Author: The Author

The Wicklow Round is a long-distance hill running challenge in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland first run in 2008.   The route follows a proscribed 100-kilometre (approx 62 miles) circuit of 26 mountains, which must be completed in a fixed order, that total over 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) of elevation; there is some flexibility on route-choices between peaks   Rounds completed outside of a cut-off time of 24-hours are not generally recorded.    Irish ultra-runner Joe Lalor is credited with the creation of the Round.   Unusually the first person to complete the Round was Moire O’Sullivan, in a time of 22:58:30 on 29 May 2008.   Unusually in that all the other rounds were first run by a man.   O’Sullivan went on to write a book about her experience on the Round called Mud, Sweat, and Tears.   The highest point is Lugnaquilla st 3035 feet.   

Trail Running Ireland has this to say about the round:

Although the Round’s peaks can sometimes be hard to classify as true mountains, it is the repetitive nature of the effort that makes it so tough. All runners who have completed it are quick to mention the navigational aspect as a defining feature of the round. There aren’t always perfect peaks to the hills which aren’t always linked by decent trails, requiring good portions of off road running. The route an athlete takes can gain or lose precious minutes on each and every peak, minutes which add up over the course of 15+ hours.

The record for the round is 15:04:30 set in May, 2019 by Gavin Byrne; the women’s fastest time was 22:37:43 by Karina Jonina in May 2017.

The Denis Rankin Round is a long distance hill running challenge around the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland    The route is a circuit of over 90 kilometres, ie 56 miles, covering 26 miles with a total climb of over 6,500 metres, ie 20,000 feet. The Round must be completed within 24 hours to be considered a success. The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc recognises the Round as a qualifying event.   The Round is named after Denis Rankin, a pioneer and leading light in fell running and mountain marathons in Northern Ireland since the 1970’s, who tragically died on 16^th May 2013 competing in a fell race on Slievemoughanmore.   This is not an organised event but a challenge open to all who believe they can circumnavigate the beautiful, rugged and demanding mountains of Mourne within 24 hours.

There have been various ways of doing it – eg Billy Reed from Ballyclare in Antrim has done a double round, the only man to have done so.   His time for a single round was 20 hours 29 minutes and for the double round 43 hours 17 minutes.   It can also be run as a  club relay with the following rules:

• Standard rules apply plus the list below (See Rules)
• Five runners – One per section (no support runners)
• Runners must be members of the same running club
• One GPS tracker per team which is transferred between runners
• Logistical support is allowed between sections
• Nominate a team captain. This person will be responsible for registering your team through the standard process

The standard rules referred to are on the Round website and include such as the requirement to register the attempt 24 hours before starting, name, age, nationality, etc as well as start time and estimated finish time, direction (clockwise or anticlockwise) and whether the run is supported or unsupported.   There are now 140 members and the round is noted as being first run in 2014.

Adrian (8) following Paul Forbes

Photo courtesy Bill Blair

We were all saddened by news of the death of Adrian Weatherhead – a very talented, respected but in some ways under rated athlete.  No matter the surface, road, track or country, he excelled and gained Scottish honours.   His very good friend Peter Hoffmann wrote the following tribute.

Paul Forbes, Peter Hoffmann and Adrian

TEMPUS FUGIT

Very sadly, Adrian Weatherhead died suddenly in Faro Portugal on Sunday, 9th October, 2022.

He was a very dear friend and a great mentor to Paul Forbes and me for over half a century

We loved Adrian to bits.

Since 1996 on my regular visits from the Highlands down the A9 to the capital, at the top of my to do list was to arrange for the three of us to meet up for coffee, usually at Starbucks Holy Corner.

In more recent years my elder son Will would sometimes join us as did Jack Davidson on occasion too.

I knew what our get-togethers meant to me. But when Adrian’s wife Jean telephoned me on Thursday evening with the devastating news she told me how much he looked forward to our coffees with keen anticipation, I don’t think I’d quite realised what they meant to him too.

