SCOTTISH DISTANCE RUNNING HISTORY

Colin Youngson, pictured above is one of Scotland’s best ever endurance runners with winning performances on the track, over the country, along the roads and occasionally in hill races such as the Lairig Ghru. Known principally as an Aberdonian, he also ran for Victoria Park while living in Glasgow between 1971 and 1973. During that period he also took 10 months to race in Sweden while teaching there and faced such as double Olympian and world cross country champion Pekka Paivarinta. Read about these years here .

Who’s the modest looking Cambuslang Harrier second left in second front row? It’s the subject of our latest profile, Mike Johnston who has been a fixture in the endurance running firmament since the turn of the century with important roles in four Commonwealth Games, two hill running and ultra games and with two GB jobs to his credit. Read about him at this link. I had valuable assistance wile doing it from Dave Cooney and took the opportunity to bring his profile up to date, You should read it here .

Dave Cooney with his son Alan at the Pier to Pier, Sunderland, in 2022

John Mackay of Shettleston Harriers is looking for photographs of winning Allan Scally Relay teams for the club website. It’s a good race and one that I always enjoyed running in. I think everyone did simply because it was so well organised – in the days before laptops and even desktops they always had the results of every runner in the race very quickly after the appropriate leg was run. If you have any photographs of a winning team, male or female, please send them to him direct or to me and I’ll forward them to him.

The photograph above was taken at the Rangers Sports of 1955 – and a marvellous meeting it was too. Coverage is now complete.. Coverage is now complete with some information on the importance of the Sports to Scottish athletics and the sheer quality of the athletes in the invitation events. It covers the superb half mile with Tom Courtney, Brian Hewson, Derek Johnston and Audun Boysen all taking part – all finishing within eight yards of each other. You can see it at this link.

Ewan Cameron of Edinburgh AC leading the field shortly after the start in 2023. He won in 2022, 2023 and 2025, second in 2024.

The Edinburgh to North Berwick 20 Miles Road Race left the road runng calendar in 2017 but thanks to the Lawson brothers (Alan and Alistair) it was resurrected in 2022 and is now being contested with over 200 runners in the 2025 race. The original Trophy had been lost but it has been found and is awarded to the first man to finish – first woman has her own trophy. The account of the race from 2022 to 2025 is available at this link.

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