Author: The Author

Tommy with Dave Cannon

Tommy Murray (born 18/5/1961) was a real individual – an outspoken man who overcame considerable difficulties to enjoy an outstanding running career, mainly in the 1990’s, when Scottish GB Internationalists were very rare indeed.   This profile will be based on his own email autobiography and has been put together by Colin Youngson.

Tommy calls himself ‘a bit of a rogue’ during his schooldays at Cowdenknowes High School in Greenock.   He certainly did not enjoy the muddy, hilly cross-country course.   Between the ages of 14 and 20, he suffered terribly from anorexia and bulimia, before taking up employment with Inverclyde Council and taking up an exercise regime.   He got around the Inverclyde Marathon in 3 hours 57 minutes.   After that he was invited to train with that distinguished old club Greenock Glenpark Harriers and his improvement was rapid.   After doing repetition sessions with stars like Lachie Stewart, Hammy Cox and Cammy and Lawrie Spence, he won the Glenpark club cross-country championship in early 1985, defeating ex-international Dick Hodelet who had won the event ten times.   In October 1985, Tommy Murray wore the Scottish vest for the first time in a Celtic Nations contest at the Isle of Man.   Bobby Quinn was a team-mate.

In 1987 Tommy won his first Scottish title, the 10000m at Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh.   (He was to win this championship four times for four different clubs: Greenock Glenpark Harriers, Cambuslang Harriers, Spango Valley AAC and Inverclyde AAC.)   On this first occasion Tommy’s committed front-running dropped everyone apart from the Cambuslang pair Calum Murray and Andy Beattie.   Remembering Lachie Stewart  mentioning that most runners ‘went for home’ at the 20 lap mark, Tommy surged hard at 19 laps!   He went clear and won in 29:38.

In 1989, Tommy was not considered by the pundits to have a chance of winning the Scottish National Cross-Country Championship – Neil Tennant, Paul Evans and Steve Ovett were the favourites.   However once he got a look at the Hawick course which was a mixture of churned-up snow and mud, Tommy was confident that he could handle the heavy going.   He wrote: “As the starter fired his pistol and the race got underway, I got myself up to the front and into the lead, with several main contenders bunched up behind me.   After about two miles of the seven miles race, I suddenly felt as if I was floating along, oblivious to my surroundings – or as some say ‘in the zone.’   For the next few miles I continued to push on, cutting the chasing pack down one by one, until I was on my own and clear.   Every now and then I would hear some one cheer my name as I sped along.   The race seemed to be over so quickly from the gun firing to me crossing the line with my arms aloft in victory.   Paul Evans was second and Peter Fox was third.   The great Steve Ovett trailed in fourth, and as soon as he crossed the line he was surrounded by the BBC TV crew, but being a true sportsman, he turned and pointed to me and said, ‘That’s the winner over there.   Once you’ve spoken to Tommy, come back and see me.’   That meant as much to me as winning the race.   On the coach back to Greenock, one of my clubmates produced a bottle of champagne and filled the cup so that everyone could drink from it.   I had just won “The National” and it felt brilliant.”

After this Tommy was sponsored by Asics and formed a lasting friendship with their representative Dave Cannon, who had been an excellent GB international marathon runner.   Dave proved invaluable in providing advice and encouragement as well as free kit!   For example in 1991 he followed Dave’s suggestions about when to do hard sessions and when to rest, and was soon running well again.   Tommy won an international cross-country race in Holland, defeating England’s Bashir Hussein and Dutchman John Vermeulen.   His hosts treated him like a superstar and he returned to this race three more times recording another win, a second and a third.

1992 was one of Tommy’s best years.   He fought hard to hold off Robert Fitzsimmons of Kilbarchan in the Scottish Indoor 3000m at the Kelvin Hall.   Then he was selected to run for Scotland at an International Indoor Meeting in Norway, against the host country and Denmark.   Unfortunately, ‘special needle spikes’ were supplied by the hosts, which ensured that the Scots found it very slippery on the bends!   Shortly afterwards Tommy reduced his pb to 8:11.   This was just part of his preparation for the British CC Championships in Basingstoke where he hoped to qualify for the British team and take part in the World Championships in Boston, USA.   Rob Denmark, a 5000m track specialist, was meant to be the favourite at Basingstoke, but Tommy writes: “The first eight places were filled by very good cross-country runners who weren’t bad on the track, rather than very good track runners who weren’t bad on the country.’   After a last-ditch sprint, Tommy finished fifth,  with Chris Robison sixth, and both were selected for the British team.   Then in the Scottish National on the Beach Park at Irvine, Tommy ‘destroyed the opposition and won the race so easily’.   Chris Robison was second and Bobby Quinn third.   Unfortunately Tommy missed the medal presentation and the applause of the crowd, since a jobsworth drug-testing official insisted that, even with an escort, he could not receive his cup and gold medal, while he was waiting to provide a urine sample.

In Boston, as usual on international trips, he shared a room with Chris Robison.   Tommy writes: ‘We had a right good laugh.   The senior men’s team were a great bunch of guys and we got on brilliantly, apart from Richard Nerurkar, who liked to keep himself to himself.   As international athletes the rest of us understood that everyone has different ways of preparing for big races and that was his.’

‘On race days, all athletes were transported to the course by small vehicles called trolley buses.   These were normally used for tourist sight-seeing trips and were equipped with intercoms.   The atmosphere on our bus was very tense, so to lighten up I asked the driver if I could use the microphone.   I proceeded to give everyone on board my best rendition of Tom Jones’ ‘Delilah’, followed by ‘Sweet Sixteen’.   The look on the foreign athletes’ faces was an absolute picture and the British team was howling with laughter.   The bus driver offered me a job during the tourist season, saying I could earn a fortune.’

‘After a warm-up, I felt very nervous when I took my place in the starting stalls alongside World and Olympic medallists.  Once the gun went, everything was just a blur.   We seemed to have started at one hundred miles an hour and then got even faster.   At no point in the race could you take a breather – if you did, a dozen athletes would overtake you.   John Ngugi of Kenya won the race and led his country to team victory, which was no surprise.   What did come as a shock was France taking silver and Great Britain bronze, so now I’m the proud owner of a world championship medal.   The presentation was brilliant, going up on to the stage to receive my medal with the rest of the team is something I’ll never forget.   That was a fantastic week for British Athletics and the highlight was not us winning bronze medals, although to us as seniors it was unforgettable.   The best thing was a certain Miss Paula Radcliffe winning the Junior Women’s race.   I remember thinking that she would probably go far!   Compared to major Games, the World Cross is a lot smaller but as far as quality races go, they don’t come any bigger.’

That summer recording a new pb of 29:16.42 Tommy scored a decisive victory in the SAAA 1000m over his North of England rival Kevin McCluskey.   Tommy considers the 1992 season to have been his most successful.   He attributes this to a number of things: my ability ti train hard, Dave Cannon’s influence, ‘I’d switched clubs to Cambuslang and finally my training partner, Tommy McCallion.’   These two ran or cycled together almost every day for three years.   Tommy also pays tribute to Jim Scarborough of Cambuslang, ‘the best manager I ever had the privilege of running for.’

In his autobiography, Tommy Murray selects a number of race highlights, including a 1993 track international in Israel – the host country versus Scotland, Turkey and Wales.   By this time his wife Lesley had given birth to their second daughter and family life was good.   In 1994, despite winning the Scottish 10000m once again, in a new pb of 29:12, Tommy Murray was very disappointed not to be selected for the Commonwealth Games.   He was rightfully annoyed that Chris Robison and John Sherban, both ex-English internationals, were selected for the Scottish team despite missing the Scottish championship, when part of the selection policy had been that anyone wishing to be considered had to run that race.

The 1995 World Cross-Country championships was to be held in England and at the age of 35, Tommy Murray hoped to be involved.   The trial race was in Northumberland, and, despite being tripped, Tommy finished fourth and easily made the British team.   The World Cross was in Durham and Tommy was happy with eighty first position.   To give some idea of the quality of this event, if he had been 12 seconds faster he would have been fifty third!   After this he was signed up for a new televised event – the All-Terrain Marathon, to be held in the North East of England at the beginning of May.   There were to be races on six consecutive days, over a variety of distances and surfaces.   A considerable amount of money was on offer and 24 international runners were involved.   A four miler on Bamburgh Sands came first and then a 5000m track contest.   Tommy moved up the field with fifth in a six mile trail race in Kielder Forest, then improved to second in a five mile cross-country.   In a gruelling four mile hill race, Tommy won by over a minute, defeating former World Mountain Racing Champion Martin Jones.   Over all Tommy was now second and only twenty seconds down on Jones who managed to hang on to this lead in the final four mile road race and round Bamburgh Castle.   Tommy writes: ‘The event proved to be a huge success and it was held for the following four years.   I’m happy to say that I completed them all, never managing to win but never out of the top six places, which was not a bad record, considering that  I was 38 when the last one was held.’

Since he did not consider his long loping stride with a high kick to be suitable for success in marathons, Tommy waited until 1995 to consider training for one.   He was invited to an established race in Eindhoven, Holland, and ‘set about changing my training regime dramatically, with the weekly mileage rising from 60 mpw to 100.’   However the invitation fell through since the organisers obtained a cheap deal on some Kenyan runners.   ‘With no marathon to run and feeling as fit as a butcher’s dog, I started to look for another race to do.’   Doug Gillon, of the Glasgow Herald asked if Tommy would be interested in taking part in the World Mountain Running Championship which for the first time ever was to be held in Edinburgh round Arthur’s Seat.   Tommy easily won the Scottish trial race at Dreghorn, beating amongst others ‘my pal Bobby Quinn, an established athlete on the mountain racing circuit.’    When the World Championship started, England’s Martin Jones went right to the front, at too fast a pace to maintain for 7.5 miles.   By two miles, Tommy was in the lead and working hard   forcing himself up and down Arthur’s Seat several times.   Unfortunately Fregonzi of Italy caught up and raced down the final descent  ‘like a kamikaze pilot on a mission.’   Tommy started to gain on him once they reached level ground but the finish came too soon.   However Tommy was more than happy to win two silver medals at a world championship – both individual and team.    Italy won, with Scotland second and the auld enemy England third.   After this fine result, Tommy obtained lottery funding for the next four years ‘which I saw as just reward for the years I had given athletics.’   He ran three more World Mountain Running Championships in Austria, the Czech Republic and Borneo in Malaysia, but never ran quite as well as he had in Edinburgh.

 Despite winning a final Scottish 10000m title in 2000, Tommy was thinking about retirement but was convinced to give Veteran Athletics a go.   Having turned 40 on 18th May 1991, Tommy made an immediate impact by winning the East Kilbride Half Marathon which incorporated the British Veterans Championship.   In running 66:46, he easily defeated not only the several top English vets but also second placed Simon Pride, the Welshman who had been selected for the Scottish team in the forthcoming Commonwealth Games marathon!   In November the Scottish Veteran Harriers were hosting the annual Home Countries Cross-Country International at Callendar Park, Falkirk.   According to the usual biased reporting  in Athletics Weekly, four Englishmen were the favourites for the M40 title.   However Tommy had other ideas and after fending off a challenge from Julian Critchlow, he went on to win by 30 seconds.   Then Tommy went on to win the Open Race too ‘because I was good enough.’

 Tommy maintained a series of eleven straight victories, until he overtrained during a 2002 holiday in Ibiza and became exhausted.   This feeling continued for months, until he consulted a doctor and his blood count was found to be low.   After two weeks complete rest and only ten days of training, Tommy lined up for the 1993 British Veterans Cross-Country Championships at Beach Park, Irvine.   Tommy found himself engaged in a fierce battle with Julian Critchlow and Brian Rushworth.  ‘By the time we’d started on the second and final circuit, I decided to use a trick Allister Hutton had used on me in the 1987 National Cross-Country.   About a mile from the finish you run like hell for about 600 metres and try not to go into oxygen debt.   By doing this you hopefully fool the opposition into thinking you’re feeling good and are full of running, so that they hesitate while they decide whether to go with you.   Then you pray that you have enough left to make it to the finish.   Initially it looked as if my plan was working – I had opened up a seven second lead but I knew we still had the steep hill to come.   As soon as I hit it my legs started to buckle and I could feel Julian edging closer to me.   By the top he had narrowed the gap to two seconds, but with 800 metres left to run I wasn’t going to let a Sassenach beat me on my own soil, so I dug in really deep and mustered another effort from somewhere and the victory was mine.’

‘After the race at the medal presentation, Julian was interviewed and he paid me a massive complement by saying I was one of the greatest runners ever to come out of Britain.   Winning this race meant a lot to me.   I had to draw on all my strength and experience and it was also great to be involved in a real race.’   Nevertheless, Tommy felt that this was too good to last and just a few months later, he stopped after one mile of running on a training run and walked home, having quit running at the age of 42.

*

Tommy Murray reckons that nowadays all sports, including running, are in terminal decline due to the lazy lifestyle that is promoted by the media.   It seems like they would ‘like everyone to be sitting in their Lazyboy armchair, with their DVD, VIDEO, PLAYSTATION, COMPUTER, IPAD and a microwave meal, watching virtual sport on their WIDESCREEN TV before going out to visit some MULTIPLEX CINEMA or BOWLING ALLEY, with FAST FOOD and FREE PARKING!!!’  When he was starting running he might turn up to a race and find opposition of the calibre of Nat Muir, Allister Hutton, John Robson, Neil Tennant and Lawrie Spence.   This no longer happens in Scotland and veterans make up 65% of the field.   He hopes that the situation improves but he does not know how this might happen.

However Tommy Murray looks back on his career with justifiable pride.   he won thirteen Scottish titles: 3000m indoor, 10K Road, Half Marathon, 10000m and National Cross-Country; two team golds in the National plus three team golds in the CC Relay and countless Wst District ones.   ‘My weight moved around the nine stone mark and for years I survived on Weetabix and bananas, because I like them.   I always wear gloves when I race, I don’t feel complete until I put them on, just like Clark Kent becomes Superman when he changes into his blue suit and red cape.’

Tommy’s autobiography gives a real flavour of the man.  It is honest and forthright and very entertaining about races and personalities.   Ask him for a copy!   He mentions as his favourite memories his Dutch victories and the Kielder Dam 6 Miles race. around the biggest man-made reservoir in Europe, which he won three times plus two second places.   On training he says that you will do well if you can find the right balance between ‘No Pain, No Gain’ and ‘Train. Don’t Strain.’   People he admires include John Ngugi (World Cross and Olympic 5000m gold medallist), Liz McColgan, Tommy McCallion, Dave Cannon, Lachie Stewart, Cammy Spence and Doug Gillon.   His greatest tribute is to his family, ‘who have shared all my successes and helped me through all my defeats.’

A final word on one of his finest races – the World Mountain Racing Championship at Meadowbank in 1986 as reported in the excellent ‘Fell Runner’ magazine with a good photograph by Peter Hartley.

This is where Colin leaves the Tommy Murray profile, but I’d like to add a personal tribute to Tommy – but not to Tommy the runner.   Tommy was never ever big-headed about his achievements or arrogant in any way; always approachable he would give help to anyone who needed it.   Mention has been made above of his anorexia.   When one of  the athletes I was coaching had serious bulimia, Tommy came forward and offered to help and do what he could for the young man.  He phoned him at home more than once and provided me with some advice.   He did not have to do it, he wasn’t asked – he came forward and made the offer.    Tommy Murray will always be rated highly as a person regardless of his running.   Mind you, having said that, what a career!

Nat Muir winning the Luddon Half Marathon in 1988

By any measure, Nat Muir has to be one of Scotland’s best ever distance runners: possibly also one of the country’s unluckiest in that he never had the success at the very topmost level that his ability and dedication deserved.   The tables below tell some of the story but by no means all of it.

 Why include the club championships?   is it not a great drop from the internationals?   Maybe, but the point is to emphasise that even when he was one of the best in the world, even when he was getting invitations to races all over the continent every winter, he found time and had the desire to run in the club championships: the motivational effect on all club members of seeing him running on their own turf must have been considerable.     I asked one of his old friends about him and the reply was that he just got on with it without any pretensions.    That might of course be why he didn’t seem to get on with Andy Norman, the ex-policeman Mr Big of British Athletics at the time.   His track times stand any comparison you care to make – despite the fact that it has been 30 years and more since most of the marks have been made he tops the 5000 metres lists for both Junior and Senior men.   His place in the all-time rankings for various events are as follows.

Nat Muir, born 12th March, 1958, took up athletics in 1970 while a pupil at St Aloysius Primary in Chapelhall, near Airdrie, and was encouraged to go along to the Shettleston Harriers club by two schoolmates – John Mulvey and John Blair   In his first race – the Lanarkshire relays in 1970 – he had the fastest individual time  in his age group and ‘caught the bug’.   He won the Midland District and was third in National Junior Boys Championship in February 1971.   As well as doing club training, he ran as much as possible, encouraged and supervised by his Dad, Hugh, who had marked out a measured mile in a field near the family home in Salsburgh.   The combination of natural talent and hard work helped him to the National Youths (Under 17) title in 1975.

The 1975-76 season started with the McAndrew Relays and as the official club history (‘One Hundred Years of Shettleston Harriers: An East End Odyssey’) says “In his first full season as a junior Nat Muir quickly established himself as a regular member of the club’s senior teams.   At the McAndrew, running the second leg in the fourth-placed team, he ran the second fastest time of the 16 Shettleston runners, only one second slower than Jim Burns.   The following week he beat Jim by two seconds to record the club’s fastest mark at the Lanarkshire road relay.   Wresting the Allan Scally Trophy from Edinburgh Southern was the challenge presented to Nat, Davie Lang, Jim Burns and Lachie Stewart at the seventh running of the race but both Edinburgh outfits proved too strong and the club was third and once again Nat had the fastest time.   Stewart, Lang, Burns and Muir got their names into the history books when they won the inaugural senior relay of the new Western District in which Nat’s fastest time of the day was vital in the 29 second relay over Clyde Valley.   Another fastest time from Nat at the National four-stage relays in Edinburgh was not enough to beat the Edinburgh Southern quartet and Shettleston finished second.”    Nat missed the District Championships at Coatbridge but when the cross country season ended, Nat won the first of three Junior Championships.   Selected for the International Cross-Country Championships at Chepstow in Wales, he was third finisher but with the next Scot being 35th the team was well out of the medals.  Perhaps his best run though was his victory in the English Junior Cross Country Championship at Leicester leading the club team into third place.