Jean mentioned how much he liked a photograph that Will had taken of the three of us outside Starbucks. I’m glad that he did. I have one or two others from previous such occasions over the years. I’m so glad to have captured some of those moments.

Paul and my relationship with Adrian go back 50 years.

And although in our very early years it may have been slightly different because of the 12 year age difference between us it somehow never felt like that. As Jack astutely remarked to me yesterday “He was like a 20- or 30-year-old with his cheery upbeat outgoing personality.”

When I saw him over the past summer he was as vibrant and chatty as ever making it difficult to get a word in edgeways! Over the decades it was always an absolute delight and pleasure to meet up to enjoy some great craic, laughter and fun peppered with wide-ranging conversations, not just about athletics, when we also tried to sort out the world, including that bastard Vladimir Putin!

For some unknown reason lost in the mists of time I began keeping journals back at the start of 1971. Adrian crops up regularly. During the past decade it occurred to me that not everyone did the same. They went on to become the basis for several books including a few athletics books including A Life In A Day In A Year – A Postcard From Meadowbank and Audacity and Idiocy. Adrian of course features prominently in these books.

It means that from the mists of time I can conjure up some aspects of our shared lives together rather than those just based on fading memories.

Our Edinburgh based athletics training group in the 1970s met up for several years under the direction of Bill Walker. On golden autumn days; on cold winter mornings and then on warm spring and early summer weekends, we met up to train. An integral part of the group was Adrian, a sub 4 minute miler; plus GB 400 metres hurdles international Norman Gregor; World Student Games 400 metres silver medallist, Roger Jenkins and his brother David Jenkins who in 1975 was the number one quarter miler in the world – the best on the planet (and at the time a clean athlete); Paul Forbes a 1 minute 45 second half miler and 3 times Commonwealth Games athlete as well as myself a European Silver medallist and Olympian.

In the winter if we ran 6 x 500 metres each one of us led out a repetition. It was usually down to Adrian to take on the final effort. He was always the strongest athlete in the group. We trained over various distances running like the deer in efforts between 200 and 1200 metres. And if you wanted to watch us train, it was impossible to get a seat at the Meadowbank café window because so many people gathered to witness those halcyon occasions.

As an athlete Adrian was as straight as a die and as hard as nails. And despite Paul and my small successes somehow Adrian out-gunned us both with his sub 4 minute mile in 3 minutes 57 seconds. It doesn’t really come much better than having that moniker throughout your life and to be remembered by.

Adrian was a very modest individual. He was honest and straight talking too but in a thoughtful and kind way – a lovely balance. He openly admitted that he wasn’t a great natural talent. Indeed I think his school sports master at Stewart’s told him that he would never make it as an athlete. OOOPS! BIG MISTAKE! Adrian was the last person to say that to!

In the days when running careers were much shorter I suspect Adrian may well have been close to being the oldest sub 4 minute miler in the world. His 3 minutes 57 second mile suggested to me a man who got close to the absolute best out of himself. But that said if he hadn’t been injured in his 36th year in 1978 I wonder just how fast he could have run a mile that season. Certainly over that previous autumn, winter and spring he regularly roughed Paul and me up in training when I debuted seriously at 800 metres more or less immediately running 1 minute 46 seconds.

Meadowbank gave Paul and me a sense of acceptance and friendship within a larger community as well as within smaller groups. We were so very fortunate to find such good role models as Adrian and come under his wing as detailed in the book A Life In A Day. Here below is one extract that captures those days:

