Coatbridge and Airdrie hosted many very attractive meetings in the 1970’s and 1980’s – many were cross-country championships in Coatbridge and there was the excellently organised Highland Games at Rawyards cinder track in Airdrie.   All were well sponsored which helped but the events were what the athletes wanted and very good competitors were always to be seen across the programme.    Joe Small has provided the following information about the meetings.   He comments that the road race, billed as 13 miles, was possibly under distance: all that can be said on that front is that the trail used for it included 4 mammoth hills which made it 13 miles worth of effort!

Airdrie Highland Games

The town of Airdrie in central Scotland might seem an odd place to hold a `highland games’, but it followed in a tradition of other similarly located places hosting such events, e.g. Shotts, Kirkintilloch, Kilsyth, Bathgate etc.   The forerunner of the games was an Airdrie Town Council open sports day held on the 3^rd June 1967 at the newly opened Rawyards track.   The principal organiser for the games was Neil Taylor, secretary of Airdrie Harriers who almost single handedly made sure that the event carried on.   The new 440 yard cinder track was constructed at Rawyards on the outskirts of the town, previously a brickworks and area of waste ground, although it did have some sporting history as a site of a race course in the mid 1850’s. The horse racing only lasted for some 25 years before disappearing, seemingly due to lack of local interest.

The first sports meeting in 1967 included the usual mixture of mens and womens scratch and handicap races, heavy events and schools relay races. The best performance noted at that meeting was a 2 mile win by Bert MacKay of Motherwell YMCA in 9min. 23sec., 15 yards ahead of of clubmate Alex Brown.    For the record, the Glasgow Herald report and results are below.

1968 saw another open sports meeting on the 1^st June. The star of the meeting being Ian McCafferty, competing for Law & District, who won both the handicap mile (off scratch) in 4min. 11sec. together with the 2 miles in 8min 42.4sec, this time was only 0.2sec outside of his own National record.   Hugh Barrow of Victoria Park won the invitation 3/4mile race in 3min 0.5sec. This equalled his own Scottish record.   The complete results were

Among the notable athletes other than the two already mentioned above are sprinter Derek Parker of Paisley who went on to become a level 4 middle distance coach with Kilbarcham AAC and Jack Brown of Dumbarton AAC but the women’s winners included internationalists, SWAAA champions and record holders and Commonwealth Games athletes Moira Walls, Pat Pennycook and Christine Sprigg.   

Start of the invitation three quarter mile in 1968: K Ballantyne, H Barrow,  R McDonald, R Knox, H Gorman

Putting on rarely run events appears to have been something of an Airdrie speciality. Invitation races over distances such as 3/4 mile, 1000 and 2000m, with the intention of producing fast times and possibly records were always part of the days programme. The organisers were quite successful with this strategy, the 2000m time of 5min. 12.8sec. by Lawrie Spence in 1976 still stands as a Scottish native record for the distance. Other records set were a Scottish All Comers and Native record of 2min. 23.3sec. for the 1000m by Graeme Grant in 1971 and an earlier 2000m record of 5min. 20.8sec. again by Lawrie Spence in 1975.

In 1968 Local lad Ian Scales (Airdrie Academy) won the youths 880 yards from scratch in 2min 2.2 seconds. Ian went on to be a good class 800m runner, finishing 3^rd in the S.A.A.A. championships over that distance in both 1971 & 1972. He was one of the few top runners Airdrie Harriers managed to produce.

The road race was also a feature. Billed as a 13 mile event, I don’t think it measured much more than 12 miles, so the times always looked much faster than they actually were. The trophy presented to the winner was named in honour of J.M. Kerr, a former Scottish marathon champion & member of  Airdrie Harriers. The race always attracted a good field, with winners such as Jim Dingwall, Willie Day, Colin Martin, Sandy Keith, Alex Wight (and myself!)    There was only one mishap in all the runnings of the race on what could be in places quite busy and that was in 1969 when Peter Duffy was involved.