1976-77 was one where Davie Lang, Lawrie Spence, Lachie Stewart and Nat Muir showed how good a team they could be when they won the County relays, the District Relays and the Allan Scally relay and were half of the team that won the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay and then won the National four-man relay.   A year later at Glenrothes in deep snow, Nat again triumphed by almost a minute from John Graham leading the Shettleston team to victory in the Junior race. The 1977 International Championship was held at Dusseldorf  in Germany and Nat was unable to replicate the previous year’s result, finishing eighth to lead the team home.   What of Nat in other races that year?   The Glasgow University Road race was to be a happy hunting ground for Nat in the years to come but the first time he ran (remember has still a first year junior despite his wonderful running) there were a couple of problems.   The club history again: As one of the youngest runners in the record field of 213 runners at the GU Road Race, Nat Muir’s inexperience, if not his sense of direction cost him valuable time although it did not affect the race result.   After taking the lead at the halfway mark, he twice went off the course only to be sportingly redirected by the second man, Dave Logue of Edinburgh Southern whose magnanimous gestures may have cost him the race since he finished only three seconds behind Muir on the Westerlands track.”   Bearing in mind that senior men, especially the seasoned and grizzled cross-country specialists, do not like giving anything away to young juniors, and that they will use all sorts of wiles and tricks to keep their position, his results were astonishing.   I remember a young start who as a first year junior was defeated by an older and slightly slower man in the University race being quoted as saying “Aye, Andy Brown knows how to run wi’ the heid!’   He was ninth in the Western District championship winning team and then in the National at Glenrothes won a second Junior title and led the junior team to victory.

In summer 1977 Nat started with a victory in the GRE Gold Cup at Liverpool he was the only Shettleston Harrier to win his event and turned out for the club in League matches.   His best track running of the year was yet to come: Nat was second in the AAA junior championship 5000 metres in 14:05.8 and then took a huge chunk from that respectable time with 13:49.1 when he won the European Junior 5000m in Donetsk in Russia to beat Alberto Cova of Portugal, a future Olympic 5000m champion.  The summer ended for him with second place behind Mike McLeod of Elswick in the Round the Walls race at Berwick in September

At the start of the 1977-78 cross-country season, he was in the teams which won the McAndrew at Scotstoun, the West District relays and was third in the Allan Scally race and then ran well in the team that finished third in the Edinburgh to Glasgow.   Nat on his own won an international 4.5 mile race at Gateshead to defeat David Black of England and Steve Jones (Wales) and the later finished second to Steve Ovett in a 5 mile international race in Belfast.   Many athletes called off from the District Championships on a frozen, rutted trail at East Kilbride, Nat was among them.  Others who started and then dropped out included such notables as John Graham and Frank Clement. The International Championship was to be held at Bellahouston Park in 1978 and accordingly the National championships were held there a few weeks before.   Nat had asked to be allowed to run in the Senior Race as preparation for the International but permission was refused so he ran in and won the Junior title for the third time.   Then the selectors who wouldn’t let him run in the Senior race, picked him for the Senior team in the international.   On a day of dreadful weather with rain, hail, sleet all making an appearance along with a strong wind, Nat started steadily and worked his way up to fourth and then dropped back to seventh, his finishing position: very good going for a slightly built 20 year old.   Notable races that summer for him included an international against Greece in Athens where he was partnered by Lawrie Spence.    The two Shettleston men ran together building up a lead before sprinting for the tape with Nat winning in 13:37.6 and Lawrie a mere tenth of a single second behind.   A month later in the SAAA Championships the tables were turned with Lawrie winning in 13:45 to Nat’s 13:47.   As a result of their good, consistent running, they were selected for the Commonwealth Games in Canada.   The Games were not a success for either although Nat was sixth in 13:34.9; Lawrie unfortunately had been affected by a virus and finished thirteenth in 14:28.

At the start of winter 1978-79,  Nat was again in winning teams in the County and District Relays and he also ran in the team which was second in the McAndrew road relay.   At the end of the season the National Championships were held on a rock-solid, icy course at Livingston with more than its share of hills but that did not stop Nat, in his first year as a Senior taking the title by 26 seconds from Lawrie Spence.   The International that year was held in Limerick in Ireland and under the management of John Hamilton for the first time.   Nat was tenth and first Scot  with John Robson in 52nd being the next counter.   Summer 1979 started with Nat winning the 800m/1500m double at the first League Match at Coatbridge in 1:52 and 3:56 and then he did the ‘double-double’ when he won the same two events at the second match at Meadowbank.   He won the SAAA 5000m in 13:57.3 and followed with two fine international races.   In a Mile at Gateshead he was third, first in the 5000m in a GB v France B International in Wales and then third behind Rod Dixon (NZ) and Brendan Foster  in the Phillips Gateshead Games in 13:27.4.

The McAndrew relay in 1979 was again won by the club and again Nat was part of the team.   He missed the County event and in the District his fastest time of the day assisted the club to second place.   In the Allan Scally relay, Nat not only had the fastest time but was faster than any Shettleston runner had achieved in the ten year history of the race.   1980 and into a new decade and Colin Shields in his centenary history of the Cross Country Union said: “The Eighties decade started well for Scotland when they won the team contest in the ‘Round the Houses’ road race at Madrid on Hogmanay.   Nat Muir finished runner-up to Carlos Lopes (Portugal), future world cross-country champion and Olympic gold medallist with Jim Dingwall 4 and Graham Laing 8 completing the Scottish team…. Muir won the Belfast International Race, then finished sixth in the Villamoura event in Portugal with Jim Brown close behind.   Muir stayed training for a week in the sun after the Villamoura race and the benefits showed when he won the San Sebastian race in Northern Spain with Brown 5 and Lawrie Spence 15 for Scotland to finish second to England in the team contest.”   The National Championships were held at Irvine and Nat won by 17 seconds from John Robson with Allister Hutton in third.   The World Championships that year were held at the Longchamps Racecourse in Paris and the course had several barriers set out to test the runners – Nat hit the first such hurdle with his heel and had to drop out soon afterwards to be taken to hospital for an operation to his Achilles tendon.   John Robson finished fifth in a superb run and the team was seventh.

He recovered in time for the track season and won an International 5000m against Northern Ireland and Luxembourg in May at Meadowbank and at the Amoco International Games at Crystal Palace he defeated Henry Rono and pushed Filbert ayi to the finishing line to make the meeting’s headlines.   But 1980 was Moscow Olympics year and everyone wanted selection for the Games.   The selectors had decided that two would be chosen from the trial at Meadowbank plus one other to make up the quota of three runners.   That was of course dependant on the runners having done a qualifying time.   Several other runners had done the time, Nat hadn’t.   He was also returning from altitude training at Kenya and although he said he ‘ran like a donkey’ there were extenuating circumstances attached to the race.   Due to the proximity of the selection date he had to either be in the first two or do the qualifying time in that race or, ideally both.    It was a dreadfully windy afternoon at Meadowbank, at least two others had done the time and there was no incentive for them to push the pace along, they were content to sit and go for the places late on in the race.   So Nat had to take the pace along earlier than he would have liked on a day that did not help fast exposed front running.   Despite running the fastest time by a British runner that year for 5000m of 13:17.9 (a Scottish record) and regularly beating two of the chosen three in other races, he was not selected.   In the Oslo race he had beaten multi-world record holder Henry Rono, Suleiyman Nyambui, Craig Virgin and many others of very high quality.

Nat in Oslo, 1980

 In the 1980-81 season, he had a series of hard races on the Continent but not before running the McAndrew (where he was ten seconds faster than he had ever run on that trail), the Lanarkshire relays, the Districts and the Allan Scally where he also broke the course record..   At Denderhouton in Belgium he won from a high class field on a snow covered course, he was runner-up at the ‘Almonds in Blosson’ race in Portugal an at San Sebastian in Spain on successive weekends and then won at Chartres in France.   The Scottish Championships at Callendar Park couldn’t have been more different from Spanish and Portuguese weather – sleet, snow and a quagmire underfoot did not however stop him from winning his third title and he won from Jim Brown.   The World Championships that year were held at Zorzuela in Spain and a mystery illness affected the Scottish team for whom only six runners actually finished the race: Nat Muir was twenty sixth and second Briton to finish, only 45 seconds behind the winner.   finish third to Allister Hutton and John Robson.    Despite the disappointment of his non-Olympic selection he had a good season in 1981 as was shown in the ranking lists:

800 in 1:53.5; 1500 metres in 3:41.75 (ranked second to John Robson and above Frank Clement); Mile in 4:03.24; 3000 metres – three of the top five times with a best of 7:53.98; 5000 metres – five of the top seven with a best of 13:31.77   He competed for Scotland at Gateshead in the Mile against England, Hungary and Norway and finished fifth, against Denark and Eire at Edinburgh in the 5000m and won in 13:52.73, against Greece, Wales, Israel and Luxembourg where he was third in the 5000 metres and in the SAAA Championships he won the 1500 in 3:41.75.

He started the following season (1981-82) with the fastest time in the McAndrew relay and the District relays but at the end of the year in the ‘Round the Houses’ New Year’s Eve race in Madrid he was hit by a trolley-car  and missed the entire period up to the National Championships.   He did run in the National Championships however but the lack if training showed itself and he could only finish third behind Hutton and Robson.   In summer 1982 he ran for Scotland in an international in Luxembourg and won the 5000m in 14:06.   The cross-country season started with a victory in the Glasgow University Road Race for the fifth time in six years, won the Bellahouston Harriers open cross country race and finished third in the Presto International in Gateshead after leading for three of the five laps.  .   He started the New Year with two more victories on consecutive days – the Nigel Barge which he won in record time and the James Flockhart cross country race at Coatbridge – before going on to win the Springburn Cup from Lawrie Spence and then the International race at Cumbernauld.   Five races in the New Year so far and five wins.   He made it six when he won the National Championships at the Jack Kane Sports Centre in Edinburgh by six seconds from George Braidwood.   The World Championships were held at Gateshead on a traditional kind of course with twists, turns hills and everything else associated with the sport.      Nat finished eleventh and was second Briton but the team could only finish a poor eighteenth.     In summer 1983 he started by winning the 800 and 1500m in the second Scottish League match with a pb in the 800 of 1:50.   By the end of the year he was ranked thirteenth in the 800m; fifth in the 1500m; first and sixth in the 3000m with a best of 8:00.05; in the 5000m he had the top six time (from a best of 13:34.42 to 13:46.09) and another two in the top twenty.  In the men’s international in Luxembourg against Luxembourg and Belgium he won the 5000m, at Meadowbank against England, Poland and Norway he was fourth in the 3000m with 8:00.05 (race won by Steve Cram in 7:57.80) and at home he won the SAAA 5000m in 13:42.7 and the West District 1500 in 3:52.5.    Having been selected for the Commonwealth Games team he went to Brisbane, Australia, and finished sixth in the 5000m with a time of 13:40.

In 1983-84 Nat did not compete as often as before but he ran in the West District Championships, held in the grounds of Leverndale Hospital, he won comfortably from Eddie Stewart and Alex Gilmour of Cambuslang Harriers.   Competing only twice in Scotland during the season he returned to the Brach Park in Irvine for the National Championships and, taking the lead right at the start, he won from Allister Hutton by an astonishing 43 seconds.    The World Championships were held in the United States for the first time.    British runners ran well in the race but Nat was not one of them.   Having had a good season against them all there were hopes of a medal but unfortunately at the time of the race he was in bed with a temperature of 103 due to a bronchial virus.   Having run in eight races on the Continent with a record of two wins and five second places it must have been a galling experience for Nat.   His own take on the situation was quoted in the Shettleston history – “It was Catch-22 – the fitter I got the more susceptible I became.”

It took almost a year for him to recover from the illness.   Nat was a member of the teams that were second in the McAndrew, first in the West relays and second in the Allan Scally relay.   He had a record breaking run in the Edinburgh to Glasgow sixth stage to indicate how fit he was with several good runs on the Continent in 1984-85  he went into the National Championships, held again at the Jack Kane Centre, in good shape and after a hard race in rainy conditions, he won by over 20 seconds from John Robson.   He went straight into a programme of races on the Continent starting with Birbeck in Belgium where he was second 24 hours after the National finishing ahead of Carlos Lopes and Emiel Puttemans.    According to Colin Shields this was one of six major races Muir competed in between New Year and the World Championships at Lisbon, winning two, being second three times and being fifth in the other one.   Again the World Championships were another bad experience for Nat: running fourth in the leading group after a mile he had one shoe ripped from his foot by the spikes of another runner.   He tried to retrieve the shoe but eventually just took off the other one and ran on in his socks.   There was a 300 yard stretch of gravel to be negotiated on each lap and he finished back in forty third with bleeding, lacerated feet.   The first Scot was John Robson who was six places up on him.   In the summer of 1985 he won the West District 10000 metres championship with a time of 29:26.   The following week he went to that happy venue for so many Scots runners (Frank Clement, Graham Williamson, John Robson, etc) – Oslo for the Bislett Games.   He again ran the 5000m and was timed at 13:22.   This was his fastest time since the outstanding victory in 1980.

1985-86 proceeded as before for Nat.  His first race of the winter was in the Allan Scally relay where he had another record breaker to help the team to victory.    A successful programme of international races – third or better in six of eight races in the first half of the season – and a break from racing before the National at Irvine and won again, getting away from runner-up Neil Tennant on the feared Dragon Hill and winning by 30 yards.    Came the World Championships at Neuchatel in Switzerland and Nat withdrew because he had ‘flu.    For a man of his ability and experience his luck at World Cross-Country Championships was terrible.   Cross-country was his forte and the surface where he had some of his best competitions and to be robbed of a fair chance at the top meeting was cruel luck.   John Robson was first Scot to finish in 122th position.   The following season it was announced that it would the last time that the four home Countries would compete as separate teams: in future only a single UK team would be allowed to run.    This had been coming up for many years but now it was a reality.   In summer 1986 he was asked by the selectors to double up the 10000m and the 5000m in the Commonwealth Games to be held in Edinburgh.   he declined their offer and ran only in the 5000m where, due to an Achilles tendon problem he ran his slowest 5000m of the three Commonwealths he was in – 13:40.

The World Championship in 1987 would be the last for Scotland.    In the National Championships preceding it, the race was a duel between Nat and Chris Robison with Nat winning by 22 seconds to equal the record of five consecutive victories by J Suttie Smith between 1928 and 1932.   Colin Shields: “Although it was not known at the time, Muir’s victory was his final appearance in the National Championships as injury prevented him competing again.   Except for Allister Hutton’s win in 1982 when Muir was injured after being knocked down by a car in a New Year’s Ever race on the Continent, Muir had won eight of the nine National Senior titles between 1979 and 1987.   These honours, together with his three wins in the Junior Championships 1976-78 and his 1975 Youth win, gave him a total of 12 National titles – a performance which is unlikely ever to be equalled, let alone beaten in the future.   He dominated cross-country in Scotland as comprehensively as his list of championship honours indicated, and his love of cross-country running, and his consequent concentration on the winter sport could have been the reason for his lack of success on the track in the summer that his talent indicated he might have achieved.”   In any event, the World Championship was held that year in Warsaw in dreadful conditions with sub-zero weather.   Nat was first Scot to finish – in fortieth position and Shields suggests that the dismal performances by the Scottish runners, men, women and Juniors, was down to the fact that it was at least partly due to the fact that it was the last ever appearance in the event for Scotland.     In 1988 he ran a fast half marathon of 65:34 in the popular Strathkelvin race.

Up to this point, Nat missed almost every District Championship because he was racing on the Continent but in 1988/89 he ran in Houston and won by two seconds from Tommy Murray but because of a viral illness could not run at the Nationals.

I am going to digress from the narrative a bit here.    Nat is on record as saying that athletics is essentially an individual sport with a team element coming second to that.  No one can gainsay that.   But let’s look at the reality.

He went on racing for his club as he had done so often in the past at every opportunity.   There were many of his rivals over the previous decade who either omitted club commitments from their schedule or went through the motions by turning out and running over the course.   Nat was a good club runner and he turned out as often as he could for it.    Have a look at this list of appearances from 1975 to 1992:

Scottish Four Stage Relay:   1976, 1977, 1981, 1990, 1992.                                   District Relays:   1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992.                                     County Relays: 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1988

Allan Scally Relays:   1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992                                                                   In the McAndrew Relay at the start of the cross-country season he was in three winning teams: 1976, 1977, 1979

Then there was the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay:   He ran in 1975 (2nd stage), 1976 (4th stage), 1977 (2nd – fastest on stage), 1978 (6th – fastest on stage), 1979 (2nd), 1980 (2nd – fastest), 1982 (2nd – fastest), 1984 (6th – fastest), 1986 (6th), 1989 (4th – fastest), 1992 (2nd).    Eleven starts.    

From 1988 he became more and more prone to injury but turned out as often as he could.   At the start of 1989-90 he had a good run in the Allan Scally relays which were his first of the winter wit the best time of the day but his next serious season came in 1991 when the club history says: On the road, Nat Muir began his spring/summer season with a win at the Tom Scott in April and ended with a victory in the Aberdeen Half Marathon in September.   He competed in at least ten 10K races, won seven, was second in two and fourth in a race at Keighley in Yorkshire with a best time of 30:09 at Stranraer in May.   He won the Monklands Half Marathon   in 67:59 – three seconds slower than his mark at Aberdeen, the Monklands 7 and was part of the second-placed Shettleston team at the Jock Semple Relays at Clydebank with John Mackay and Billy Coyle.’    The 1992-93 season started with Nat, Peter McDevitt, Andy Little and Billy Coyle taking third in the McAndrew relay.   Nat’s time in the Scally relay was his club’s second fastest of the day but the fact that it was two minutes slower than his own record combined with what he called ‘susceptibility to injury’ made him think seriously of giving up the sport.   His final race for the club was on the second stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow where the team was seventh.

Bayi leads from Henry Rono in a 3000m in 1980 in London with Steve Jones, Steve Binns, Gordon Rimmer and of course Nat.

Graham Williamson’s hair can be seen above Nat’s head.

In their comments on his career, the club historians included the following remarks: “One of the highlights of his track career was winning the European junior title at Donetsk in the Soviet Union in 1977, where he beat Alberto Cova, later European, World and Olympic 10000m champion.   Five years later Nat experienced the downside of the sport, or as he put it – ‘was cheesed off’ – after he failed to be selected for the British team for the Olympics in Moscow.   One of the ironies of Nat’s career during the eighties was that though he was Scotland’s supreme middle-distance runner and the early part of the decade coincided with the running boom, the club itself went through one of its poorest periods.   Nat was very aware of the situation, described by him as ‘being in lio’ because of the number of talented young Shettleston runners of his generation who left the sport at a comparatively young age.   For him however even though he always wanted the club to do well  especially in relays, athletics was essentially an individual sport.   It was a relay that convinced him that he should end his own career and it was nothing to do with the team’s performance.      He had always used the Allan Scally relay in November as an indication of his fitness and a gauge for the coming year, so when his slowest time ever in the 1992 race coincided with a recurring Achilles tendon injury he could see retirement beckoning.   His last race for the club was on the second stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow later in the month.’