27th November 1977 I was able to join Adrian and Paul for training today. I awoke at half past eight. It was a glorious Sunday morning out – really wonderful. There wasn’t a breath of wind not even a zephyr which is most unusual for Edinburgh. The ground was hard as iron with a heavy white hoar frost covering the landscape. I collected the Sunday newspapers and took our Fox-Terrier to Portobello Park. The temperature was minus three yet it didn’t feel that cold so long as you kept on the move. The dog and I had fun trying to catch leaves as they fluttered downwards from the tree branches high up above. All things considered I ran a fair session at lunchtime but I blew up on the last run. Because of the freezing temperature we decided to half the length of the recoveries so that we didn’t get too cold hanging around in between repetitions. Afterwards the three of us ran a steady 6 miles around Craigentinny Golf Course which was closed to the golfers. It’s always a great way to finish off a Sunday. I’m enjoying some aspects of half mile training and because Adrian ensures we only do a recovery run at an easy pace there’s some great craic between us. We discuss ideas about training and racing but also talk about politics – the whole gamut and in between enjoy some good laughs too. It was one of my most enjoyable runs ever all enhanced with it being a cold still and crisp afternoon with a beautiful orange globe sun sinking into the west…

Within a few years Paul and I started to get picked for Scottish international teams and then British teams too. In 1974 Adrian was our sole track victor over 1500 metres in Oslo Norway. Over the next four years we regularly flew together to such destinations as Munich; Athens; Dresden; Nice etc, and our friendship grew. And on occasion when he couldn’t run because of injury he might put a stopwatch on us in training proffering some excellent advice too.

When you share a life together throughout the four seasons of the year training in all weathers you get to know a person pretty well. Adrian was someone you could absolutely depend and bank upon.

13th January 1979 Last night was the coldest ever recorded temperature in Edinburgh – minus 27 degrees. Adrian and Ross Nicol and I ran a track session after the rescheduled New Year Sprint. It was the coldest I’ve ever run in and as in the cartoons my hands had gone stiff with the extreme temperature.

We enjoyed some funny moments too. When I lived in London, Adrian and Paul stayed overnight with me for the AAAs Championships. I record:

13th July 1979 Paul and Adrian came back to the flat. Paul and I sat up chatting into the wee sma’ hours. 3:30 a.m. – terrible! Somebody’s alarm went off and Adrian didn’t know what the fuck had hit him! Trust Paul and me to see the funny side of it!

Adrian was a regular figure to be seen during the working week gliding around The Meadows each lunchtime. You could set your clock by him. I regularly used to join him there on a couple of occasions each week. Sometimes I was amused at how some pretty solid athletes joined us but usually after only a few minutes thereafter disappeared off into the distance because we were running too slowly!

Adrian’s training philosophy was that too many athletes at that time did their aerobic running far too quickly and their track sessions far too slowly. His regular thrice-weekly track sessions were hard hard efforts – pretty tough sessions whereas everything in-between was easy.

Despite his high-stepping style akin to a thoroughbred horse which wasn’t best suited to cross-country running, when he turned out for what was his annual venture over the country at the Scottish Championships in the early 1970s on three occasions he finished an astonishing second in a race six times his specialist distance leaving the afore-mentioned fellow Meadows athletes in the dust!

The brilliant Andy McKean said that when he looked round nervously at Adrian prancing over the muddy ground not far behind him it gave him a fright. I actually believe his best chance to win the championship was in 1972 on his local course when the ground was crisp and flattish but he instead chose to run indoors for Great Britain in San Sebastian Spain. In later years when I asked him if he regretted that decision he told me in atypical straight-talking terms Not at all Pete – my preference would always be to race for Britain. As for me I’d have raced at Riccarton!

In the very early days when Paul and I first ventured down to Meadowbank Adrian often trained with the great professional miler Jimmy Gray. They put in some fearsome sessions together. But Adrian was no fan of the other code. In later years if we met for lunch and the topic came up he was pretty outspoken about some of the shenanigans that went on with some of the bookies and other controlling voices. But he had a deep respect for Jimmy and warmed to the likes of Freddy Bell too who was a wonderful character in his own right.

Throughout his long life Adrian remained incredibly fit. After he retired he kept to an almost identical pattern of training, day in, day out.

