Edinburgh on Sunday, 14th April. Sign up using this Google Form.
Our first league competitions are in the Central and South Scotland League at Grangemouth on Saturday 27th April. This is for U11s to Masters age groups. Sign up using this Google Form
The next competition after that is just a week later (Saturday 4th May) in the Forth Valley League for U11s to U15s and is also at Grangemouth. Sign up using this Google Form.
New to the club or competitions? We have our virtual parent’s evening on Tuesday 26th March at 7pm where we can answer all your questions about track and field competitions. Sign up using this Google Form