For a view from outside the club, I will quote the remainder of Colin Shields’s review of his career quoted above after the final cross-country international.   We have already seen the laudatory comments on his cross country career, this is on his track running:    “His track distance running talent flowered early when he won the 1977 European Junior 5000m title in Russia clocking the excellent time of 13:49.1 at 19 years of age.   The following year he recorded a personal best of 13:34.9 when finishing sixth in the Commonwealth Games 5000m at Edmonton.   His outstanding International success came in 1980 when he defeated a top class 5000m field at Oslo in the Scottish National record time of 13:17.9 – a time which was third fastest in the world that year – bit it was recorded too late to gain him a place in Britain’s team for the Olympic Games in Moscow.   In a track career which never flowered to the same extent as his cross-country one, he never gained a medal in any of the Commonwealth Games he competed in or gained selection for the Olympic Games or European Championships in the Eighties.    He won Scottish titles at both 1500m and 5000m but never achieved the high honours that Ian McCafferty or Ian or Lachie Stewart did in the Seventies.”

What Colin says is true.   BUT …. I would contend that Nat was unlucky (see the problems that dogged him in the International Cross-Country Championships all of which were unforeseeable) and that the lack of  others of equal or near-equal talent within Scotland at the time (compare with Lachie, Ian McCafferty, Andy Brown, Dick Wedlock, etc racing each other frequently on all sorts of surface: something denied Nat) and that these combined to rob him of the rewards that his talent deserved.    It would also be unfair to end without mentioning Alex Naylor’s – Big Daddy of Scottish Endurance Coaching for so many years and Nat’s coach from the very beginning.   They made an impressive partnership.

A final word.  The last time I spoke to Nat was at a National Cross-Country Championship at Irvine.   He was watching the race and runners, parents, coaches and others were walking, jogging or running past not knowing who he was.   I don’t think he was even asked to present the prizes after any of the races and he was certainly not interviewed over the tannoy as others have been on occasion.   We spoke for a minute or two and then we went our separate ways.   Another who could be a first-rate example for our young athletes wasted.   It would be good to speak to him again now that he has had time to reflect on his career.

Angela Mudge in the Carnethy colours at the Ben Nevis Hill Race in 2008.

In the course of my running career I ran in several hill races (eg the Mamore Hill 4 times) and ran well in none of them.    I have also officiated at the Arrochar Alps and the Kilpatricks races – several times at each and have nothing but admiration for the skills, bravery and intelligence for those who can compete successfully in this most demanding of athletic disciplines.  I once had the privilege of sitting listening to Bobby Shields reading a map of an up-coming hill race and it was like anyone else reading a book (there’s a dip between these two tops, we call it a saddle, and there’s a burn running down from the middle so if you go just west of where the burn is, then ….)   He hadn’t seen the map before and he was reading direct from the OS map.   You can’t be stupid and a good hill runner at the same time.    I have spoken to sever of these athletes and know from direct experience that that is true.    One of the best we have had in Britain is an English born woman who has run her entire career for Scotland – Angie Mudge is world famous.   We just had to include her here.

Doug Gillon at his best is a superb journalist who passes on a lot of information in every piece he writes but mixes it in with illuminating comment and a degree of insight which is all too often missing from our sports pages.   In an article in ‘The Herald’ of Friday, 23rd September 2005 he wrote an excellent article about one of our greatest endurance athletes – Angela Mudge – which I will reproduce in its entirety here.    He wrote:

A mountain to climb?   Mudge now at her peak.   Leading endurance athlete tells Doug Gillon she is now ready for the ultimate challenge.

In some sports Angela Mudge would travel business class with a retinue of managers and medics, living in five-star luxury, her future assured by whacking endorsement income and prize money.   Her recent winnings were a Swiss cheese and a voucher for a bunch of flowers.   She declined.   Vases, when you live in a tent, are excess baggage.

Hill-running is an under-estimated discipline.   As befits its rigours, competitors take life and hazards in their stride.   Mudge has spent two months during the past year on crutches after radical surgery to correct a serious knee problem that already had her considering alternative sports.   “I’d worn away all my knee cartilage – more to do with my running style than with the sport itself,” she said.   “I was running on the bare bone of my femur, so the surgeon drilled a lot of holes, which stimulates scar tissue and I could run again.   My knee was more painful afterwards than before, I was prepared for that, but was allowed to run for only 10 minutes even months after the operation.   I deliberately did not ask about the success or failure rate in order to keep a positive frame of mind.   It was only six months later that a physiotherapist told me that there were lots of people for whom the operation did not work.   Taking rehab slowly has been the key to success, although I had plantar fasciitis which put me out of action again from the end of May to the beginning of July this year.”   Since then she has recovered dramatically training for five weeks and racing four times in Switzerland.

“I won three races and was second in the Swiss Championships on the Matterhorn.   There was a raclette cheese for winning one race and a 50 franc voucher from a flower shop for another which I gave back.   There was nothing for the third but it’s not about the prizes.”   Mudge reckons she is short of the form required to reclaim the individual crown at the world mountain running trophy, but still believes the Scottish women’s team can be on the podium.   In her final race before her departure for Wellington, where she leads the Scots on Mount Victoria, Mudge won the world masters title in the Lake District by nearly three and a half minutes.   “It was the first time I’d raced downhill since the operation,” said the 35 year old Carnethy runner.

In the 2000 World Mountain Running Championships, Mudge won the world title, while in 2003 she won silver and led the Scottish team to gold in the only athletics discipline in which Scotland now competes at world level.

Overtaking on some descents can be more hazardous than on a Formula One racetrack.   Mudge is a former winner of the world climbathon on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo where there were sheer drops.   She had to sign a disclaimer absolving organisers from liability.   Little wonder.   This was the mountain on which ten British squaddies got lost for several weeks yet it was all in the day’s run to Mudge.   She has raced in New Zealand before having speent six months there with a boyfriend.   Laureus tried to tempt her home when she was short listed for the world extreme sportswoman of the year title but she declined the all-expenses trip.

The only other British nominees were in other categories.   Steve Redgrave, David Beckham, Jonathan Edwards and Lennox Lewis among 75 luminaries boasting 316 Olympic and World titles at a glittering gala dinner in London’s Albert Hall.   Mudge preferred a meal cooked in the open “and camping in a tent high up in the Southern Alps”.   She added that she did not possess a little black dress and would only have wandered around collecting autographs.

A Stirling University chemistry graduate with a PhD and MSc, she worked temporarily as a research assistant with a recycling agency for six months over the winter while in rehab but quit for the competitive season.   She cycled and camped the length of Switzerland to cut costs.   “Sometimes I meet up with other runners and I’m happy to join them but I am just as happy to do everything myself, preparing meals on my little gas cooker.”

Mudge overcame being born with her feet facing the wrong way and the boredom of track running as a teenager – she has never done it since – to become Britain’s greatest hill racer.   She has collected the UK cross-country title and contested the world championships in that discipline along the way, but the hills are where her heart lies.

“Before this latest operation I was unsure whether I would be able to carry on running.   I would just have picked another sport, like cycling, which is compatible.   It was always in the back of my mind.   I’ve set no goals for New Zealand.   It’s more of a trail race than open mountain so it will be quick and I’m not as sharp as I’d wish.   It would be stupid to focus on the top fve when I could finish fifteenth and still have an excellent run, but I think we can medal if all the girls run well.”    The Standard Life Scottish team includes Tracy Brindley, the 2003 individual world bronze meallist, and British champion Jill Mykura and runner-up Sula Young, but is minus Lyn Wilson, Mudge’s clubmate and former world gold medal team-mate who tackles the Berlin Marathon tomorrow.

“I did not go out too early to New Zealand,” adds Mudge, “because it would be just another week with disturbed sleep.   I don’t do time change well.   I like to see the course, but too much of it beforehand is not good for me.   If you’re having a bad run, you know what is coming up.”

Whatever the outcome, there is no end in sight.   “I can’t see myself doing world and European championships for many years more”, she says, “but I’ve missed a lot of races through doing championships.   I’ll continue until my body falls apart.   With any luck I’ll still be doing women’s 65+ races in 30 years.”

That’s the end of Doug’s article and she did indeed run in the World Mountain Running Championships that year – and won the W35 age group race while finishing 20th overall.

When researching this article we were advised to look at the Wikipedia article on Angela Mudge – and it was all there!   Her entire career up to and including 2008 when she won the Ben Nevis race and the Sky Race in Switzerland with three seconds in Switzerland, Italy and the WMRA Championships.   They have done a very good job and those interested in Angela Mudge as an outstanding hill-runner should look it up at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Mudge

That will give the whole story of the wonderful career of Angela Mudge.    I will add to this page later but you will already have noted a lot about her character, her integrity and her competitive nature from Doug’s writing.

Angela has been inducted into the Scottish Athletics Hall of Fame.

Phil winning the Stornoway Half Marathon: May 2004, 1:14:37

I have always had great admiration for Phil Mowbray: when I was coaching several very good Scottish international athletes, he was slightly younger than most of them and being nurtured by Malcolm Brown, an excellent coach who had started out with Cambridge Harriers and who, at that time, was in charge of athletics at Edinburgh University.    He worked with many really top class athletes such as Dermot Donnelly, Dominic Bannister and Alison Rose.   And in Philip he had an athlete with talent  and an uncompromising competitor.    He got the better of many who should have beaten him simply by his determination, his refusal to yield, as well as his natural talent.   Now, in 2012, when many of those others who competed with him in the 1990’s have left the sport, he is still taking part in competitions the length and breadth of the land – the picture above is taken from the Stornoway Running Club’s website (which is one well worth visiting)   when he won the Half Marathon there in 2004 as an M40 veteran.    When he left Edinburgh University, a Scottish and British internationalist, he would have been welcomed into any club in the land and he no doubt had offers by the handful.   He chose instead to join Hunter’s Bog Trotters: the slightly eccentric club, founded by Robin Thomas among others,  for the University old boys.   Noted for their almost carefree attitude to the sport they contained many very talented athletes and had some famous victories.   They can be compared and contrasted with the other Edinburgh based club of the 90’s, the Racing Club of many names: Reebok, Leslie Deans, Mizuno, etc, who wanted to see a Scottish club win at British level as well as domestic and set about doing it.   Where success was the be-all and end-all of Racing Club with top-class athletes being signed up from all around Scotland, the Trotters trained hard and raced hard but always kept things in perspective.    Phil, talented, determined, stubborn and his refusal never, ever to give in until the line was crossed chose to run for the club with some sense of perspective.   

The following profile was written by Colin Youngson.

Phil Mowbray (born 19 March, 1973) is an extremely talented athlete who has run very well on track, road, country and hill.   However his career has not followed traditional elitist lines, ie when the runner concentrates fully on years of remorseless training, aimed at churning out personal best times, important victories and representative honours.   Yes, Phil achieved many of these traditional objectives but also decided that his work/life balance would be better served by focusing on competing for his notably friendly, sociable club and enjoying his running..

On 22 February, 1992, Philip Mowbray, an Edinburgh University Maths student, led his team to victory in the Scottish National Junior Cross-Country Championship at Beach Park, Irvine.   It was a commanding front running performance.   Phil had just missed out on a place in the British Junior team for the World Championships in Boston, but had an excellent season also winning the East District Junior title and the Scottish Universities Championship.   Naturally he was awarded an EU ‘Blue’.   At the same venue in 1993 Phil won the National Junior Cross-Country once again, 27 seconds clear of his Edinburgh University Hare & Hounds team-mate Christian Nicolson (who later ran very well in the USA and was selected to run the 10000m in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games)   The Haries retained the team title.   He also represented Scotland in the World Mountain Running Trophy in 1992 when the Scottish Junior Men’s Team (John Brooks, Phil Mowbray, Hamish Hutchinson) won bronze medals.

On the track, representing Edinburgh Southern Harriers, Phil produced his very best form in 1994.   During the previous two years, he had run well at 800m, 1500m and 3000m, but this season, having won the East District 1500m and finished second after an exciting sprint finish in the Scottish Athletics Federation Championship (Glen Stewart 3:48.41, Phil Mowbray 3:48.69 and Grant Graham 3:48.81) he took more than three seconds off his pb when third at Solihull on 21st August.    Phil’s outstanding 3:41.63 still features in the Scottish All-Time ranking list.   Although Phil went on to win two Scottish Athletics titles: 1500m (3:43.81) in 1995 and 5000m (14:16,42) in 1996, and produced excellent 1997 personal bests in 5000m (13:49.44) and 3000m (7:59.5) he seemed to concentrate mainly on British Milers’ Club events and stopped making progress.   His last two serious track seasons were 2001, when he ran 13:58.48 (second in the Edinburgh International Games at Meadowbank), and 2002 (5000m in 14:02.88.   Mowbray’s fastest Mile took 4:08.81 (1999) and 800m  1:51.88 (1993).

Mention has been made of the Trotters and some more light was shed on them in an article in ‘The Herald’ of 19th January 1995 under the headline “GB Cap Could Leave Mowbray in a Quandary,” Doug Gillon wrote: “Phil Mowbray, a 21-year old Edinburgh University student, made history yesterday when he became the first member of Hunter’s Bog Trotters to gain full selection for Britain.   But the honour could prompt the club to ask him to resign.   Being one of four Scots  named to compete against Russia,  in the 3000m,  at Birmingham’s National Arena a week on Saturday.   Mowbray has broken an unwritten HBT club rule.   Trotters frown on egotism, those who take themselves too seriously, and particularly on the too-intense pursuit of excellence.   Winning races is discouraged by the most bizarre means.   Some of their number, for example, even stop during road and cross-country races, when the location of hostelries permits, to partake of a pint, ideally of real ale, before continuing.   Tom McKean, Brian Whittle and Mel Neef, from mainstream Scottish clubs may find it hard to adjust to Fifer Mowbray.   They are a non-elitist bunch, the chocolate vested Trotters.   They take their name from an area in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park and not as the SAAA believed when initially denying them the right to the name, from anything with lavatorial connections.   The most-coveted club award is the Golden Trotter vest, awarded to the last person after each race, and passed, unwashed,  week-by-week to the successive last man.   The holder at the season’s end wins the Golden Trotter – a freshly severed pig’s foot from the local butcher, which is then carefully spray painted gold.  

Mowbray however, while still showing hedonistic tendencies to compare with the best of his colleagues, is repeatedly showing what his club will view as a disconcerting ability, and a British vest will rank as the ultimate heresy.   Last year he was Britain’s fastest under-23 metric miler, ranked fourth senior in Scotland at 1500m with 3:41.63.  On Hogmanay he stunned English pundits when he scored a runaway victory in a 3000m cross-country event at Durham – a special race for track runners, in which his victims included former world 1500m champion Steve Cram, and major championship medallists Mark Rowland, John Mayock and Matthew Yates.”

In cross-country and road running, Phil Mowbray has an interesting record.   After his early Scottish Junior triumphs with EU H&H he had a couple of quiet years in the Senior National (1994: 25th, 1996 24th).   Changes were happening in the Scottish winter road and country running.   It was the age of the ‘Super-Team’, ie Racing Club Edinburgh which had won the Edinburgh to Glasgow in 1991 and under various aliases, went on to dominate club athletics for well over a decade, despite heroic resistance from some of the more traditional outfits like Shettleston and Cambuslang.  Phil Mowbray refused to join the juggernaut; instead he showed his cavalier spirit by becoming a Hunter’s Bog Trotter.   HBT (or ‘the Trotters’) had been the brainchild of Robin Thomas (a good long distance runner during and after his years at Edinburgh University) who had a mischievous and rather rebellious attitude to the established powers, eg Edinburgh Southern Harriers, Edinburgh Athletic Club and teh Scottish Cross-Country Union.   Eventually he became president of the latter, but this had not prevented him from organising a club which attracted true amateurs, bohemians and Rabelaisian real-ale drinkers.   Zany events were organised, including lengthy relays from town to town through the Highlands, using an actual pig’s trotter as the baton.   Dehydration was strenuously avoided after HBT training sessions in venues like the Blue Blazer pub.   Before too long however, HBT discovered that several very good athletes had joined their ranks – and wouldn’t it be fun to take part in a few top team contests?

Phil Mowbray ran brilliantly in a series of Edinburgh to Glasgow Relays for Hunter’s Bog Trotters.

• 1994:   Fastest on Stage Two going from ninth to first, although HBT finished sixth.
• 1995:   Fastest equal on Stage Six with Graeme Croll of Cambuslang and HBT fourth.
• 1996:   Easily fastest on Stage Six with his team winning bronze medals
• 1998:   Fastest by far on Stage Six, well in front of worthy rivals Daniel Leggate, Allan Adams, Tommy Murray and Alan Puckrin
• 1999:   Fastest yet again on Stage Six with his club finishing third.
• 2000:   Fastest on Stage Seven with HBT finishing fourth
• 2001:   Second fastest on Stage Six in 30:29, only eleven seconds slower than Scottish multi-champion Glen Stewart.

(These were very good times which compared with those of past giants like Nat Muir, Allister Hutton, Jim Dingwall and Fergus Murray)   After a tremendous fight HBT won silver medals only fifteen seconds behind Mizuno and nearly eight minutes clear of third place.)

• Finally in the very last E – G in 2002, Phil was second fastest to Glen Stewart on Stage Four and his team finished fifth

In 1998 Phil Mowbray took part once more in the Senior National Cross-Country finishing a meritorious fourth between Tommy Murray and Tom Hanlon, with the Trotters fifth team.

Phil went on to represent Great Britain in the 1998 World Cross-Country Championships, finishing thirty fifth in the Short Course event.   He won the Scottish Short Course Cross-Country title in both 2000 (outkicking Bobby Quinn) and 2001, (beating HBT clubmate, Don Naylor) and gained another GB vest in the World Cross-Country in 2000 (sixty fifth finisher).

Then came the greatest moment: in 2001 at Beach Park, Irvine, the Scottish National Cross-Country team champions were Hunter’s Bog Trotters!   They scored an extremely low 70 points with Phil finishing seventh.   He also shared in two other National triumphs: in 2005  at Irvine (Phil ninth), and 2007 at Callendar Park, Falkirk (Phil last counter in twentieth).   His best Senior performance was in 2004 when he won an individual silver medal, five seconds behind Glen Stewart but five seconds clear of future star Andrew Lemoncello.

HBT won the Scottish CC Relay in 2005 with a fine team: Steven Cairns, Alistair Hart, Don Naylor and Phil Mowbray.   In 2004, the Trotters had come second in the Scottish Six Stage Road Relay Championship.

From 2004 onwards, Phil Mowbray has relished running for pleasure on the roads, with wins in events like the EU 10 Miles, and half marathons in Haddington, Stornoway and the Isle of Barra.   He continues to take part regardless of finishing position, and has run many hill races such as the Two Breweries, the Aonach Mhor uphill and of course the Hunter’s Bog Trot.   Phil has also tackled the Trossachs Duathlon and it seems as if he has a long and varied career ahead of him.   Will he compete seriously as an M40?   Only if he enjoys such a challenge!

Another picture from the 2004 Stornoway Half.

And that is where Colin ended his profile.   You will note from the pictures on this page that Phil is still competing in the twenty first century with some distinction.  He is racing on the road and over the country and seems to be tackling all distances in both disciplines but not aiming for the Scottish veterans scene.    With his ability and attitude he could probably do well there but Phil was always his own man and always followed his own inclinations.   Bearing that in mind, I hope and expect to see that familiar running action and determination in action for a few years yet.