By the early 1990s he did his standard middle distance sessions up at Campbell Park, Colinton, a stone’s throw from where I lived. We had a lovely wee arrangement whereby we never contacted each other but knew the days and the likely times when he would be there. As in days of old we enjoyed those companionable sessions in each other’s company particularly in the warm-ups and the warm downs when we could talk and bore for Scotland! Adrian remained as fit as a butcher’s dug. And whilst I was less so, with my speed we were pretty eaksy-peaksy making for lots of fun on the springy grass throughout the 4 seasons of the year. Sweet memories.

Another astonishing dimension to Adrian was that when he hit 40 he refused to be classified as a veteran. Atypically he decided to try out some occasional road racing. He was quite brilliant at that too, winning races against athletes half his age. And so that it wouldn’t get too much in the way of his Saturday and his training he turned out for Edinburgh Athletic Club on the first leg of the famous Edinburgh-Glasgow Road Race usually handing over in first place. He then went out and ran a couple of Grangemouth Round the Houses Road 10k road races in approximately 29 minutes, possibly close to the existing World Veteran’s records at the time, not that he was interested in them.

But as to his legendary grit! I recall him telling one astonished well-kent local athletics coach that you had to be prepared to die if you wished to maximise your ability at middle distance running! Paul and I were in awe of this aspect of Adrian but equally so his incredible self-discipline.

Our Campbell Park sessions came to an end in 1996 just before I moved to the Highlands when Adrian was getting cramps during sessions in his thigh. Most unfortunately it turned out to be a blockage in an artery. When he received the bad news he jettisoned the likes of cheese and chocolate from his diet. And in that respect he had the discipline to remain below his racing weight and the ascetic qualities and sensibilities of a monk, not that he was religious, indeed quite the opposite.

Into old age he followed the spirit and approach to life as exuded in Tennyson’s great poem:

Ulysses

’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield …

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

If he was free my son Will loved to join Adrian, Paul and me for our coffees. Like Jack he warmed to Adrian’s exuberance finding him such an interesting character. Being a lawyer and a good listener he was genuinely interested in Adrian asking him questions on many aspects of training and health which Adrian greatly enjoyed responding too in his articulate and detailed way.

As Jean said to me Adrian greatly loved his life including many other interests such as astronomy, shooting and playing the guitar.

Adrian was a life-enhancing character, who if you’re very lucky, you come across in life. He was engaging, warm and outgoing. I’m glad he so enjoyed his moment in the sun. I know both Paul and I feel very privileged to have been able to share some of those moments which were and remain an important part of our lives together on our journey with him.

My last contact with Adrian was a month or so ago to wish him a happy 79th birthday. He thanked me responding Tempus fugit

Tempus fugit indeed and very lovely and sweet memories of Adrian stepping out over the landscape in the years when we ran like the deer.

Adrian, back row, left, with the Scottish team in Vichy:

Adrian, Lachie Stewart, Bill Stoddart,  Bill Mullett, Dick Wedlock, Gareth Bryan-Jones in the rear, Norman Morrison, Ian McCafferty and Jim Alder in front.

Thanks, Peter, for that lovely portrait of Adrian as a runner, as a man and as a friend.   The last photograph is of Adrian with a really top class Scottish cross-country team, just one of the many occasions when he represented his country.

There are several mountain running challenges – eg  the Island Peaks Race – but the best known are probably the three challenges known in hill running circles as “Rounds”.   In Scotland it is the Ramsay Round, in Wales it is the Paddy Buckley Round and in England it is the Bob Graham Round.   

Scotland has the highest mountains (23 x 3000 feet), Wales has most summits and England has the longest running course.   Wikipedia tells us –

“The Bob Graham Round is a fell running challenge in the English Lake District. It is named after Bob Graham (1889–1966), a Keswick guest-house owner, who in June 1932 broke the Lakeland Fell record by traversing 42 fells within a 24-hour period. Traversing the 42 fells, starting and finishing at Keswick Moot Hall, involves 66 miles (106 km) with 26,900 feet (8,200 m) of ascent.