 The Games were a very good advert for the new Law & District AAC when they were held on 7^th June in 1969     The report from the Wishaw Press the following Friday read as follows.

If the 1969 meeting was a triumph for one club, the results on 30th May, 1970 showed a wider share of the spoils with the calibre of athlete on show very high indeed.   The headlines were grabbed by Lachie Stewart who won not only the 3000 metres race but also the Invitation Mile.   In the former he defeated Shettleston clubmate Dick Wedlock when he won in 8:26.2 with Monklands Harrier Jim Brown third (8:40.0).   He led from start to finish in the Mile, coming through the half in 2:13.5  and again defeated Wedlock in a winning time of 4:18.4.   Ian McCafferty conceded 120 yards to John Graham (Airdrie Harriers) – it was a bit too much and he had to finish second (3:53.4) to Graham’s 3:44.0.   Results:

Among the other results, Les Piggott won the 100 yards  and the 13 miles road race, which had almost 60 starters, was won by Edinburgh AC’s Alex Wight in 60:20 from his brother Jim Wight (60:59) with Ian Leggett of Clydesdale third 63:24

5th June 1971:  was the date for the next meeting which had two invitation events on the programme.   Both were middle distance races and both had really top class athletes contesting them.   All of the prize winners were Scottish and British international athletes.   In the 1000m, Graeme Grant of  Dumbarton running for Heriot Watt University was a late entry but won the race in 2:23.3 which equalled the national record for the distance with Frank Clement second (2:24.4) and Dave McMeekin third (2:25.3).   In the Mile local runner Ron McDonald of Monkland Harriers won in 4:04 from Adrian Weatherhead of Octavians (4:04.6) and Hugh Barrow of Victoria Park (4:11.7).   

In the other events, Shettleston won the 5000m team race with Wedlock 2nd, Bannon 3rd and Summerhill 6th from Clydesdale (Dolan 5th, Gemmell 7th and McAusland 15th, with Bellahouston 3rd.   A high quality race with 10 teams of four taking part.   In addition,   Willie Day of Falkirk Victoria won his third road race of the season in 61:49.   The results below indicate that this was a well supported meeting with top class athletes all the way through the programme.

The first Saturday in June in 1972 was the 2nd of the month and the report in the local paper was brief.

1973 Invitation Events:

There were three invitation events and all attracted good fields with current internationals winning each of them. 1000m:   1.   David McMeekin 2:26;  2.   Ian Scales.   2000m:  RL Spence 5:20;   3000m:   P Dolan  8:39.4

The 1973 Games were held on 2nd June and Les Piggot of Garscube won both 100 and 200m quite comfortably having overhauled the field from scratch by halfway in both races.   Given that it was a fast track if we go by the times recorded in all the races, it is maybe a pity that there were not as many invitation sprints as there were invitation middle distance races.    

The road race was of the by-now usual high quality.   The first six were Colin Martin of Dumbarton, Colin Youngson of Victoria Park, Willie Sharp of Falkirk Victoria, Ron Paton of Clydesdale Harriers, George Brown of Edinburgh Southern and David Simpson of Law.   Willie Sharp was always a an astute pacer of a race and this course with its long uphill drags and sharp descents had many ‘graveyards’ that could spell the end of a runner’s hopes: Willie not only placed third but was also winner of the handicap.   Willie McBrinn of Monkland won the veterans race.    The results as published by the Glasgow |Herald were as follows.

Invitation 1000: D McMeekin (VPAAC) 2:26;   Invitation 2000m: RL Spence (GGH)  5:26;  3000m: P Dolan (Clydesdale) 8:39.4.