Colin Martin in the 1985 Tom Scott 10

Colin Martin was a very good athlete indeed.   He excelled at events from 880 Yards right up to the marathon and even did his share of the work when Dumbarton AAC set the record for the original Glasgow – Fort William Relay.   He was indeed one of the very best club men in the country – the old adage of ‘one man, one club’ held good for his entire career and his club had good reason to be grateful.   The same Colin Martin knew how to ‘run wi’ the heid’ as well: I remember a Dunbartonshire 5000m track championship on a very windy afternoon at Scotstoun when the wind really hurtled up the back straight.   Colin was up against a much less experienced man that day and when they hit the back straight Colin went to the front with the wind at his back and lured the opposition into working to catch him into the wind up the home straight, he did the same in the second lap, and the third, and by the fourth of the 12 laps he was on his own with the younger runner totally spent!   His application for membership of Dumbarton AAC went through on 25th January 1962, he was vice-captain in 1964 and 1965 and was elected captain in 1966.   A very popular athlete, his career is reviewed by Colin Youngson.

Colin R.L. Martin was born on the 19^th of January 1947 and has enjoyed a long and successful career as a middle and long-distance athlete. During all that time, he has been proud to represent only one club: Dumbarton AAC. While other runners of similar ability have worked and raced around Scotland, taking every opportunity to join the most successful clubs available, Colin has stayed true to his roots and his training mates. He may have fewer team medals as a result but has undoubtedly retained his integrity.

Colin’s talent was obvious from the start. In 1965 as a Youth he won a bronze medal in the SCCU Championships at Hamilton Racecourse, behind Eddie Knox (Springburn) and John Fairgrieve (EAC). That summer he was fifth in the Junior one mile rankings with a good time of 4 minutes 19.1 seconds. Top of the list for 880 yards and one mile was another fine Dumbarton runner: Graeme Grant. Bill Cairns was another good team-mate.

In cross-country Colin did not shine again until 1971, when he finished 19^th in the Senior National. For some time after that he took part in the International Training Sessions on Sundays at Cleland Estate, Motherwell, and in November 1971 ran for the SCCU team which lost to the Northern Counties but defeated the Army over mud, hills and a series of nasty brushwood fences at Catterick Camp. In the 1972 National he must have been very pleased with an excellent 11^th place (so near to making the Scottish team for the International CC), over a fast course at Currie. In the 1973 National he proved his consistency with 14^th place (beating Dave Logue and Jim Dingwall amongst many others) and managed a respectable 24^th in 1974. There is no doubt that these four runs in the National would have won him team medals if he had not been admirably loyal to Dumbarton AAC.

Colin’s club took part in eleven successive Edinburgh to Glasgow Relays from 1966 to 1975 (plus 1983) and Colin Martin, totally reliable, ran them all. Since he was usually the fastest runner in the club, he was given the responsibility of carrying the baton only against top opposition on Stages 2 (8 times) or 6 (4 times). No chance of shining falsely on the less important legs! Dumbarton’s best placing was tenth in 1969, when Colin gained five places on Stage Two. In 1974 he moved up five once again, this time on Stage Six, finishing an outstanding third-fastest behind Lawrie Reilly and Ron MacDonald.

Allan Adams was several years older than Colin Martin and became his friend, training partner and mentor. Goodness knows how many miles these two have run together! I imagine that Allan made Colin suffer on some of the long runs, while Colin gained his revenge through speedwork. When I ran for Victoria Park AAC in 1971-1973 I got to know them both. They were always polite but steely competitors – hard men! (After I became a veteran in 1987, Allan emphasised that he remained a redoubtable opponent, not only winning six Scottish CC titles in the M45 and M50 age groups, but also pushing me very hard in the Lochaber and Aberdeen Marathons, despite the fact that I was in a ‘younger’ category.)

It seems entirely appropriate that, when Colin Martin handed over the baton at the end of Stage Two, in both 1966 and 1983, he passed it to Allan Adams.

Bill Yate, 165, Phil Dolan, 159, Colin Martin 164 in the DAAA 3 Miles on the real Scotstoun track

On the track, Colin Martin raced relentlessly for his club in league races, often running several events in one meeting. Several highlights stand out. In 1969, he was second to John Linaker in the Inter-District 5000m. 1970 was one of his best seasons: 800m 1.55.8; 1500m 3.55.8 when he was fourth in the SAAA Championships (and Commonwealth Games trial) at Meadowbank, plus a win in the West District 1500m; 10,000m 30.39.8; and a debut marathon at Dumbarton in 2.48.55.

1971 produced the following: 1500m 3.58.3; 3000m 8.23.0; 500m 14.45; and a very good 10,000m in 30.08 when fourth in the SAAA Championships at Meadowbank.

By 1972, Colin had become one of my main rivals. He was undoubtedly faster but I was gaining in stamina. Two races illustrate this. At Meadowbank on the 27^th of May, we both had a go at the SAAA Ten Mile Track Championship. EAC’s Andy McKean went off with Colin in close attendance but then dropped him before going on to win easily. My training diary states: “Caught CM at three miles after a big effort and then we took two laps each until I made a break at seven miles and struggled to the finish. Andy 49.25, me 50.15, Colin 50.45.” However by the 16^th of September Colin Martin was much fitter. In the afternoon at the Grangemouth so-called Highland Games, he sprinted away in the 3000m to produce a PB of 8.21.4, five seconds clear of me and young Lawrie Spence. According to the SATS Yearbook, that evening at Meadowbank in a 5000m, Colin set another PB in a time of 14.18.0. As I said, a hard man!

Further proof of CM’s toughness was a real head-to-head on 26^th May 1973 at the West District Championships at Westerlands. It was extremely warm, the track was very hard and my rival took the lead from the gun. The Sunday Post reported: “Colin Martin powered out a blistering 4.35 over the first four laps of the 10,000 metres and only Victoria Park’s Colin Youngson had the courage to go with him. But his legs failed him with ten laps to go and the Dumbarton man went on to win comfortably in 30.29.2 with Youngson second in 30.47.0. The pair reached the halfway stage in 14.50 and a good time looked on until Youngson tailed off.” At least I made him work! As the time for the second 5000m indicates, we both found it awfully hard. Newspaper photos make clear how knackered we were! A week later Colin M beat me again by thirty seconds in the Airdrie Highland Games 13 mile road race (but I did finish in front of him in the SAAA 10,000m two weeks after that!)

1974 seems to have been Colin’s last serious track season.  He won the West District 5000m at Grangemouth on 25^th May, defeating Phil Dolan of Clydesdale Harriers. His other races were at Meadowbank: victory in a 1500m on the 8^th of June, recording 3.57.3; at the SAAA Championships on 22^nd June he ran 14.22 for 5000m; and in July completed 10,000m in 30.21.4.

Apart from his E to G runs, Colin Martin had shown considerable promise as a road racer. For example in the Glasgow University Road Race (over five and a quarter miles) he was third in both 1971 and 1972. In March 1973 he was third in the Balloch to Clydebank 12 and a half (behind Jim Dingwall and me) but then in early June won easily in the Airdrie 13. I believe that he went on to run for Scotland against Northern Ireland in another road race around half-marathon distance.

 Loch Rannoch Marathons 1985

It was not surprising that Colin eventually turned to the marathon as his main event. In 1978 he improved his best to 2.38.13 in the SAAA event. A particularly good run was in the 1981 Glasgow Marathon, when Colin finished fourteenth in 2.28.25. A year later in the same event he recorded 2.30.36. Then in April 1984 he won the inaugural Lochaber Marathon in 2.28.36, improving this record with another victory in 1985 with 2.26.58.

However the best win was yet to come. The History of the Scottish Marathon Championship tells the following tale.

“1988 was the year when the SAAA Marathon travelled to Fort William as part of the (still flourishing) Lochaber Marathon. Colin Martin, a Scottish Road-Running International in the seventies, had become a veteran the previous year. He and his Dumbarton training friend/rival Allan Adams (a British Veterans Marathon Champion) had been doing 90 to 100 miles per week, with Tuesdays and Thursdays devoted to 400, 800 or even mile repetitions with Lachie Stewart and his promising son Glen. Colin’s Saturday session might be 22 miles on the road, with Sundays an hour and a half over country trails. Lochaber made an excellent target, since it also hosted the Scottish Veterans and SAAA events. Donald Ritchie, the famous ultra-distance runner, wrote that on 24^th April “a group of six runners formed by the time we left town. I increased the pace and by the turn there were three of us left. At about 18 miles I managed to drop the Pitreavie runner McNeill, but Colin Martin stuck behind me.” Colin himself remembers that over the next few miles, both athletes made attempts to get rid of each other, to no avail. Shortly after the right turn at Corpach, over a steep little climb starting at a garage, Colin burst away and held a narrow lead to the end. It was a very gruelling race indeed. 

The result was: first Colin Martin (Dumbarton AAC) – 2.30.09;  second Donald Ritchie (Forres Harriers) 2.30.26; third Bill McNeill (Pitreavie AAC) 2.36.39. Scottish Champion Colin Martin went on to represent Scotland in the Nuremberg Marathon in June 1988.”

Colin Martin and Doug Gunstone at a Reunion Dinner in April 2012.

Dave Logue was a Northern Irish athlete of high quality who did almost all of his running in Scotland and who ran for both Northern Ireland in the world cross-country championships and the Commonwealth Games in 1970.   Colin Youngson was a team mate and friend and has written the following profile of Dave’s career since his arrival here in 1965.

David Nixon Logue was born on 2nd August 1946.   He has lived in Scotland since going to Edinburgh University in 1965 but has run internationally for Northern Ireland.   Without doubt, if he had chosen to compete for us, he would have been a regular ,member of the Scottish Cross-Country team.   In November 1975, reporting on Dave Logue’s win on the Glasgow University Road Race, Ron Marshall wrote the following in a Glasgow Herald article headlined ‘Double First for Logue’ : “David Logue, an Irish research fellow at Glasgow University, who specialises in cattle reproduction, received news on Saturday morning that he had been awarded his doctorate.   In the afternoon, with not a farmyard welly in sight, he won the university’s open road arce from a record field of more than 200.”

“Logue has been around for a long time.   A native of Northern Ireland, he has become one of the best known faces in Scottish middle distance running.   He represented his country  in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in the steeplechase at Meadowbank.   Nowadays he runs for fun.   Many of the serious, less-talented men who regularly finish with only a rare view of his rangy physique are not amused – at least not while he digs into a mine of stamina few possess and whips them along at a merciless pace.   Keeping Logue company all the way were Doug Gunstone, the Scottish 10000m champion, Colin Youngson the national marathon champion and Maryhill’s Bill Yate, one of the hardest runners around at this level of competition,   The last 300 metres of the five mile circuit was run on the cinder track at Westerlands, and it was Logue who had most in reserve as Gunstone tried to launch a counter-attack.   The big Irishman finished two seconds ahead in 24:51, 23 seconds outside Norman Morrison’s record.   Gunstone ran 24:53; Youngson 24:57 and Yate 25:03.”

I find it hard to imagine anyone grudging Dave Logue victory.   In the 1960’s and 1970’s he was famed as a cheerful extrovert – a larger than life character who loved a party and was the best of company.   However his dedication may be less well known.   Certainly his working career has been very successful.   In 2011 he retires as Professor of Food Animal Disease at the University of Glasgow School of Veterinary Medicine.  Certainly when his suspect Achilles tendon permitted, his running training was extremely fast and tough.   But it was his ability to peak for important races and to produce his absolute best for the team that I remember.   Three of his perennial favourites were the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay, the Scottish National Cross-Country Championships and the SAAA 5000 metres.

Mark Cavendish, the superb Tour de France sprinter, who goes through hell on the hilly stages, makes an interesting distinction between a cyclist’s ability to hurt himself and his ability to suffer.   A 400 metres runner hurts himself a good deal; a good distance runner has to learn to suffer for quite a long time.   We all remember athletes of great physical talent who make it look easy (eg Ian McCafferty, Graham Laing, John Robson and Nat Muir).   Others however obviously got there with tremendous effort (such as Jim Brown and Andy McKean).   However of all the men I was lucky to know really well, no one possessed a greater ability (to push horribly hard, really hurt himself and suffer a great deal) than Donald Ritchie, the world-record breaking ultra-distance runner and Dave Logue.   The rest of us backed off and slowed down – but we admired our tougher rivals, especially because they never boasted.

Dave Logue’s running career can be divided into three phases: 1966 – 1970, the Edinburgh University years and the Commonwealth Games; 1971 – 1973, competing for Glasgow University; and 1974 – 1984 representing Edinburgh Southern Harriers.

What a wonderful time to start at Edinburgh University!   National Cross-Country Champion Fergus Murray had established a training and racing dynasty and the Hare and Hounds ruled the roost in Scotland and in British University competition.   By the end of his first year, in the 1966 National Junior Cross-Country Championship, Dave Logue finished fifteenth and his team won bronze, only four points behind the winners.   In 1967, in his final Junior appearance, Dave was fifth and Edinburgh University won gold in the BUSF Championships.   His first attempt at the National Senior in 1968 produced thirteenth for Dave (third EU counter behind Alastair Blamire and Gareth Bryan-Jones) and another team gold.   In 1969 he was eleventh in the National but most of the Edinburgh University stars had graduated and their domination was at an end – although they went on to win Scottish team titles with ESH or EAC.   In 1970 Dave was tenth and EU won team silver.   Alistair Blamire was fourth but Andy McKean finished eleventh, only eight seconds behind Dave – a friendly rivalry between these two was evident and it was to continue for several years, especially on the sixth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow!

There were several other cross-country highlights for Dave Logue during this time.   In January, 1967, Edinburgh University H&HC occupied the first eight places in the Scottish Universities first team race from King’s Buildings and over the Braid Hills; and Chris Elson won the second team race in a time that would have placed him about sixth in the premier event!   So much for competitors from the other six Scottish universities.   Dave of course won a full blue at Edinburgh University.   With greater difficulty I managed the same at Aberdeen University.   However I couldn’t help wishing that I had gone to Edinburgh, although I doubt whether I could have endured 100 miles per week!   The most committed beer-drinking runners attended Strathclyde, but Edinburgh certainly played hard as well as ran brilliantly.   In 1967 EU won the team title at the BUSF Cross-Country Championships, defeating amongst others Oxford and Cambridge.

The gulf in class was evident in December 1968, when the Scottish Universities trial match (for the match versus the SCCU) took place on my home course in Aberdeen.   I ran a pb in 34:14 and finished fourth (just in front of young Andy McKean).   However the first three finished within eleven seconds well over a minute in front.   John Myatt of Strathclyde broke Bill Ewing’s course record by one second (33:26), with Adrian Weatherhead recording 33:30 and Dave Logue 33:37.  Then in March 1969 the syndrome continued over the   KB course.   Once again I was fourth, well over a minute behind the carefully staged and deliberate dead-heat contrived by Dave Logue, Ian Young and Alastair Blamire.   As Scottish Champions, Edinburgh University took part in the European Championships at Arles in Belgium.   The team finished a creditable fufth with Dave Logue being first counter in a remarkable seventh individual position. Naturally Dave represented Scottish Universities every year, not only in the fixture against the SCCU but also in the home countries university contest which was part of the BUSF.   In addition he won the Scottish Universities cross-country title twice, including 1970 when he finished just in front of Andy McKean.

In March 1969, wearing his country’s colours (green vest, white shorts) Dave Logue ran for Northern Ireland in the ICCU Championships at Clydebank/   His team was led by the outstanding Derek Graam (9th Old Boys), while Dave was a member of North Belfast Harriers.

In the Edinburgh to Glasgow Road Relay Dave had considerable success.   In 1966 he was third fastest on the fourth stage, extending the lead and EU won the team race.   1967 was almost identical (Dave moving up three places into the lead, third fastest on four behind Derek Graham, EU gold).   However in 1968, although Dave moved up four places and was second fastest on four to 1969 Scottish CC Champion Dick Wedlock, his team could only finish seventh.   Then in 1969, Dave moved up two places on four and was fourth fastest to Wedlock, Gareth Bryan-Jones and Alex Wight, EU finished third.   So far, representing EU in the National and the E – G, Dave Logue had collected four team gold medals, a silver and two bronze.

But what of the track?   I don’t know when the inhabitants of ‘The Zoo’ (See Fergus Murray’s profile) gave Dave the nickname ‘Arkle’ after the big Irish Equine steeplechaser.   Dave usually took university track less seriously and often raced when he was not fully fit.   The two main EU three milers were Alistair Blamire and Ian Young, so Dave contented himself the odd speed session over one mile (I even finished ahead of him once) but occasionally exerted himself (such as June 1969 when he won the 5000m at the Scottish Universities Championships).

1970 was different – Commonwealth Games year.   Dave Logue tried the steeplechase.   He made an immediate impression by winning the Scottish Universities title and also the East District one (recording 9:15.6 and defeating former Scottish champion Bill Ewing).   The race that sealed Dave’s selection for the Northern Irish team in the Edinburgh CG was his fourth place in a keenly-contested SAAA steeplechase.   Olympian Gareth Bryan-Jones won in 8:41.8 but there was a real scrap behind him.   GB International Bill Mullett was second in 8:57.2, Bill Ewing third in 9:02.6 and Dave Logue ran a pb of 9:06.6.   Sadly before the Games started, Dave suffered a bad injury to an Achilles tendon.   Typically he decided to compete anyway and was determined to finish his heat.   I was spectating and agonised with him as he limped doggedly onwards.   It was torture to watch and much worse to run.   Imagine the pain: the impact of taking off and landing; negotiating 28 hurdles and seven water-jumps as well as running seven and a half laps on one good leg and one very sore one.   Dave made it to the finish in 9:49.8.   Well-known Welsh international Ron McAndrew, by contrast, did not complete the course.

Dave never ran another steeplechase and was injured for several months but by November 1971 he had started studying for a PhD at the Veterinary School and competing for Glasgow University.   Although that Achilles tendon was seldom healthy, Dave took part in many races for his new team.   In fact the 1971 – 72 season was very successful for Glasgow University Hares & Hounds.   The long and entertaining history of the club (on haresandhounds.com) states: “A major factor in the improvement of the club’s fortunes had been the presence of the former Edinburgh University runner, Dave Logue.”   He was always a role model – someone who trained and raced hard but also encouraged others and took an extremely active part in post-race celebrations, despite carrying out his academic work with exemplary zeal.

Although Glasgow University could not hope to win medals in the National Cross-Country Championships and the E – G, Dave continued to peak for those events as well as contributing to GU success in University competition.   They won the Scottish Universities team title in 1972 (and Dave was awarded a Blue) and 1974 (when Dave was the individual victor for the third time.)   Even after he graduated in 1974, Dave’s influence continued since GU went on to win the SU CC team title in 1975 and 1976.   Dave Logue ran a great race in 1974 when he won the Midland District CC title at Cleland Estate almost half a minute clear of Lawrie Spence.   He also achieved an excellent sixth place in the BUSF that year.   In the Scottish National CC, Dave was fifteenth in 1973 and ninth in 1974.   In the annual SU v SCCU race, he was the individual winner in both 1973 (representing SU) and 1974 when a Northern Irish team took part in the contest and Dave was victorious again wearing his international vest.