The Round was first repeated, in a better time, in 1960 by Alan Heaton. Since then over 2500 individuals have completed the Round with the fastest time being 12hr 23m set by Jack Kuenzle in 2022, surpassing Kílian Jornet’s record by almost 30 minutes. The women’s record is 14hr 34m set by Beth Pascall in 2020. The Lakeland 24 Hour record has also been improved with the current holder, Kim Collison, successfully reaching 78 summits in the allotted time.

Along with the Paddy Buckley Round and the Ramsay Round, the Bob Graham Round is one of the classic big three mountain challenges in the UK. Some fifty six individuals have completed all three.”

Unlike the other two, changes have been made to the Graham Round.   For instance it is permitted to run the round in either direction, clockwise or anti-clockwise so long as the runner starts and finishes at the Moot Hall in Keswick.   Another change was made when it was decided that Graham’s route was “not optimal for attempts on the absolute fell record.”   I’m not sure exactly what that means but there are now two Bob Graham Rounds.   The 24 hour round now has 78 tops, while the original has been left as a challenge in its own right.

The distance of the round has increased as follows (again from Wikipedia):

Building on the basic Bob Graham Round, later runners raised the number of peaks traversed within 24 hours still further:

• 1962: Alan Heaton – 54 peaks in 23:48
• 1963: Eric Beard – 56 peaks, involving 88 miles (142 km) with 34,000 feet (10,000 m) of ascent in 23:35
• 1964: Alan Heaton – 60 peaks in 23:34
• 1971: Joss Naylor – 61 peaks in 23:37
• 1972: Joss Naylor – 63 peaks in 23:35
• 1975: Joss Naylor – 72 peaks involving over 100 miles (160 km) and 37,000 feet (11,000 m) of ascent in 23:20
• 1988: Mark McDermott – 76 peaks in 23:26
• 1997: Mark Hartell – 77 peaks in 23:47
• 2020: Kim Collison – 78 peaks in 23:45

While women’s advance was – 

The sequence of ladies 24-hour records (for the number of peaks traversed within 24 hours or for the same number of peaks in a faster time) is:

• 1977: Jean Dawes – 42 peaks in 23:37
• 1978: Anne-Marie Grindley – 42 peaks in 21:05
• 1979: Ros Coats – 42 peaks in 20:31
• 1979: Anne-Marie Grindley – 58 peaks in 23:20
• 1994: Ann Stentiford – 62 peaks in 23:17
• 2011: Nicky Spinks – 64 peaks in 23:15
• 2020: Carol Morgan – 65 peaks in 23:57
• 2021: Nicky Spinks – 65 peaks in 23:45
• 2022: Fiona Pascall – 68 peaks in 23:26

Hill runners love their rounds.   All the home countries have their own multi-hill challenges – in Scotland there is the Charlie  Ramsey Round, in England there is the Bob Graham Round and in Wales there is the Paddy Buckley Round.   The latter covers more than 100 km and takes in 47 summits.   Wikipedia tells us that –

Runners may start at any point on the circular route (finishing at the same place) and may run the course in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. The route takes in the well-known high mountain ranges of Snowdon, the Glyderau and the Carneddau as well as the slightly less visited ranges of Moel Siabod, the Moelwynion, Moel Hebog and the Nantlle Ridge. The route was devised by the eponymous Paddy Buckley and first completed in 1982 by Wendy Dodds.   The selection of summits that must be visited is somewhat arbitrary and no rules appear to have been applied in selecting them.   Generally, it takes in the major peaks of the ranges that are being crossed, then any minor tops that are passed along the way are also included. Some of these tops really are just bumps on the ridge and not really summits in their own right at all.

Fastest times:

• For many years the fastest authentic round was by Mark Hartell in 18 hours 10 minutes;
• Then on 4th May 2008, this time was matched by Chris Near of Eryri Harriers. 
• The record was broken in July 2009 by Tim Higginbottom who completed the Round in a time of 17 hours and 42 minutes.
• This was further reduced in 2019 by Damian Hall with 17 hours 31 minutes, 
• Again on 30 August 2020 by Matthew Roberts with a time of 16 hours 38 minutes.
•  Kim Collison set a new best time of 16 hours 20 minutes in April 2021.
•  A year later, in April 2022, a new record was set by Finlay Wild who completed the round solo and unsupported in a time of 15 hours 14 minutes.