Open Handicap events: 100m: L Piggot (Garscube scr) 10.5;  200m: Piggot (scr) 22.2;  800m: A Law (GGH 56m) 1:52.8; 1500m:  W Parker (Beith 140m) 3:56; 13 mile Road Race: 1  C Martin 1:02.4;  2. C Youngson 1:02.34;  3. W Sharp.    Long jump: C Watson (VP 0.78) 7.26m; Shot putt: W Weir (Falkirk 1.15) 14.56m); Hammer:  R Ferguson (Coatbridge 4.80)  36.42; Caber: R Ferguson.   Junior 200m: A Laird (Ayr Seaforth ; 800: W Sheridan (VP) 1:57.3 Youths:   200m: D McPhail (Clydesdale H  4.0) 11.1; 800m: M Watt (Shettleston H 2.0) 1:58;  Women: 100: M Munro (ESH 4.5) 12.2; 200:scratch: AK Robertson (Grangemouth) 25.6; 800: J Kane (ESH 26.0)2:12.7.   Intermediate 100: AK Robertson (Grangemouth)   12.7

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In 1974  Airdrie Highland Games were held on 1st June and the short report in the Wishaw Press of Friday 7th June, indicated the successes of the local athletes in the article below but there was no long report on the event at either the local or national press.   .

The meeting may have been slightly upstaged by a meeting held exactly one week later – the Coatbridge Highland Games were held just a few miles down the road in Dunbeth Park with a promise of a grant meeting a year later at a new all-weather track at Langloan, just a short jog away.   See the extract from the Herald report below.

7th June 1975:  was the date for the next Airdie meeting and the invitation 2000m was the event of the day.   Les Piggot missed the meeting because of illness but the presence of the Stuart Hogg trained Drew Harley meant that the sprints  again had some real class.   The Glasgow Herald repost is below.   

The Games were again held on the first Saturday in 1978 and the short report in the Wishaw Press covered only the Law & District AAC runners.

The 1979 meeting was reported at some length as follows..

The Games were held again from time to time in the 1980’s but their heyday had been in the 1960’s and 1970’s – like the other athletics events held in the area at the time it had been well organised an popular and its demise was a loss to the Scottish athletics scene.    

Alastair Wood – Marathon Career Record                                                     

Alastair Wood – Ultra Career Record             

Jim Alder – Marathon Career Record        

Fergus Murray, Jim Alder and Don Macgregor

                                                                                                             Fergus Murray – Marathon Career Record

Don Macgregor – Marathon Career Record   

Don Ritchie – Marathon Career Record                                            

Don Ritchie – Ultra Career Record         

Sandy Keith – Marathon Career Record

Colin Youngson – Marathon Career Record

Colin Youngson – Ultra Career Record

Jim Dingwall – Marathon Career Record            

Alastair Macfarlane – Marathon Career Record                                                                                        

David Clark – Marathon Career Record    

 Graham Laing – Marathon Career Record

                                                                                             Andy Robertson – Marathon Career Record                              

Des Austin – Marathon Career Record      

John Graham – Marathon Career Record 

Allister Hutton – Marathon Career Record

                                                                                                         Graham Getty – Marathon Career Record                                                

Andy Daly – Marathon Career Record                                        

Fraser Clyne – Marathon Career Record    

                                                                                                 FRASER CLYNE ULTRA CAREER RECORD                 

                                                                                                       Terry Mitchell – Marathon Career Record

Terry Mitchell – Ultra Career Record                                            

Peter Fleming – Marathon Career Record                        

Lindsay Robertson – Marathon Career Record  

                                                                                                              Simon Pride – Marathon Career Record    

                                                                                                                   Simon Pride – Ultra Career Record        

“Athletics Weekly” is an English athletics magazine which covers athletics all over Britain and, they might claim, the world.   From the Scottish perspective, it should be looked at for three main reasons.   

First, It covers all the main races in depth – this is especially true of cross-country and major marathon races.   Linked with the Scottish penchant for going where the races are to be found it is an invaluable source of results in depth which are meat and drink to athletes and statisticians alike;   

second are the British ranking lists which athletes love to pore over for their own and their rivals performances;

and third, the content often has profiles of Scots athletes, stories of Scottish interest and a page of reports on Scottish races (this last has been at times scanty but more of that later). 