In 1973 Dave was second in the Northern Irish National Cross-Country Championships and secured a place in the Northern Ireland team for the World CC Championships on Waregem Racecourse, outside Ghent, Belgium.   In 1974 he finally became Northern Irish Cross Country Champion.

In the 1971 Edinburgh to Glasgow, Dave ran the long sixth stage for the first year of seven in succession.   He improved the position of Glasgow University by five places and they ended up twelfth.   In 1972, the Hares & Hounds moved up to seventh.  Then in in 1973 GU finished ninth after Dave was second fastest on six in the top-class time of 31:16, not much slower than his old rival Andy McKean, who equalled the stage record with 31:00.   The famous Ian Stewart could only manage 31:21.

On the track Dave ran well for fifth place (14:11.6) in the SAAA championship 5000m at Meadowbank.   In the same race in 1974 he improved to fourth in a new pb of 14:04.0.

There are many tales about Dave Logue around this time.   On the training front, there were his legendary lunchtime sessions on Westerlands grass, with the likes of Lachie Stewart, Alistair Blamire and Innis Mitchell.   I rented a room in his top-floor flat in Highburgh Road for a year (1972-73) and remember trying early morning five mile runs with Dave.   He started so fast that it took me a mile to catch up.   Then there were the Wednesday evening, winter-dark ten mile runs up to Anniesland Cross (Dave ran straight through the traffic while I dithered nervously) and then out the grass in the middle of the dual carriageway in the direction of Dumbarton until we reached a certain roundabout and then headed back to the flat.   The petrol-tainted air quality can not have been healthy but we got used to it.   Dave’s notorious Achilles was frequently tender and he used to rub it with horse liniment from the lab!

Then there was the socialising.   Dave had a miraculous ability to quaff ten pints of Guinness at Westerlands without showing a single sign of unsteadiness on the way home.   After BUSF in 1972, the GU history reports that Dave “only narrowly failed in getting himself thrown out of the Sheffield Union.”   At a SCCU dance after the 1973 Springburn Cup, “there was a snowball fight with Scottish international Norman Morrison and Dave Logue threatened to practise handbrake turns on the Switchback Road to Bearsden!”   Working in a lab had its advantages, and Highburgh Road parties featured a powerfully alcoholic (and aphrodisiac?) so-called ‘punch’ which might (allegedly) been enhanced by the odd nip of ethyl (not methyl!) alochol.   In addition Dave started a fashion for late night post refreshment walking over parked cars (onto the bonnet, over the roof and on to the next car, etc).   When Albie Smith performed this feat on Dave’s treasured light-blue ‘Beetle’ and left a dent on the roof, Dave was calmly philosophical about the damage.    With very few exceptions, Dave has been a sober and sensible citizen for many decades, but some of us still remember his roaring twenties!

Finally there were the Edinburgh Southern years.    By 1974, both Dave and I were competing for Scotland’s top road-running team.   In the E-G that year, ESH won with Dave keeping our lead on six, with the third fastest time ahead of internationals Ron McDonald and Doug Gunstone, and ESH broke the course record set in 1965 by Edinburgh University.   In the 1976 race (when young John Robson had an argument with the baton, ESH could only finish eighth but Dave Logue was undaunted, moving up three places and setting the fastest time on six once again.   Dave was out of form in November 1977 but still battered himself in the great race, moving ESH into the lead on stage six with the fifth fastest time.   Our team won again.   He did not run the E-G again until 1982 when Dave was third fastest on five and ESH recorded another victory.    His Achilles tendon let him down at last in 1983 when he took over second on the eighth stage but was injured and limped in a brave sixth   Still, he had been in six winning teams!

Dave Logue ran successfully in several more Scottish National cross-country championships.  In 1976 Dave was sixth in the National Cross-Country: second ESH runner behind Allister Hutton in third and the club team was second to Edinburgh AC’s record breaking score of a very low 37points.   In 1977 the race was on an undulating course thickly covered with snow.   Only the hard men made light of this.   Andy McKean won from Allister Hutton with Dave Logue achieving a  superb third place and ESH a close second to Shettleston.   In the 1979 race at Livingston, Colin Shields reported: “The races were held in bitter Arctic conditions over a tough course made difficult by terrain which was icy-hard and rutted underfoot.”   ESH had a real chance of winning the team contest.   In my optimistic opinion, I was training faster than my friend Dave and after the first mile we found ourselves running side-by-side.   Suddenly I felt strangely tired – after all this was a genuine cross-country test and not a nice smooth road on which I might have had a chance.   Dave simply disappeared up the field while I sagged back to end up fifth ESH counter in a lowly 29th place.   By sheer effort and the ability to suffer, Dave overcame any lack of fitness to finish tenth, second counter for our team which won easily.   1981 was an absolute mudbath in a downpour at Callendar Park, Falkirk.   We were going for a hat-trick of team titles, so Dave and I struggled home in 15th and 19th positions, four seconds apart, only to hear that a couple of our more sensitive ‘stars’ further up the course had reckoned the conditions  a little unsuitable for athletes of their calibre – and had dropped out, so that we only finished second, a mere eleven points behind Edinburgh AC.   1982 produced another gold medal for ESH and Dave was 19th while I was surprised to outsprint him for 18th, and a bronze with Aberdeen AAC, the team I had rejoined.   Dave Logue’s final gold was in 1983 when he ended up second ESH counter in 22nd place and the team won narrowly from old foes, EAC.   In total Dave was in five National winning teams.   After one of EU’s victories in the National, perhaps in 1968, there was a slight delay in the presentation and Dave entertained everyone with his version of ‘Wild Rover’ over the official microphone!

In addition, Dave Logue played his part in a number of road relay successes.   He may have taken part in the AAA 12 stage relay in 1974 when ESH finished an excellent second behind Tipton Harriers.   he was certainly in the team which repeated this considerable feat in 1975 behind Brendan Foster’s Gateshead Harriers.  In 1974, Dave was third fastest (22:20) only eighteen seconds slower than Andy McKean when he, Ian Elliott, Alistair Blamire and I helped ESH to break the Allan Scally Relay course record in 90:45,   Dave was also part of the ESH team which won the inaugural Scottish Six-Stage Road Relay at Strathclyde Park in 1979.   This was his twelfth Scottish Championships gold medal.

On the track, his impressive swansong was in 1977 when he finished fifth in the SAAA track 5000m.   It was a particularly high quality race, won by England’s Dave Black in front of Lawrie Spence, Allister Hutton, Jim Brown and Dave Logue who finally broke the 14 minute barrier with a very good 13:53.   Injury-free at last, he also set an impressive pb for 10,000m (29:03.8) in September 1977.

Occasionally Dave tried his hand at longer distances.   I remember him outkicking me to break the record in the Balloch to Clydebank 12, probably in 1975.   Furthermore I believe he finally represented Scotland in an international 10 mile road race, possibly at Bearsden.   Then in 1983 when the Glasgow Marathon had become the major race in Scotland, Dave quietly decided to take part.   He was still in the leading group around 16 miles and then ran in steadily to finish untroubled in 2:26:05 – 24th out of the 9000 who completed the course.

Thereafter Dave Logue concentrated on his work and his family but has always continued to keep fit by running and ski-ing.   He has a wide circle of friends and, for a number of good reasons, thoroughly deserves to be referred to as ‘Big Dave’.

*

That’s Colin’s profile of his friend, team-mate and rival Dave Logue and there is a lot in there that I – and I suspect many others – did not know; for those who were friends and rivals, some of the stories will bring back happy memories.   I can’t help but remark though on the Edinburgh/Glasgow University situation.    In the early 1960’s Glasgow University had a top class team including Calum Laing, Doug Gifford, Allan Faulds and others which was maybe the top team in the land but like all student teams it fell away, in the 1970’s the Edinburgh University team was quite simply outstanding.    Both of these teams had students who wanted to run for the University and who turned out as first claim team runners for the H&H teams.   When the Glasgow team in the 80’s won the Scottish Universities cross-country title eight times in a row, they had very high quality athletes running in the Scot Unis – unfortunately most of the top men chose to run for their club and not for the student teams.    It would have been a quite formidable squad had such as Bobby Quinn and Alastair Douglas chosen to run for them as first-claim members.   While there is nothing wrong with that decision, they are only at University for a few years and it might have been interesting seeing such a team in action.    However, Dave Logue had an excellent career and but for the tendon, the steeplechase might have been a real option for him.

Andrew as cover boy for the annual yearbook after his very good 2005 season

Andrew Lemoncello (born 12/10/1982) has been perhaps the most successful Scottish male distance athlete of the last decade, although his career has recently been hampered by injury.

Andrew was born in Tokyo, Japan, on the twelfth of October 1982. His father is American and his mother Scottish – (Phyllis Lemoncello has won several Scottish Masters CC titles.) Andrew grew up in St Andrews and attended Madras College – he still holds all the School distance running records. He joined Fife AC and was coached for several years by Ron Morrison. An early success was coming second in the Scottish under-13 high jump! However he also won the Scottish road and cross-country titles at that level (1996) and also under-15 (1998). After a couple of years finishing on the podium but not in first place (although his Fife AC team won gold in 2000), he regained the top spot by winning the Scottish Junior National CC in both 2002 (when Fife won as well) and 2003. In addition he had started running the steeplechase, winning the Scottish 2000m title in the appropriate year – 2000.

He won the Senior Scottish 3000m steeplechase in 2000 and 2002 and was second in the AAA under-23 event in 2003, improving his personal best to 8.47.32. That year he ran for the GB under-23 team against Catalonia and Italy. He studied at Stirling University and won the 2004 British Universities Championships for 5000m and 10,000m.

Back in 2001 Andrew had been part of the GB Junior team which won gold at the European CC Championship. Then he came eighth in the World Mountain Running Trophy Junior Men’s race. A very good cross-country result for Andrew was in the 2004 Senior National, when he came third and Fife AC were third team. He also won the Scottish CC title over 4k.

Andrew Lemoncello was offered a scholarship to Florida State University in Tallahassee, which let him train and race regularly with top athletes. In an article in the 2006 Scottish Athletics Yearbook, Andrew described his new regime. “All the facilities, including the track, are within a ten to fifteen minute walk of my house, and there are great trails just a short drive away. The climate is perfect – it is about 80 degrees all year round, apart from a couple of weeks when it dips to 60.” However it wasn’t exactly a pampered existence. He had to get up at 6 a.m. each morning for the first of two daily runs, separated by ice baths and lunchtime naps. “We train hard and then rest so we can train harder the next day.” Every week he logged around 100 miles, consisting of a variety of sessions, including steady and tempo runs, speed drills, lactate threshold runs, long and recovery runs. Add in two weights sessions per week, and – of course – classes for his B.A. in Sports Management, and it was a tired Scot who climbed into bed most evenings.

2005 was a busy and successful year. After a hectic Spring season in America, producing a number of track bests, in July Andrew triumphed at the AAA Championships, winning the steeplechase in 8.33.93. Subsequently he was selected for the Great Britain team for the Helsinki World Championships. As part of his build-up he won the Scottish 5000m title; but unfortunately did not get past the heats in Finland. 2006 allowed him to produce consistently good times on the track in America and also to retain his Scottish 5000m championship. Sadly he chose to withdraw from the Scottish team for the Commonwealth Games, due to university commitments in the USA, and also did not run in the European Championships.

2007 was World Championship year once more and Andrew Lemoncello responded well. He won the Scottish East District CC championship, followed by a demanding series of races in America. A highlight was second place (behind Kenya’s Barnabas Kirui) in the NCAA steeplechase championships in June. Shortly after that, he was third in the European Cup. Then in Metz, France, Andrew ran a new steeplechase best of 8.23.74; and then won the GB World Trials and AAA Championship. Scottish Athletics presented him with the George Dallas Memorial Trophy, for his outstanding contribution that year. Sadly, although he had no trouble retaining his Scottish 5000m title once more, Andrew fell ill, suffered side effects from an unfamiliar energy gel, and really struggled in his World Championship heat in Osaka. When he was interviewed (for The Winning Zone) a couple of months later, Andrew vowed to learn from the experience and also stated that he believed that he could indeed continue to be world class and that his longer term ambition was to become a successful marathon runner. Now that he seemed to have reached a plateau, he said, “I’m at the stage where I need to take another jump up, so I’m going to move to altitude and join a new training group set up by coach Greg McMillan in Flagstaff, Arizona.” Andrew also explained that, despite the very hard training, he continued to have a real passion for the sport. “If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it. I love getting up in the morning and running.” In a race, he just wanted to do the best he could. “If I finish a race and come tenth and know I’ve run really well and have nothing left in my body, I’ll be happy. That’s what helps to motivate me.”

2008 was Olympic year. In March, having been fourth in the Inter-Counties CC selection race, Andrew Lemoncello ran for Britain in the World CC Championships in Edinburgh. He finished third in the European Cup steeplechase once again, and shortly afterwards came third in the AAA Olympic Trials. At the last moment he qualified for the GB team by running an outstanding new best of 8.22.95 on the 18^th of July in the Paris Golden League. However he did not qualify from his heat in Beijing, despite running a decent time of 8.36.06. In retrospect, he believes he peaked too early. Then he came back to Scotland and, for the fourth year in succession, won the Scottish 5000m title, this time defeating the two Shettleston Eritreans.

Andrew’s coach Ron Morrison worked with him for many years including the run-in to the Olympics and has written a first class account of that year which was published in the Scottish Athletics Yearbook in 2009.   It is an informative article and we have reprinted it   here   for you.

Having retired from steeplechasing, Andrew Lemoncello pursued his marathon aspirations by concentrating mainly on the road, although in April 2009 he did run a very good PB for 10,000m (27.57.23) in California. Having run a Texan downhill half-marathon in 61.52, Andrew represented GB yet again, this time in the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Birmingham, where he finished a respectable 26^th (First Briton) in 63.03. Then in December he was 29^th in the European CC Championships in Dublin.

After a hard winter grinding out the miles, Andrew Lemoncello was ready to make his debut in the 2010 London Marathon, and although he had hoped to go a little faster, was quite happy about his eighth place (first Briton) and time of 2.13.40. When he continued to show fitness by being first man in for the UK at the Great North Run Half Marathon in September 2010, and had a number of good runs in 2011, all seemed well for London 2012. Sadly, Andrew Lemoncello tore a hamstring before he had a very bad time in the Fukuoka Marathon in December 2011 and did not have time to prepare for the Olympic Selection race at London (in April 2012). He did finish fifteenth (and second Brit in 2.15.24) but the time was too slow for the team and anyway, his injury problems persisted.

When interviewed later for the Saint Andrean, Andrew Lemoncello said that his favourite training runs were the Mesa Trail in Boulder, Colorado, and along the Old Course and then back via the West Sands in St Andrews. His current ambition was to get healthy and be able to run pain free once more. Looking ahead, he wanted to run another fast marathon, perhaps at the 2013 London event, and in 2014 to be in a good position to win a medal at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. He still had many sporting ambitions. Andrew’s sporting hero was Liz McColgan and his drink of choice a good craft beer.

This brief profile of Andrew Lemoncello is written just before his thirtieth birthday – he is definitely still young for a marathon man! Any Scottish runner will admire his many outstanding athletic achievements and hope fervently that he will avoid further injury and succeed in fulfilling all his ambitions.

Personal Bests: 1500m – 3.45.6; 1 mile – 4.03.22; 3000m – 8.00.9; 5000m – 13.33.01; 10,000m – 27.57.23; 3000m steeplechase – 8.22.95; 10 miles road – 47.41; half marathon – 63.00; marathon – 2.13.40.

That was where Colin finished his profile although Andrew is still relatively young and it will have to be updated as his career progresses.

Eddie Knox was a top-class runner by anybody’s standards and at Springburn Harriers he was the first of a whole series coached by international track and cross-country runner Eddie Sinclair.    He was followed in rapid succession by such talents as George Jarvie and Freddie Farrell and several more including Graham Williamson who were brought along by Eddie.   Very friendly and easy to get on with, Eddie Knox was always a club man too and was part of a very good group that included such as Harry Gorman and Mike Bradley.

Edward Knox was born on the 9th of May 1947.  Eddie remembers his first attempt at running was when he was as a pupil at Chirnside Primary School.   Heats were held for the Glasgow Schools Championships.   These involved P6 and P7 lining up and running the length of the football pitch.   He was so slow off his mark that it halfway before he caught them.    The Championships were held at Scotstoun where they faced Hutchie Grammar, Glasgow High School among others, several wearing real track suits.   Although defeated it was his first competitive outing.   Then when he was in the third year at Possil Secondary where he ran in the school championships and other events, school mate Harry Gorman, who was already a member of Springburn Harriers, invited him along to the club.   He was in the Under 15 age group at that time and left school at 15.  After enjoying playing about with other events such as the discus he came to distance running.   Someone gave him a pair of spikes and senior member Dunky McFarlane encouraged him to dubbin them to keep them soft.   Unfortunately Eddie dubbined the soles as well as the uppers and the result did not initially have the desired effect!    His first race for the club was in the Lanarkshire Championships where he finished seventh – in a Victoria Park vest!   He had been coached by Eddie Sinclair right from the start.   There were several packs for the boys who were taken out for a three-quarter mile steady run.    Eddie was running at school every day and felt th pace of these runs was too slow so after two or three, he just took off and ran at his own pace.

As a Youth and a Junior he enjoyed tremendous success, culminating in a superb victory in the 1967 ICCU Junior International Cross Country in Barry, Wales. Although this quiet, popular man continued to represent his only club –  Springburn Harriers –  for several years after that, sadly Eddie did not manage to improve as a senior athlete.   Eddie first appears in Colin Shields’ centenary history of the SCCU (the source of several quotations in this profile) in 1964, when he won the National Youths Cross Country title.   The ‘Athletics Weekly’ when reviewing the National Cross-Country Championships said, “The Youths event was as expected a fight between the Springburn runners E Knox and AD Middleton with Knox the winner by almost 40 yards, thus reversing the Midland District result when Middleton won and Knox was only third.”   On the track that summer,  he won the SAAA Youth Mile at Meadowbank in 4.19.7, and also ran two miles in 8.58.6 and three miles in 14.30.6.

Eddie in the Kingsway Relay in 1966:   Bob Dalglish supplying the encouragement

A Youth (ie Under 17) in season 1964-65  Eddie won pretty well all he set out to win other than the District championship which was taken by team mate AD Middleton.   In 1965, Colin Shields commented, “Eddie Knox (Springburn H), with 30 wins in the past nine months, through a long, exhausting racing programme on track, road and cross country, won the Midland District Youths CC by the remarkable margin of 41 seconds.”  Springburn Harriers won the team championship. He went on to add the National Youths title, by 34 seconds from John Fairgrieve (Edinburgh AC), the Scottish Schools champion.   “Eddie Knox of Springburn simply ran away with the Youths event to record his second successive victory in this race.”  After this performance, Eddie was selected for the Scottish Junior team for the ICCU Junior International CC at Wellington Racecourse, Ostend, Belgium. There he finished an excellent fifth (first Scot), just four seconds behind third place. On the track, Eddie improved his three miles time to 13.57.4, which ranked him as top Junior and eighth Senior in Scotland.