We have a separate webpage on Finlay Wild whose run was, as noted above, solo and without any support.   This was quite a feat for a man from Fort William running over a course which was so far from home and which, no matter how much planning had gone into it, must have been largely unknown to him.

The women’s record at September 2022 was 18 hours and 33 minutes by Jasmin Paris.

In the late 1970’s I was given a hard back copy of FAM Webster’s book “The Science of Athletics”, written in 1936, by Bernie Fickling of Springburn Harriers.   It was based on his earlier book “Why? The Science of Athletics”.   Lt Col Webster was the founder of the School of Athletics at Loughborough College and his book was to revolutionise the approach to athletics in Britain.   His protege Geoff Dyson came up with “The Mechanics of Athletics” in 1961 and was accepted all over the world as THE authority.  There were others (eg ‘The Human Machine’ by Adolphe Abrahams) but Dyson’s was the one that took off.  Webster’s book has been reprinted in America by Amazon in 2021.   They say:

“The Science of Athletics” is a comprehensive guide to athletics instruction written by F. A. M. Webster, originally intended for athletics coaches and teachers. It offers a fantastic introduction to the subject with a particular focus on the science, making it ideal for anyone with a serious interest in learning or teaching athletics. Contents include: “Considerations in Conditioning Athletics”, “Health Aspects and Health Training”, “Lessons to be Learned from Facial Expression”, “Human Mechanism”, “Considerations in Relation to Competition”, “Athletic Tests and Measurements of Ability”, etc. Frederick Annesley Michael Webster (1886 – 1949) was a British athletics coach and author, and soldier active during World War One. He wrote profusely on the subject of athletics, with his best known book being “Athletics in Action” (1931). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on athletics.

He is still highly thought of and was inducted into the England athletics Hall of Fame in 2012.   Others inducted at the same time were Don Finlay, David Moorcroft, Chris Chataway, Tessa Sanderson, Fred Housden, Wilf Paish, Fatima Whitbread, Marea Hartman and Douglas Lowe.

But to the book.   Let us first look at the table of contents.  

If we look at it the first thing that we notice is the word “considerations” – in other words the book is not a simple series of instructions, not a ‘cookbook’ approach to coaching.   It is not Chapter 1: Sprinting; Chapter 2: Middle Distance Running; Chapter 3. etc until all track events and all eight field events have been covered, schedules included, which will guarantee success.   He asks what we would now call FAQs, as well as some less obvious ones and attempts to answer them head on.   He covers food, psychology, etc.   He also in the course of the book deals with simple but essential skills the coach needs such as that of observation: facial expression has a whole chapter for instance.   But in the main the body as a machine – a clear fore runner of Dyson’s book of 1961 – is the topic under consideration.   The book has 31 pages of quality photographs, reproduced below.

Note that again it is not a simple series of illustrations of athletes in action although there are plenty of those.   Expressions appear again, relaxation and determination are there too.   He also mentions in the text and there is a page of illustrations on the camera in coaching.   His whole approach is laid out for all to see, to learn from and, yes, to query.   

For us, he is important as a coach whose work was important in the development of coaching and, especially, his place in the development of a coaching structure in Britain.   After the 1939-45 War, when the AAA’s wanted to do well in the Olympic Games of 1948, they appointed Webster as National Coach and he it was who recruited Geoff Dyson before such luminaries as John le Masurier and his generation came on the scene.    

There was more to the Gathering than athletics.

The period from 1971 to 1984 when the last known Games took place is difficult to cover.    It was a period when the Glasgow Herald, Scotsman, Courier and other papers tended not to cover what they regarded (maybe correctly) as local events.   What follows is what coverage can be gleaned from the various papers – and that is not a lot.   The Stirling Observer for 1984 describes it as the 33rd annual meeting.    If the first was in 1951 then it must have taken place every year since then.   But the lack of coverage suggests otherwise.   We can only report what we have though.