The report on the McAndrew Relay in October 1965 started with this.   “there among the leaders was veteran I Binnie (Victoria Park) striding along comfortably with KD Ballantyne (Edinburgh Southern Harriers), E Knox (Springburn) and R Coleman (Dundee Hawkhill) ….”    The report on the first stage ended with “Despite having lost valuable yards when he mistakenly turned into Southbrae Drive from Anniesland Road (the marshal’s faulty positioning there was soon rectified) Knox ran a great race and sent his second man off ahead of all the others.”    Eddie won the first stage with the sixth fastest time of the day although Springburn could only finish eighth.   In the Kingsway Relays at Dundee two weeks later the club team was ninth but the report mentioned Eddie’s fourth fastest time of the day with E Knox is rarely acclaimed in these road relays because his club, Springburn are unable to maintain the progress he gives them.     On Saturday, he ran his club from eighth to first place in 13:32, the fourth fastest time of the day,  but over the last two legs eight places were dropped.”   On 30th October, in the Midlands Relays at King’s Park, Stirling, Eddie had the fifth fastest time of the day, twenty eight seconds slower than Lachie Stewarts’s leading effort, with his team – Duncan Middleton, Moir Logie, himself and Davie Tees being fourth and just out of the medals.

In the Glasgow University road race at Anniesland, Eddie was not mentioned at all in the report despite finishing third behind Lachie Stewart and Bert McKay (Motherwell) but his recent running had been noted and he was selected that afternoon for the SCCU team to meet the British Army at Glasgow Green on November 27th.  On  the 20th of the month, Eddie ran in his first Edinburgh to Glasgow and some run it was.  On the very hard second stage he moved his club up no fewer than seven places – from thirteenth to sixth – with the second fastest time of the afternoon.    The ‘Glasgow Herald’s correspondent called it a “sterling run.”   In the report of the SCCU v British Army match, the focus of the race was the struggle between Lachie Stewart and Eddie Knox for first place.    The victory went to the more experienced Stewart by 40 yards at the end.    First Saturday in December was the county championship and Eddie was second to Bert MacKay in the Lanarkshire championship and the second Saturday was SCCU v Scottish Universities where Lachie won again and Eddie was second – both being inside Fergus Murray’s course record at Cambuslang: Murray was third 20 seconds behind Eddie and behind him were the Brown brothers.   He then won the club 5 miles championship on 18th December.   In the Nigel Barge Road Race on 8th January, Eddie was second again to Lachie Stewart.   “In second place was E Knox who at 18 runs with a maturity one associates with a much older person.   Although he was 21 seconds behind the winner, his time was still 3 seconds inside the old record and for his efforts he won the prize for the first junior to finish.

Bill Stoddart, Lachie Stewart and Eddie (right) in Madrid

Further progress was made over the country in 1966, when Eddie was a first-year Junior. On 8th October the club won the Lanarkshire Relays with Eddie being highly spoken of in the race report in the ‘Glasgow Herald’: “The winning trick was clearly going to be taken by Springburn when their ace in the pack, E Knox, set off determinedly after I Howarth (Motherwell) and Martin McMahon (Shettleston) in that order.   Long before the half-way point in the two and three-quarter mile leg, Knox had the measure of the two others.   Howarth in particular wondering where it was all going to end.  McMahon comfortably overtook him for a clear second place for Shettleston.”   Eddie was equal third fastest for the day with Alex Brown (Motherwell).    In the Midlands Relays at Stirling on 26th October, the Springburn team was fourth with Eddie’s 12:24 their fastest club time by half a minute.   On 5th November in the Glasgow University Road Race he was fourth behind Lachie Stewart, Andy Brown and Jim Brennan (Maryhill) but in front of Alex Brown and Dick Wedlock.   On the 19th of the month, he ran the fifth fastest time on the difficult sixth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay to lift his club from 11th to 9th.   After the race he was told that he was a reserve for the Scottish team to compete against the British Army at Carlisle the following week: the selectors were at least keeping their eye on the first year Junior, and he was selected a week later for the team against the very strong  Scottish Universities.   The Lanarkshire Championships were held, as were all the county championships,  on the first Saturday in December and Eddie did well in what was possibly the strongest of these to finish fifth.    The match against the Universities was held from King’s Buildings in Edinburgh and Eddie was fourth behind John Linaker, Alex Brown and Gareth Bryan-Jones.    It was three very good runs on successive Saturdays.

 Lachie went on to win the Midland District Senior CC, with Eddie Knox “one of the youngest runners in the race, second (but winning the District Junior title). The strong whipcord frame and sharp features of Knox would become familiar in championship events as his talent and strength gained him many successes.” The redoubtable Ian McCafferty (Law and District) retained the National Junior CC, 49 seconds in front of Eddie Knox and Alistair Blamire (Edinburgh University). In the Junior International Championships at Soussi Racecourse, Rabat, Morocco, Eddie Knox ran brilliantly to finish third, just five seconds after the silver medallist. He also led the Scottish Junior team to bronze medals, behind England and Belgium.   Colin Shields’ report on the race read, “Eddie Knox showed his ability in the Junior race when finishing third, just five seconds behind the silver medal position, with the Scots team continuing their good record when finishing third of eight countries behind England and Belgium.”   During the track season, Eddie recorded 4.18.4 for one mile (thus winning the Scottish Junior title in a new championship record); and 13.48.4 for three miles (eighth in the senior rankings).

1967 proved to be Eddie Knox’s best year. He started by  recording a third place behind McCafferty and Stewart in the Nigel Barge Road Race – 27 seconds behind the winner and two seconds behind Stewart.  Springburn was third in the team race with Knox 3, Harry Gorman 18 and Davie Tees 24.   The following day he was second, 160 yards down, to McCafferty at Grangemouth in a 5.75 mile race with Springburn (Knox 2, Ian Young 3, Davie Tees 7, Harry Gorman 15, Moir Logie 18, Alan Picken 19) first team.   He followed this a week later by finishing second to the flying McCafferty in the Springburn Cup road race at Bishopbriggs.   After lamenting the absence of Lachie Stewart and lauding ‘the flying McCafferty’ the Glasgow Herald reporter had this to say, “A spirited assault by E Knox was worth watching.   In only his second year as a Junior competitor, Knox has still much physical development to come.   There can be no doubt that in the National championship next month he will be a worthy successor to his conqueror on Saturday.”   With Harry Gorman 12th and Davie Tees 17th, the team was second to Motherwell for whom the Brown brothers were fourth and fifth.   Missing the West District Championships the following week, he was out again on 28th January in the Edinburgh Southern Harriers 4 x 2.5 mile relay where he was second fastest behind Andy Brown’s record breaking time of 11:34 with 11:37.   A week later he won the club Junior championship by 13 seconds from Harry Gorman.   It was two weeks to the National Junior CC at Hamilton Racecourse which, Colin Shields said,  “was the closest race of the day, with Eddie Knox and Alistair Blamire locked together throughout the five miles.   Neither would give way, whatever the pressure applied by the other until, in the final 100 yards, Knox forced his way ahead for a narrow one second victory over Blamire, who had the satisfaction of leading his EU team-mates to gold medals.”    Ron Marshall in ‘The Glasgow Herald’ commented “the battle in the Junior race between E Knox and J Blamire was the feature of the afternoon.   Over all but the last 100 yards of the five miles they were inseparable, but over that last vital stretch Knox got his head in front and managed to repulse Blamire’s dying effort.”     Following the race four Juniors were chosen for the International – Knox, John Myatt, Norman Morrison (Shettleston) and Jim Cook of Garscube.    Only one week later Eddie ran a disappointing race in the English National when finishing nineteenth.   Then at Barry in Wales, Eddie Knox emulated Ian McCafferty (in 1964) when he became Junior International Cross Country Champion “in an exciting race.  He was in the leading group throughout and edged his way into the lead 400 yards from the line, holding on for a two-second victory over a Belgian, Eddie van Butsele.   Scotland finished third in the team championship.”    That was Colin Shields’ take on the race but the ‘Glasgow Herald’ noted only the result while reporting at length on the Seniors and ignored Scotland’s only victor.   However, when publishing his own Scottish cross-country ranking list, Ron Marshall had this to say about him: “It was hard to fit our brilliant Junior into this list because he is segregated in the big meetings but I felt he was good enough to rub shoulders with our top half dozen Seniors.   On the occasions when he has run against them, he showed up well as his record will show.   As a Junior he won the National and International titles, what more could we ask?”   

In the summer, Eddie started out with a win in the West District Championships on a foul afternoon at Westerlands in 13:54 from Alex Brown and Pat Maclagan.   The following week it noted that he was leading the Springburn Harriers club championships with 27 points.   On 24th June at Meadowbank, Eddie won a bronze medal in the SAAA three miles championship behind Lachie Stewart and club mate Ian Young running in the colours of Edinburgh University in a time of 14:14. His fastest three miles that season was 13.54.0 (8th in the rankings for a third time). He also improved his one mile best to 4.15.1.

Into the 1967-68 season and the first race was the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun and there Eddie was second fastest, only one second down on Ian McCafferty but ahead of the rest of the field including Andy Brown, Alex Brown, Pat Maclagan and Gareth Bryan Jones.   One week later he was third fastest, this time behind Alistair Blamire and Alex Brown, in the Lanarkshire AAA road relay race at Bellshill.   This was followed by fastest time in the Dundee Kingsway Road Relay the following week.   The race was a real battle between Shettleston and Aberdeen but the ‘Glasgow Herald’ pointed out that “It mustn’t be thought that the other clubs were mere props for for the display of these two clubs.   Springburn Harriers, for example, were close enough to Shettleston at half way to cause consternation in the camp.  And the man doing the damage was Knox, the Junior international cross-country champion.    He started the second leg in eighth or ninth position, forged up the brae at the Old Glamis Road into fourth, and flicked into overdrive on the level run of nearly a mile along the Kingsway.   His quarries were Ballantyne (Edinburgh Southern), Ewing (Aberdeen) and Scally in that order.  The first two he managed but the third was just out of range by 10 yards.   Knox had the satisfaction, nevertheless, of running 13:28 easily the fastest of the day.”   Second quickest was Bill Scally in 13:40 and the Springburn team was fourth.   In the Midlands District relay at East Kilbride seven days later, Springburn was second behind Shettleston but this time Eddie was third fastest in the race but only second fastest in the Springburn team!   Harry Gorman whose running had been erratic so far ran out of his skin on the third stage to turn in a time of 14:02 which was four seconds faster than Knox.   The team was Alan Beaney, Harry Gorman, Eddie Knox and Dunky Middleton.   Incidentally, Harry was only one second off the fastest of the day which was down to Dick Wedlock of Shettleston.   The first Saturday in November meant the Glasgow University Road Race and Eddie was second to Lachie Stewart, only two seconds down.   On November 11th, he won the club trial for the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay breaking the course record by 19 seconds.   He beat Harry Gorman by 12 seconds, so he was inside the old record too.      Then running on the second stage in his third Edinburgh to Glasgow relay, he held on to fourth place with equal second fastest time.     On 28th November Eddie ran in the representative match between the SCCU and the English Northern Counties and finished fifth for the team in an overwhelming SCCU victory.   On the same day he was selected with Jim Alder and Lachie Stewart to run in Granollers, North of Barcelona and for the bigger SCCU team to meet the Scottish Universities on 9th December.    On 2nd December he was second in the Lanarkshire Championships to Ian McCafferty.

Then on 9th December 1967, the report read “in a stirring contest over a grassland trail at Knightswood, which was not affected by snow, the Scottish Cross Country Union select snatched a six-point victory from the Scottish Universities representatives in the annual six miles team race. Holder of both the Scottish and International Junior  cross-country titles, Eddie Knox gave an outstanding performance to win his first major senior event and so gain first place points for the SCCU team. However, while the slim, lightly-bearded 20-year-old Springburn Harrier, who was runner-up to Ian McCafferty the previous week in the Lanarkshire championship, dictated the pace for almost the entire distance and seemed to have the race comfortably won a mile from home, he was all but caught on the tape by Alistair Blamire of  Edinburgh University Hare & Hounds, who closed in on Knox with a typical last-gasp finishing burst. Knox won by two seconds.”    As we might expect, Ron Marshall in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ added to the detail the following Monday, “In some races it is hard to say whether the pace is fast but the impression was of the leaders being jet-propelled round the springy grass circuit.   E Knox (SCCU) and A Blamire (Universities) ran like machines stuck in top gear and making no concession to the hillocks they encountered all along the way.   But machines cannot show the feelings and the faces of these two – Knox in front desperately trying to shake off his long-haired assailant and with perhaps just a touch of anxiety in his eyes and Blamire stretched to the limit, refusing to admit he has reached it, retaining the cold grimace of challenge about his features.   Knox won all right but only two seconds separated them at the finish.”

On 8th January 1968, Eddie was eighth in a very high-class Nigel Barge race at Maryhill to get the New Year off to a fairly good start – he was only 25 seconds down on the winner, Gareth Bryan-Jones.   On 13th January he was fourth in the Springburn Cup race, a position that Ron Marshall found difficult to understand since he was the outstanding man in the field, he hinted however that with the Midlands championship the following week (he had never won a Midlands title) he was just out for a spin.   But when it came to the race, with Stewart and McCafferty racing on the Continent that day, Eddie could only finish eleventh, explaining that he was still suffering from a cold.   As part of a Scottish team along with Jim Alder and Lachie Stewart, Eddie travelled to Hannut in Belgium on 3rd February.   Lachie won the race, Jim Alder was seventh and Eddie was sixteenth to be second in the team race.   Eddie didn’t run in the club championships the following week.

  On  24th February 1968, Eddie Knox was second to John Myatt (Strathclyde University) in the Scottish Junior Cross-Country Championship.    The ‘Glasgow Herald’ commented initially that Myatt hammered Knox but then described the race thus: “Myatt won by 60 yards from Knox in the  five and a half mile race for the Junior title.   Both runners drew clear of the field of 160 early on but Knox,  struggling to find his form, found it difficult to keep in touch with Myatt who by half distance was in complete command.”   It is interesting to note that Alistair Blamire (one year older) had improved considerably to gain a silver medal in the Senior National, only one second behind Lachie Stewart (Vale of Leven).    Myatt and Knox were listed as reserves for the Scottish team to run in the International in Tunis on March 16th.   There was no doubt however of Blamire’s inclusion.

In summer 1968, Eddie did not run in the Open Scratch meeting at Scotstoun on 11th May where Harry Gorman won the Mile from Mike Bradley of Paisley, nor did he contest the West Districts the folllowing week at Westerlands where Ian McCafferty won the Three Miles in 13:50.3 from Lachie Stewart and Alex Brown.   Nor was he placed in the SAAA Championships at the end of June nor did he appear in any results in the ‘Glasgow Herald’ for that summer.   He did however appear in the rankings with, by his own standards, not very good performances: 14:37.6 for 5000m and 8:37.6 for the Two Miles.

Into winter 1968-69 and Eddie ran for the Sprinburn team that finished fourth in the McAndrew Relay with a time of 14:11, ten seconds down on Harry Gorman and only third fastest for the club.   There was very little coverage of domestic athletics over the next three weeks due to the extensive reporting on the Olympic Games but in the second week in November there was no Eddie Knox in the Springburn team for the West District Championships.  Eddie ran in the Edinburgh to Glasgow on the 15th November, on the sixth stage, and held seventh position for his club with the sixth fastest time of the day in a really star studded field.   Probably because of this and his known quality, he was on November 25th he was selected for the SCCU team to take on the Northern Counties the following week.    In the race itself he was fifth in 27:23 with Alistair Blamire winning in 25:50.   Nothing was heard of him in a competitive sense for the remainder of 1968 and it was into 1969.  Eddie first appears in the results when he was seventh in the Midlands Championships at Cleland on 18th January being third Springburn runner in the team that won the championship.   In February 1969, Eddie Knox finished sixteenth in the National CC on a frozen Duddingston Park, Edinburgh.    The course was one of the worst I have ever seen or run on for a National Championships – five  one-and-a-half mile laps of a frozen Duddingston Golf Course in Edinburgh with steeplechase barriers substituting for natural obstacles.   At one point where there were two such barriers side by side, some of the runners at the start just pushed it over and the official to the side was shouting for the remainder of the field to “go over the one still standing!”    Many dropped out, others ran well below their capabilities and yet more just did not start.   But with the international that year to be held in Scotland in Clydebank, almost all of the top men were there.   Eddie’s sixteenth was actually a good run – behind him were Alastair Wood (17th), Alistair Blamire (18th), Craig Doiuglas (19th, Jim Brennan (20th) and Ken Ballantyne (21st); immediately in front was Andy Brown.   But there was no international for him in 1969.

The 1969 track season started for Eddie at the Land’O’Burns Trophy Meeting at Ayr on 17th May when, on a very blustery day not conducive to track endurance running, he was second in 14:12.9 to Dick Wedlock (14:09.4) in the 5000m.   In the West District Championships two weeks later, Eddie stepped down a distance to the 1500m where he was second to Mike Bradley of Paisley (3:57.4) in 4:00.2.   He was unplaced at the SAAA Championships in Grangemouth that year  but by the end of the year he had managed to have two performances recorded in the national rankings: in the 3000m he had 8:37.6 which placed him 18th and in the 5000m he had 14:37.6 which placed him 21st.

In October 1969, Eddie Knox received a wee mention in Ron Marshall’s coverage of the McAndrew Relay at Scotstoun, Glasgow.   “Springburn Harriers had their troubles.   Eddie Knox, their lead-off man was somewhere round the course, limbering up when the starter’s gun went off.   He eventually got away some two-and-a-half minutes late and subsequently the team failed to make the first ten places when they might have been expected to make the first three or four.”  He redeemed himself the following week in the Lanarkshire relays when the report read: “Eddie Knox (Springburn) showed a complete return to his best form when he he completed the course in 11:51 – the fastest time of the day – and gave his team a lead after the first leg.”   Dick Wedlock was second fastest on 11:52 and Alex Brown third on 12:00.   The Springburn team was second in the Dundee Kingsway relay the following with a team of Tom O’Reilly, Harry Gorman, new runner Mike Bradley and Eddie on the last stage.   He had fifth fastest on the day.   In the Midlands relay the following week, Springburn was third team and Eddie was third fastest on the day.   On November 8th he  was second to Pat Maclagan (Victoria Park) in the Glasgow University Road Race.  Then he was eighth fastest on the sixth stage of the Edinburgh to Glasgow holding ninth position.   Eighth doesn’t sound too hot until you realise that among those ahead of him were  Fergus Murray, Lachie Stewart, Alastair Blamire, Jim Wight, John Myatt and Alex Brown!    On to the inaugural Allan Scally Relay at Barrachnie and with the team in second place Eddie ran a good if undistinguished last stage.   On 29th November at Edinburgh Eddie was a member of the SCCU team which beat the British Army – and won the race ahead of Bill Stoddart to win the team contest.   In the Lanarkshire Championship on 6th December, Eddie was third behind Lachie Stewart and Dick Wedlock of Shettleston, and the team finished second.

On 13th December, he finished second behind Adrian Weatherhead (EAC) in the SCCU versus SU contest at Paties Road, Colinton, Edinburgh.    Ron Marshall again, Adrian Weatherhead made most of his local knowledge by leading virtually from start to finish of the one-and-a-half mile course which they covered four times.   He was being harried considerably by Eddie Knox and Gareth Bryan-Jones in conditions that would have deflated a lesser competitor.   ‘The wind was cutting me in half but when I looked round the gap wasn’t closing at all,’ Weatherhead said after the race.    He swept over the finishing line 20 yards ahead of  a fast-finishing Knox with Bryan-Jones third, but two minutes later there was a shock for Knox.   He was disqualified for not wearing a number.   His initial reaction was unprintable but he then followed that up with,  ‘It’s my favourite trick.’     Apparently Knox has a habit of overlooking this footery but important detail.”   Anyway his lapse did not stop his selection for Granollers in Spain the following Saturday.   He ran well here too.   Weatherhead was the leading Scot in seventh (24:58.6) with Knox fourteenth (25:26.2) and Wedlock fifteenth. (25:28.2).

In the Nigel Barge race on 9th January 1970, Eddie was ninth in a very strong field indeed.   With teh Commonwealth Games to be held in Edinburgh that summer every distance runner in the country started the year with the intention of impressing the selectors early and often!  Alistair Blamire was the victor at Bishopbriggs the following week with Pat Maclagan second and Eddie Knox in a race enshrouded in thick fog.   Running in Lenzie on 24th January Ian McCafferty had one of his really brilliant runs and Eddie In second place was seventy two seconds back.   On his day, McCafferty had to be one of the best runners in Europe if not the world and Eddie caught him on such a day in Lenzie in the Midland Championship.   Most clubs held their championships on 7th February that year and “Eddie Knox overwhelmed the opposition in Springburn Harriers club championship, defeating Harry Gorman by over three minutes.”   He was on international duty again on 14th February in Madrid when he was nineteenth behind Lachie Stewart (1st) and Bill Stoddart (10th).   He was reported to be on the fringe of selection for the Scottish team for the international along with Norman Morrison, Bill Mullett, Gareth Bryan-Jones, Bill Stoddart, Don Macgregor and Adrian Weatherhead.    In the National at a wet and unpleasant Ayr Racecourse,  Mullett was 3rd, Morrison 5th, Weatherhead 6th, Stoddart 9th, Macgregor 12th and Bryan-Jones 13th with Eddie down in 20th..    The first three made the team and Eddie had run his last international championship.

In summer 1970 Eddie’s best 5000m was slower than in 1969 on 14:38.6 and 18th place.    In summer 1971 he wasn’t ranked at all and in 1972 he was ranked in the 3000m (838.0, 22nd), 5000m ( 14:41.0, 24th) and 10000m (30:42.6 14th).   Despite track results slipping from his own high standards his country and road running was still good.

Winter 1970/71 and in the McAndrew Relay Eddie was a member of the Springburn team that finished fifth but was the third fastest member of that team.   He was also third fastest of the club in the Lanarkshire relays the following week when the team was third behind two good Shettleston teams.   On November 7th Springburn was second in the Midlands Relays with Eddie second fastest club man behind Harry Gorman.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay on 21st November, Eddie ran the sixth stage and dropped one place (from sixth to seventh) in a team which finished ninth.   On 7th December in the Lanarkshire championship Eddie could only finish twelfth and his team was second with Mike Bradley fifth and Tom O’Reilly twenty first.   In the District championships, he was seventeenth finisher when Springburn was fourth.  In the National in 1971 he was twenty third and second Springburn Harrier, Mike Bradley in sixteenth being first.   There were no ranking places for him that summer at all in any events   but he went into the 1971/72 winter round as a regular member of the Springburn team.

Running on the third stage of the McAndrew Relay he was part of the team that finished fourth.   In the Lanarkshire relays the following week, Eddie ran on the second stage and kept Lachie Stewart at bay until the very last stride but nevertheless he had the fourth quickest time, behind Stewart, Ron McDonald and Jim Brown, in the victorious Springburn team which also won the Youths and Boys events.   In the Edinburgh to Glasgow he ran on the mostly downhill fourth stage and held third place with the fifth fastest time of the day.   On to December and on the fourth of the month, in the Lanarkshire championships Eddie Knox was fifth finisher behind McCafferty, Borwn, McDonald, Wedlock and Morrison to lead his team to third place.   He finished 1971 with second fastest time to Mike Bradley in his club’s Christmas race.   In January 1972 there was a clash of fixtures when Springburn moved their road race to the date already slated for the classic Nigel Barge race at Maryhill.   Most runners went to Maryhill but with big prizes on offer many of the fast men went to Bishopbriggs.   It was Eddie’s home race and he went along and performed very well indeed to be fifth, less than a minute behind winner Dick Wedlock.   Obviously running better than in 1971, Eddie was second to Mike Bradley at the East Kilbride road race the following week and with Harry Gorman in fourth they easily wn the team race.   In the West District championships, Eddie Knox “gave possibly his best performance of the season” when finishing fourth behind McCafferty, Jim Brown and Alistair Blamire.   One week later at the end of January, Eddie won the Inter-Counties race from Jim Wight by three seconds after taking an early lead.   This had clearly been his best start to the year for some time.   In the National, held at Currie when the government was operating a four day working week, many athletes were unable to attend but Eddie was a very good tenth in a race dominated by a duel between Jim Alder and Ian McCafferty.   The following week in the Grangemouth ‘Round the Houses’ race, Eddie was third behind Jim Dingwall and Willie Day  and only half a minute behind the winner.   Into the summer season of 1972 and in the Lanarkshire championships at Carluke on 14th May, , Eddie won the 5000m in 14:52.2.   In the West District Championships which took place at the same venue just two weeks later he was second in 31:23 in the 10000m behind Willie Day of Falkirk (31:04.4).    By the end of that summer, he had best times of 8:38.0 (3000m), 14:41 (5000m) and 30:42.6 (10000m).

Although Eddie did not appear in the official track rankings after 1972, he continued to run on the roads and over the country for several more years, always well and occasionally very well,  which can be noted in the following table.

His complete track ranking are in the following table.

His best 5000m time above is 14:37.6 – a time that would have ranked him in the top ten in the country in every year from 2003 to 2010 and just outside that group in 2011 and 2012.

Some extracts from Eddie’s diary are interesting.     The 1965 sesions were done after returning from night school.

7th June, 1965:   5 x 440y in 61/61/63/64/65

8th June, 1965:   12 x 300 in 40/41

9th June, 1965:   4 x 220 (all between 26.4 and 26.9)

10th June, 1965:   At work until 7:15, arrived ten minutes before the start of the Club Championships:  440 – D Middleton 53.2, E Knox 54.5;   Three Miles:  E Knox   14:52.

Then two years later we get:

Monday, 27/7/67:   am:   One and a half miles.          pm:   30 x 200 in 30 seconds with 100m recovery.

Tuesday, 28/6/67:   6 x 300m fast

Wednesday, 29/6/67:   am:   One and a half miles.         pm:   3 miles and 1 mile invitation races at Celtic Park:   14:40 for the 3 miles behind the winning 14:08; 4:58 in the Mile behind the winning 4:22.

Thursday, 30/6/67:   Mile and a half time trial in 6:48.     6 x 100m averaging 15 seconds each.

Friday, 31/6/67:   Rest Day

Saturday, 1/7/67:   12 x 200m unchecked but fast.

Sunday, 2/7/67 :   Long run of 8 – 10 miles.

 Eddie says that his biggest regret as far as running is concerned is that the marathon was not more popular or ‘the In Thing’ in the early 1970’s.   He had lost interest in racing but not in running.    Round about 1970, he had done some work with John Anderson and did a big session of 200m x 100 with 30 seconds recovery.    He started doing big sessions and trying to race off some huge sessions.   He kept this going for a year or so.   Sessions keyed off the one above included 20 x 800 in 2:15 which he found ‘comfortable’) and 40 x 400 which averaged ‘not as slow’ as 70 seconds.    He did this for about a year and adds that just by slowing the pace by a couple of seconds a lap he could get in long sessions without too much difficulty.   In 1964 at the age of 17 he ran in the Lanarkshire 12 miles road race where he went round with Gordon Eadie and found the pace more than comfortable.   He remembers running a loop of approximately 20 miles from Milton in Kirkintilloch – and he can give you the exact route followed.

Away from the sport he worked for the Daily Express as a compositor and proof-reader.   He then went to the short-lived Scottish Daily News and not being too happy with the new printing system, did a management course.   This led to a job in charge of leisure at Coatbridge where he did a very good job and even competed for the local team in the BBC ‘It’s a Knockout’ programme.

However you look at it, Eddie was a top class athlete and a tough competitor at a time when the standard in Scotland was very high indeed – he would have been an even bigger star on the current scene at Scottish athletics.   The thought of what he could have  done in the 26.2 miles of a marathon is an intriguing one.

Eddie died tragically early in October 2019.

Alastair (53) leaving Moorcroft Park at the Babcock’s Sports in 1970 in the 14 mile road race which he won in 1:12:31

Behind him is Bill Stoddart (Wellpark) and Joe Reilly (VP) with the three Clydesdale Harriers,  Cyril O’Boyle, Ian Leggett (25) and Allan Faulds (27 on the left

Alastair Johnston was a superb athlete on all surfaces and one of whom his club can be justly proud.   He was always well-liked by all endurance racers.  This did not alter the fact that he was always a class athlete.   He will also unfortunately be remembered  for the dreadful accident at Meadowbank, when a stray hammer escaped the cage, accelerated off the track where it hit Alastair, breaking  his leg.    It was an accident that changed the organisation of athletics meetings for ever after.   Alastair was an outstanding runner at a time when Scotland was very lucky to have possibly the best generation of talent in my lifetime – and have a look at the scalps that Alastair took at one time or another as you read the profile!   They are all there – Olympians, Commonwealth Games athletes and Scottish and British champions.    His career post-accident was really first class but it should have been so much better.

Colin Youngson has written the profile which follows but first we have Alastair’s own replies to the questionnaire in the box below.

Name:   Alastair Johnston.

Club:   Victoria Park AAC

Date of Birth:   17th January, 1947.

Occupation: Chartered Accountant (just retired!)

Personal Bests:   5000m:   14:11 (1972);    10000m   29:55 (1970);   Marathon:  2:19:31 (1970)

How did you get involved in the sport?   I got involved by “following in my brother’s footsteps.”

Has any individual or group had a marked effect on your attitude to the sport or to individual performances?   My club’s high standard in all aspects of the sport was my biggest motivator.   ie in reputation/achievements/role models, coaching, management, admin (led by the meticulous Bill Armour), competitiveness, friendships and team spirit. .  I would like to make a special mention of  the coaching received under the redoubtable Johnny Stirling.   Also being fortunate to be competing at a time when Scottish Athletics was at its peak possessing many fine world class distance runners who were also great role models for me.

What exactly did you get out of the sport?   I found running both exhilarating and competitively challenging and that it was a sport that did not rely so much on natural ability as on consistent hard work.

 What was your best performance?   The 1970 Commonwealth Games Marathon Trial, breaking 2:20 – first ever and only marathon.   I led at 20 miles and finished sixth (fifth Scot) only two minutes behind the winner, Jim Alder, who led in the other all-time greats of Scottish and UK distance running, Don Macgregor, Fergus Murray and Alastair Wood.

What ambition did you have that remained unfulfilled?   My ambition was to represent Scotland in the marathon at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.

What did you do – apart from running – to relax?   My other sport was – and is – golf.

Can you give some details of your training?  I did not manage, or have the inclination, to do a big mileage but was happy with an average mileage of about 50 or 60 miles a week but done usually at a fast tempo.   (I was often accused of “racing” in training!)

Colin writes: “Alastair Johnston of Victoria Park AAC was very well liked and highly respected by his contemporaries in the 1960’s and 1970’s.   He shone occasionally in track and cross-country events but it was clear that he was especially talented in road races.   Sadly, just as Alastair was about to break through to consistent international standard, he suffered a horrible, totally unexpected injury, which made it impossible for him to achieve his sporting ambitions, although he ran well, especially in the Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay for another decade.

The record books show that Alastair made an immediate impact as a Junior, running his first Edinburgh to Glasgow Relay in 1965.   He was not only the fastest man on the eighth stage, but also broke the stage record and Victoria Park won bronze medals.   What a debut!   In 1966 he was even better setting a record (26:22) for the fifth stage, breaking that set many years earlier  by miling great Graham Everett as VP finished second behind Edinburgh University.  He was less successful on Stage Two in 1967 but his promise as a road runner was very clear.   Yet he had finished no better than eleventh in the National Junior Cross-Country Championship in both 1966 and 1967.

During my first year at Aberdeen University I became acquainted with Alastair as a quiet friendly runner from Strathclyde University.  Although there were many talented competitors in his enthusiastically sociable team, few were fairly abstemious gentlemen!   In January 1967, the Scottish Universities Cross-Country Championships started and finished at King’s Buildings in Edinburgh via a shockingly steep ascent and descent of the Braid Hills.   Eight runners from the unarguably superior Edinburgh University team took off and only Myatt from Strathclyde managed to hang on.   As the route entered some fog, I was running alongside Alastair.   Neither of us relished the underfoot conditions and both, it became clear, were unfamiliar with the route.   Having gone astray in thirteenth position we eventually regained contact with the race in thirty fifth!   Furiously we started overtaking like crazy.  I finished seventeenth and believe that Alastair actually managed to reclaim thirteenth.

In November 1967, Aberdeen and Strathclyde Universities both sent cross-country teams to Belfast and Dublin to race against Queen’s, Trinity and UCD.   Alastair took part in this last ‘Irish Tour’ weekend (before the political troubles started) In the muddy contest at Queen’s, Belfast, on the Saturday, Alastair was second, ten seconds behind John Myatt, and then went one better when finishing first on the Sunday at Trinity College, Dublin, fourteen seconds up on Myatt.   The second race was mainly through Phoenix Park which was road and parkland and much more to Alastair’s liking!   By early December Alastair showed decent form in the annual Scottish Universities v Scottish Cross-Country Union competition at Knightswood Park, Glasgow, when he was sixth SU counter.

Alastair in the Hyde Park Relays in February 1968 when the Strathclyde team (noted below) was sixth

(A Johnston, I Picken, I Mitchell, D McFarquhar, J Myatt, C McIvor)

The Tom Scott Memorial Road Race over ten miles from Law to Motherwell, was an Easter classic.   I did reasonably well (53:22) in my first attempt in April 1968, but Alastair’s superiority on the road was obvious, as he was tenth (against the top Scottish runners) in 51:04.   There were several of what Alastair considered successes in the course of 1968.   He had started the year by winning the New Year’s Day race at Beith  ahead of Norman Morrison of Shettleston and Pat Maclagan.   This was usually a heavy plough course with a stream at one point which you just ran into to be faced with a three foot bank as you emerged.   In 1968 however, because of a foot and mouth epidemic it was held on the road, again to Alastair’s liking!   He also had good runs in the traditional year starter of the Nigel Barge Road Race at Maryhill where he was seventh, the Springburn Cup Road Race (sixth)  and the Midlands Cross-Country Championships where he was seventh.   In University competition, Alastair was third in the Scot Unis and as a result was picked for the Scottish Universities team against the English Universities at the well-known and muddy Parliament Hill Fields where Scotland won – Alastair Blamire seventh, Dave Logue tenth, John Myatt twelfth, Jim Wight fourteenth, Andy McKean eighteenth and Alastair Johnston twentieth.   The points between the two countries were even but since Alastair was one place ahead of the English final counter, the Scots won!   He also helped the Strathclyde University team to a good sixth place in the Hyde Park Relays when he was second on the first stage in the excellent time of 13:55.   During the next three years, Alastair crossed my path on several occasions but I never got near him on the road.   In late 1968 he was 26 seconds faster in the Kingsway Relays in Dundee, although he once again showed his comparative dislike for cross-country when finishing fifty first in the 1969 Senior National at Duddingston (two places behind me, another mud-hater).

Alastair reckons that his only notable performance in early 1969 (when he was bogged down in final year studies) was a good second stage (14:05) in the Hyde Park Relays which helped Strathclyde finish an excellent third.   He was in good form towards the end of the 1969 track season winning a steeplechase at Grangemouth in 9:38.0 and running 10000m at Scotstoun in 30 minutes precisely.  A lot of confidence was drawn from winning the 18 Miles Road Race in 1:35:44 at the Bute Highland Games and breaking the record by no less than two minutes.   This was a regular fixture on the Scottish Marathon Club calendar and had been won by many of the best of Scotland’s distance runners over the previous 20+ years.    In the E-G that year he was given the responsibility of taking the baton on the formidable Stage Six and finished fifth fastest (behind Lachie Stewart, Fergus Murray, Alistair Blamire and Jim Wight) with VPAAC fourth.   Shortly afterwards he ran well (this time for the SCCU) in the December 1969 fixture versus Scottish Universities at Colinton, Edinburgh, finishing tenth overall, beating good runners like Mike Bradley and John Myatt.   In the 1970 Senior National Cross-Country Championships at Ayr Racecourse, Alastair improved to a thoroughly respectable eighteenth place.

IN Strathclyde colours again: Hyde Park Relay, February, 1969, where the team was third

(Team: A Smith, A Johnston, I Mitchell, J Myatt, C McIvor, I Picken)

All good Scottish runners wanted to make the team for the 1970 Commonwealth Games. The year had started well for him with third fastest on his home trail with third quickest time in the McAndrew Relays in 13:44.  It was also notable because he was one whole second faster than Lachie Stewart!  The marathon trial took place on 16th May and Alastair was amongst the front runners for most of the way and led at 20 miles.   Despite the fact that it was his debut at the event, he finished strongly to record a very promising 2:19:31 in sixth place (fifth Scot and only two minutes behind Jim Alder who won the event – see questionnaire)) ahead of fellow VPAAC runner Pat Maclagan (who went on to win the Scottish Marathon Championship in 1971).   After the 1970 trial, Alastair was offered a Great Britain vest to participate in a major international event – the Toronto Marathon on 25th August.   Unfortunately he had to turn this chance down due to professional accounting commitments so Pat Maclagan took his place and ran well.