The first we have is a rather patronising article on the 1976 Dunblane Gathering which is short on detail but which nevertheless indicated that in at least two events there were GB international standard athletes taking part.   Paul Buxton and Don Macgregor were quality athletes in anyone’s book but there was no word of second placed athletes in the events.   

No account of the 1977 or 1978 Gatherings could be found but in September 1979 there was a more detailed report with results of the men’s 100, 200 metres, 3000m and road races, plus women’s  100 and 200m races.   The field events winners are also contained in the report.

Despite scanning back copies of the Glasgow Herald, Scotsman or a selection of other sports pages, no reports for 1980, 81 or 82 were available, nor was there one for 83.    There was however one for 1984.

The Glasgow Herald report for the 1984 Gathering read as follows:   “The backmarker Graham Crawford (Springburn Harriers) won the 3000 metres at Dunblane Highland Games on Saturday.   From the 30 metres mark he finished well clear of his clubmate Adrian Callan clocking 8 min 32 sec.   Jim Hendry (Bellahouston Harriers) won the open 800 metres from the 40 metres mark in 1 min 55.8, and Bob Dickinson (Irvine Athletic Club) too the Junior race with a 26 metre handicap in 2 min 0.9.    In a closely contested race, Stuart Easton (Falkirk Victoria Harriers) took the 14 1/2 mile road race in 1 hour 20 min 42 sec, finishing just two seconds ahead of Graham Getty (Bellahouston Harriers) with Northern Ireland Ireland internationalist Rod Stone taking third.   Ann Bates, first woman home in last week’s Edinburgh marathon, continued her splendid form winning the women’s race in 1 hour 43 min 16 sec.”

Judith Shepherd was a very good athlete indeed.   She competed for Bearsden Academy, Western AC, City of Glasgow AC and Clemson University in the USA.   She also ran for Scottish Schools, Scotland and Great Britain.   Winner of the SWAAA 3000m three times (1977, 78 and 79), she was also second in the 1500m in 1977 and second in the 3000m in 1984 and third in the 3000m in 1981.   She was also ranked every year from 1974 to 1985 with consistently good times over 1500m, One Mile and 3000m.  Judith’s career is profiled  here .  Some of her medals and trophies are below with introductory comments by Colin Youngson.

Judith Shepherd won Senior Scottish Championships on the track and over cross-country. In addition, she competed internationally many times for Scotland. Later on, she ran for Clemson University in the USA. Here are some of her awards. Many thanks are due to David Galloway, who selected and photographed this collection. 

1977 1500m silver medal

1977 3000m gold medal.

1978 3000m gold medal. Judith won this event for the third successive time in 1979.

1984 3000m silver medal

In the 1978 and 1979 Senior National CC Championships, Judith won individual gold. Her team (Glasgow AC) finished first too.

Judith won international track races for Scotland over 1500m (v Wales and Israel in 1979) and 3000m (v Norway in 1977; v Greece in 1978; and the above match in 1979).

In 1979, at Cwmbran, Judith finished third in the Scotland v France match.

She also raced for Scotland in three International Cross-Country Championships: finishing first Scot twice, including a fine 22nd overall in 1978. In three Home International Cross-Country matches, she was first Scot twice, with a best place of 5th (1978).  

Below are some of her USA mementos.

It is an interesting display.   Awards and trophies awarded change over the years – medals or shields or trophies with whirlies on them or even small statuettes.   Several types of trophies are shown here.   It is also an indication of the range of events on track and over country that she ran in with distinction.   Thanks to Dave and Colin.

We don’t have too many detailed accounts of the beginnings of clubs by those who were there at the time, nor do we have much detail on women’s running pre-1930.   Both of these were dealt with to some extent when Alan Lawson sent us this booklet on the early days of Dundee Hawkhill.   It is a fascinating insight into the early days of a club that was destined to make a significant mark on the sport.

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