Commonwealth Games Marathon Trial, May 16th, 1970: Alastair partially hidden by Jim Wight (22) and behind Pat Maclagan (12)

Six men, including Alastair, under 2:20: 1st J Alder (2:17:11), 2nd D Macgregor (2:17:14, 3rd F Murray (2:18:25), 4th B Jones (NZ, 2:19:03), 5th AJ Wood (2:19:17), 6th A Johnston (2:19:31)

Alastair achieved another two pb’s in 1970:   10000m in 29:59.4 for fifth in the SAAA Championships only two weeks after the marathon, and 9:25.6 for a steeplechase at Grangemouth behind Commonwealth fourth placer Gareth Bryan-Jones.   Earlier, Alastair had won the the West District 10000m in front of the consistently very good Colin Martin.   In the 1970 Edinburgh to Glasgow he switched to Stage One and was fourth, only 12 seconds down on the fastest man, Craig Douglas of Edinburgh Southern Harriers.   Victoria Park won bronze again.   Then in the SCCU V SU at Knightswood, Alastair showed real cross-country progress when he finished an excellent third overall, just behind the flying Monkland Harriers, Ron MacDonald and Jim Brown.   I was pleased with eighth, in front of my future VP team mates Pat Maclagan, Hugh Barrow and Joe Reilly.   One of the more popular Sports Meetings at the time was the Babcock’s Sports at Moorcroft Park in Renfrew where one of the feature events was the 14 Miles Road Race – everybody with pretensions to being a road racer turned out in it.  In 1970 Alastair won it in 1:12:31 beating a very good field and setting a new course record.

When I joined Victoria Park in September 1971, Alastair was a committee member and also running very well indeed.   As mentioned in his questionnaire answers, Alastair had already run very well in the 1971 Nigel Barge Road Race and Springburn Cup and had finished third behind international runners Jim Brown and Norman Morrison in the Midlands Cross-Country Championship.   Along with Bill Mullett and Peter Stewart he was chosen for a small Scottish team to run in Hannut, Belgium, international race and finished a worthy sixteenth.   After that Alastair was injured for a while.   He had pulled his Achilles tendon in March when finishing a close second to Andy McKean in the very hilly Edinburgh University 10 miles road race at King’s Buildings.   It was one of his best performances – while Andy won in 49:06, Alastair was second in 49:11 with Jim Wight third in 49:46 – Fergus Murray was sixth with Colin seventh in 51:04. Injuries happened now and again, possibly because he nearly always pushed hard in training and did not bulk up his weekly mileage with recovery session.

However, he was flying by October 1971.  To my chagrin, I had learned the hard way that VPAAC club runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays were short but speedy.   Coach Ronnie Kane would set off with the ‘slow’ pack issuing a strict order to the genuinely fast pack to give less talented clubmates two minutes start.   No chance!   Maybe sixty seconds after they left, we flew out of Scotstoun Showgrounds in pursuit.   There were a number of traditional road courses, but the one I remember with horror was the four mile ‘Shorter Knightswood Backwards’!   A tight, silent pack rapidly overtook the others and swept away along dark pavements under dim streetlights.   Guys like Pat Maclagan, Albie Smith, Hugh Barrow, Innis Mitchell – and sometimes the great retired racer Ian Binnie – ensured that the pace was relentless.   I struggled to keep up since I could never remember the route!   However Alastair Johnston was The Man to “beat” in these so-called training runs (although his close rival Pat might argue the case).

Once the Victoria Park McAndrew Relay Trial had been endured, the big day came: the Victoria Park AAC Road Relay (ie the McAndrew Relay).   This long-established event was new to me, a stranger from the North East, but I was captivated by its intensity.   On 2nd October 1971, no fewer than 306 club runners participated.   Alastair was outkicked up the hill at the end of the first stage by Willie Day of Falkirk Victoria Harriers and eventually Victoria Park’s first team (Johnston, Mitchell, Maclagan  and Barrow) finished second to the mighty Shettleston.   However Alastair’s 13:47 was fourth best behind Jim Brown, Lachie Stewart and Willie Day.  Then on Saturday, 13th November Pat and Alastair ‘enjoyed’ a tremendous battle in the five and a half miles Glasgow University Road Race.   Eventually Pat (25:05) won the sprint on the Westerlands track by a single second.  I was fifth, 23 seconds slower, with Davie McMeekin and Hugh Barrow close behind.

Victoria Park were obsessed with (a) the McAndrew, and (b) above all, the Edinburgh to Glasgow.   This was a specialist road running club; cross-country was optional for most of us.      It seemed that this year, 1971, Victoria Park might have a chance of victory in the greatest relay race of them all.   Unfortunately we finished second, 59 seconds behind, and forty years later some of my former clubmates continue to blame me.   I can understand their point of view and still feel contrite although Shettleston might still have won anyway.  What happened was that Davie McMeekin ran the fastest time on Stage Three and handed me a twenty one second lead over future Commonwealth Marathon bronze medallist Paul Bannon of Shettleston.   I shot off, full of determination.   Sadly this leg was new to me, there was no marshal at the Bathgate junction, and I zoomed straight on to the bypass.   Someone yelled and I cut right across  some bumpy grass and back on to the route having lost nearly all of my hard preserved lead.   Depression set in, Paul rolled past and eventually took another ten seconds out of me by the changeover.   Net loss, 31 seconds.   Incredibly, Joe Reilly put us back into the lead and Alastair (second fastest on Stage Six) finishing only twelve seconds behind the outstanding Dick Wedlock, but Shettleston ground out a winning lead over Seven and Eight.   What a rotten shame, although the newspaper reports all congratulated VP for making a real contest of it.

I know that Alastair was selected for the infamous SCCU ‘International Training Sessions’ at that horrendous mudbath, Cleland Estate, Motherwell.   Unlike many, he did turn up at these sessions fairly often – including some held at Pollok Estate – and still loved trying to burn everyone off.  He says: ” At Cleland most of the run was on road and I remember Jim Alder, Jim Brown, Andy McKean and I testing each other up the final big hill on the main road before turning back into the Estate.”   Hewas selected to  represent the SCCU – which he did with distinction – once more in December 1971 at Merchiston, finishing fifth individual and third counter for his winning team.   I was twelfth, thirty seconds behind.

On 1st January 1972, once again I was firmly put in my place on Alastair’s favourite surface.   He, Willie MacDonald and I travelled down by train to the prestigious Morpeth to Newcastle thirteen and a half miles road race.   It was wet and cold throughout but Alastair (1:05:56) ran brilliantly to finish a close third behind Jim Wight of EAC (1:05:47) and local hero, Jim Alder (1:05:54).   Over three minutes later I managed sixteenth, Willie was forty fifth and Victoria Park finished third team (prize: three frying pans!)   We were honoured when Jim Alder, (the proudest of Geordie Scots) chatting non-stop walked us all the way into town to the railway station.

Although Alastair ran the January 1972 Midland Cross-Country again, he missed the National at Currie.   The truth was that after the poor run at the Midlands, where he was twelfth over a muddy Bellshill course, Alastair was both injured and ill for the next few months of 1972.

On the 27th May, Alastair (14:32.4) finished only one second behind his old rival Dick Wedlock in the West Districts 5000m at Carluke.   A couple of weeks later on 11th June in a Scottish League Match at Meadowbank he revised his pb utterly with a superb 14:11.8, seven seconds down on Fergus Murray of Edinburgh Southern Harriers.   Undoubtedly Alastair was in the form of his life and prospects were excellent, not only for the SAAA Marathon Championship, but also for the Scottish 10000m championship (which was to be part of the GB v Poland match at Meadowbank on 17th June).   I ran the race, which was contested by a big field for that era of 34 competitors, and was relieved to avoid being lapped and end up ninth on a difficult, windy day, in about 30:45.   Jim Brown won in 29:25.4 and Fergus Murray was second in 29:38.8.

This result became totally irrelevant when we learned of the freak accident which had destroyed Alastair’s chance of achieving his true potential.   When I glimpsed my friend lying at the side of the track, there was shock and disbelief.   Instead of fighting with Fergus for a well-deserved silver medal, Alastair’s season had ended in agony and frustration.   There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Alastair Johnston would have won the 1972 Scottish marathon.   Probably the time would not have been ligtning fast due to the headwind after the turn at halfway.  However on a better day, Alastair was certainly capable of between 2:15 and 2:17, and on 23rd June, 1973, when the Scottish Marathon was also the team trial for the 1974 Commonwealth Games, Alastair would have been a genuine contender.   Donald Macgregor and Jim Wight who finished first and second that day, and were selected for New Zealand, would have had a real battle to defeat the strong smooth striding athlete from Victoria Park.

Alastair himself takes up the tale of the season after his recent fast 5000m races including a pb of 14:11 and comments on the accident as follows:    “Please note that I was using the 5000’s along with the following Saturday’s fateful 10000m on 17th June as warm-ups only for my attempt at recording a significantly good time (of around 2:16/2:17) in the marathon at the Scottish Championships on 24th June (which might possibly lead to recognition as a contender for Christchurch).   The 10000m race at Meadowbank was in fact the SAAA’s championship and quite unique as it was incorporated in the first British International match every held in Scotland – GB v Poland – which attracted live TV and a crowd of over 10,000!   With three or four laps to go I had broken away with Jim Brown and Fergus Murray with each of us sharing the lead.   Going into the penultimate lap, Jim made a decisive break which Fergus attempted to cover.   I was slower to respond and became slightly isolated in the back straight and was hit by the hammer at around the 200m mark, adjacent to the hammer circle.   It had been released accidentally almost at right angles by Barry Williams, the British record holder.   It burst through the inadequate protective netting and bounced once on the track and into my left tibia.   Ambulance men arrived quickly and tried to get me back on to my feet seeing only the bleeding coming from my left shoulder caused by my fall.   However the hard reality for me was that I had seen where the 16 lb. ball had struck and I had no feeling in my left foot – something serious had happened to my leg!   I had no concerns about not being able to complete this race, but realised immediately and more importantly that I would not be able to run in next Saturday’s Scottish marathon championships and possibly realise my aspirations!   Apart from the physical damage it was a real psychological blow to my morale as I was sure that I had probably been at the peak of my abilities at that point in time.

However I was greatly consoled by the huge wave of sympathy and support I received from my Club, friends and fellow athletes who visited me in hospital that night and at my home during my convalescence.   I have to mention also that my assailant himself, Barry Williams, came up to the hospital and offered me his sincere regrets along with the two heads of British male and female athletics, Arthur Gold and Marea Hartman, who were so pleasant and concerned about what had happened and presented me with a pair of BAAB cufflinks as a memento of their visit.

I was in full length plaster for about four to five months.   Thereafter, building up the “withered” leg was painful but with the encouragement and support of the club, friends and fellow athletes, along with great physio help at Firhill from Jackie Husband, Partick Thistle’s coach, who was a friend of my father, I managed to start light jogging by early 1973.   I eventually returned to racing at the McAndrew Relays in October of that year, recording a reasonable time.   Thereafter I continued to race well as a club athlete and enjoy my running for about another ten to fifteen years, but unfortunately I never regained the standard or the motivation that I had at the time of my accident.

The lessons learned by my misfortune were no doubt that in order to provide more safety for all at track and field meetings, the area surrounding the throwing circle had to be protected more robustly and that throwing events like the hammer and discus should be timetabled not to coincide with middle and long-distance track events where the track can be ‘cluttered’ with athletes for thirty to thirty five minutes as was the case in my 10000m.”

Eventually he regained fitness and his first big comeback race was actually in Chicago in September 1973!   He was visiting his brother Ken who lived there at the time and Ken knew big Jim McLatchie.   Jim had been a member of Doon Harriers and then Ayr Seaforth AAC before going on scholarship to Lamarr Tech in Texas.   Jim was an outstanding middle-distance runner in the mid-60’s; Alastair met him, they trained together several times and Jim got him an entry to the AAU 30K Championships.   It was run over nine laps of Jackson Park and Alastair finished a good fourth in 1:40:21, about two and a half minutes behind the winner.   Domestically he was back in time to represent his club in the 1973 McAndrew and record the third fastest time of 13:52 (equal with Fergus Murray) followed by running a good sixth stage in the Edinburgh to Glasgow recording 32:30 (seventh fastest against very good opposition) and VP were fourth.   Although Alastair’s fitness increased to a good level, his injury meant that he was unable to train as hard as previously and could not tackle the long road races which would have been his forte.   In 1974 he ran well in the inaugural National Cross-Country Relay Championship with Victoria Park finishing fifth.   They were fourth in the E-G with Alastair fourth fastest, once again on the important Stage Six behind internationals Andy McKean, Jim Brown and Dave Logue.   When his club was down to sixth in the 1975 E-G, it was through no fault of Alastair Johnston who was third fastest on Stage Five behind the outstanding new record set by Allister Hutton and the prominent Northern Irish Great Britain marathoner, Greg Hannon.   His other E-G performances were as follows:

• 1976:   Stage Six:         Sixth Fastest:        Team fourth
• 1977:   Stage Four:      Second Fastest     Team seventh
• 1978:   Stage Four:      Fourth Fastest      Team second
• 1979:   Stage Four:      Second Fastest     Team fourth
• 1980:   Stage Three:    Third Fastest        Team third
• 1981:   Stage Eight:     Fourth Fastest       Team fourth
• In addition Alastair took part in the very first National Six Stage Relay in 1979 when Victoria Park finished fifth .

Altogether Alastair ran in his favourite event fifteen times from a possible seventeen successive races.   He won six medals and set two fastest times which were both stage records.   Despite his dreadful injury in 1972, he maintained a very high standard and any Scottish club would have been delighted to have him in their Edinburgh to Glasgow team

I remember Alastair’s final two performances well: both were duels which demonstrated that, even towards the end of his career, the spirit remained strong.   In 1980 there was a really fierce headwind.   The distance of Stage Three had been extended.   As we waited nervously at the changeover, Alastair and I could see Ian Elliott of my club (ESH) sprinting towards the changeover in the lead only one second ahead of Alastair Douglas (VP).   Fearing my old friend would ‘sit’ behind me, I grabbed the baton and tore off into the gale and narrowly succeeded in breaking contact, before settling into a battle against the elements.   Alastair chased as hard as possible but when I flopped over the line exhausted (setting the fastest time for the stage, only 31 seconds up) the tables were quickly turned and Vicky Park shot past, since the ESH runner had not anticipated my arrival and was enjoying a ‘comfort break’ in a field!   The air turned blue as I communicated my unhappiness!   Eventually our clubs engaged in a tactical joust for the bronze medals which were won by the wily Bobby Blair (VP).

By 1981 I had moved north to my home town and was representing Aberdeen AAC.  On the final stage we had to chase Victoria Park for the third team spot.   During the warm-up we both whinged like old men about suffering from ‘man flu’!   Alastair took over 22 seconds in front and this time I had to chase him.   He put up stern resistance but very gradually I caught up, took a breather and tried to run away.  No chance.   He settled in behind.   It is fair to say that neither of us is a renowned sprinter.   When I made my final effort, Alastair was unlucky not to pass me, since (laughing?) spectators made the finishing funnel very narrow indeed.  I apologised, he was magnanimous, and we both enjoyed the contest.

Alastair was a very good runner for a very long time, but with better luck he would certainly have been a successful international marathon runner.   More importantly, he always was and remains a very good man.

Colin’s account of the career of Alastair Johnston (who was clearly a very good friend and close rival for several years) ends here and his opinion that Alastair was destined for great things but for the dreadful accident in 1972 is shared by all Scottish athletics aficionados everywhere.   He was a good athlete to watch, he was fast, he was intelligent and he was determined.  His affability disguised the determination but it was there, no doubt about it!  All qualities that are essential in a distance runner.   Given that his debut marathon was sub 2:20  for fifth place in a big field of top class marathon runners speaks volumes for his temperament and ability.    Even after the accident and his comeback, he says that he never regained the standard or motivation but if you look at what he did – even the racing against Colin in the E-G when Colin was racing very well indeed – he had a very good career in the sport.    We could well do with an Alastair Johnston in Scotland’s colours in 2014!

Doug Gunstone, Lachie Stewart, Alistair Johnston, Dave McMeekin and Colin Youngson

April 2012

Hugh Barrow has uploaded Alistair Johnston’s video of classic races (McAndrew, E-G, National, etc) to youtube.   It is at  http://www.youtube.com/results?q=burning+up+the+roads+of+scotstoun The quality varies as you might expect in a film 40 years old with some shot in the near dark of the conclusion of the E-G in late November but really worth seeing.  Have a good look. 

Lorna Irving first  came to prominence when she won the 1984 Glasgow Marathon in what was then a course record of 2:37:19.   She had started running after being inspired by watching Joyce Smith win the 1983 London Marathon and thought “I can do that!”   Eighteen months later with only two attempts at the distance behind her, she shattered the Glasgow Marathon record in one of the fastest times recorded in Scotland.   What was so remarkable about Lorna’s run was that it was only seven minutes slower than  Joyce’s London time.   Joyce had been running since a teenager, had reached the semi-final of the 1500 at the 1972 Olympic Games, had held the world record for the 3000, and won several medals in the world cross country championships.

Lorna was not without a background in sport.   She had been riding horses since a very young age and for a time had been a professional horsewoman.   The strength she built up over these years coupled with her light frame gave her the ideal build for endurance running.   Her first race was the Muckle Toon Run in her home town of Langholm; her next race was her first marathon at Windermere in 1983 in 2:52:08, a time which still stands as the course record.   She followed this up with a 2:44:00 in London the following year, then came her breakthrough in Glasgow.   For the next few years she dominated road races in Scotland and the North of England.   Her half marathon personal best of 71:44 still stands as the UK W40 record and is fifth in the Scottish All Time lists.   No one has yet come close to her course record of 56:59 for the 1986 Derwentwater 10.   For a distance runner she had remarkable speed and recorded 9:25.2 for 3000 metres in a UKWAL match when running for Edinburgh Southern.

Lorna was not known as a cross country runner and and only twice contested the National Cross Country Championships. In 1985, running for Edinburgh Southern Harriers, she finished in a fine fourth place (and was first over-35 Veteran). However she declined selection to run for Scotland in the World XC Championships, because she was running long distances in training, while preparing for the London Marathon. In 1987 the Scottish Championship also doubled as a trial for the Scottish team. This would be the final time Scotland would be able to compete as an individual nation in the World Cross Country Championships. Lorna finished ninth in the field, which, because of this special significance, was much stronger than most other years and unfortunately she missed selection.

Lorna’s marathon pb of 2:36:34 came at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh finishing a creditable sixth in a marathon won by the Australian Lisa Martin.   Although born in England she had been resident in Scotland most of her life so qualified to compete for Scotland.      Her time in Edinburgh stands as the twelfth fastest of all time in the Scottish Women’s Marathon rankings.

The last result we can find for Lorna was the Glasgow Half Marathon in 1988 where she was third in 73:26 behind Sheila Catford (72:49) and Sandra Branney (73:02) in what was probably the most competitive Women’s Half Marathon Race in Scotland.

Lorna still lives in Langholm where she owns and trains racehorses.

Lorna’s Marathon Progression

Lorna’s PB’s