To appear on the cover of the “Athletics Weekly” is an honour – I remember turning up for a race at Irvine and being greeted by a friend from Greenock with the words, “Puckers is on the cover of AW!”   His team mate Alan Puckrin had appeared on it for the first time!   The cover above, courtesy of Hugh Barrow, shows a Scot leading the field in the mile at the Sward Trophy Meeting, one of the big inter-club meetings which were a feature of athletics at the time.    

The picture above is of the first ever issue of the magazine.   It is a bit blurred but does show that it is Volume II Issue I.   The story is that it was started as a monthly by PW “Jimmy” Green in 1945, with the first few issues produced from the back bedroom of a bungalow in Kent which Green shared with his wife, Pam.   Post-war paper rationing was still in force (the Glasgow Herald for instance was down to 8 pages), Green, as Wikipedia tells us used “a mixture of determination and devilment to launch the first, self-published edition. It was numbered Volume II Issue I, but this was a deliberate error to fool the government into thinking the magazine had existed before the war. “

Green was also told by experts in both athletics and publishing that the idea would never work.  He is reported to have “thanked them for their advice and completely ignored it. I was pig headed,” said Green. Green’s magazine went weekly in January 1950, published on Fridays, and has never failed to come out since.   In 1968, Green (who died in 1998, aged 88) passed the editorship to the enthusiastic and knowledgeable Mel Watman, who in a near-20-year reign steered the title to some success and continued to build its reputation for accuracy and authority.

The cover varied from issue to issue to start with – see the one above before settling on the ‘Green-with-Yellow’ covers of the 1950’s shown above and in the 1960’s it became Yellow-with-Green for a short while.  The photograph below is of Glasgow’s Shettleston Harriers.  By the time of the Commonwealth Games in the 1970’s it was the familiar blue that most of us will remember.   

There had been many Scots profiled in the magazine – Graham Everett above had been only one of them from the 50’s along with many of the all-conquering Victoria Park team of the period, Ian McCafferty, Lachie Stewart and many others in the 1960’s and 70’s, Donald Macgregor, Jim Alder, Fergus Murray in the 80’s, lots of them appeared on the front cover too.   Some of them form part of the profiles of the  athletes on this website.   But one of the really big attractions for the real aficionados was the ranking list.   There were ranking lists for men and women, for junior, youth and boy athletes, for Inters, Juniors and girls; there were real in depth lists for separate events (the marathon lists of the 1970’s and 80’s were well  scrutinised), and for groups of events.   All accompanied by top quality photographs by such well known photographers as Mark Shearman, and pretty well every one annotated by an authority such as Bob Sparks.   The one spot that Scots felt could have been better dealt with was the coverage of Scottish events.   In the beginning Willie Diverty of Glasgow University and Victoria Park did the job, he was followed by Colin Shields who did the reporting for a long time and then there were some others who reported for relatively short periods – Cammie Spence and Dave Cooney among them.   The trouble was that the reports were erratic – for instance there might have been three pages devoted to Scottish events, eg 27th December issue had three whole pages devoted to Scottish reports by Colin Shields, and other weeks had either non-existent or very brief results.          In general however Scottish athletics was pretty well covered.   

The coverage by the magazine of the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1970 could not have been bettered either before or after.   Ranking lists both national and commonwealth, relevant national championship results, race reports, interviews with  athletes, some wonderful photographs and expert assessments of every race.   

Independently published by Kent Art Printers in a distinctive A5, pocket-sized format, the magazine reached its peak of popularity in the mid-1980s – coinciding with the marathon running boom following the first London Marathon in 1981 – selling some 25,000 copies per week.   The cover on 21st December was of Sandy Keith winning at Harlow and the issue of 27th December showed Leslie Watson as one of the first three at Barnsley.   Both featured frequently in the publication.   Typical of the content was this inside front of the 27 December 1975 issue

There were results, ranking lists, profiles of runners and other items of interest to the athletics public.   The UK women’s lists included Scots such as Helen Golden, Liz Sutherland, Ann Clarkson, Christine McMeekin, Christine Haskett, Myra Nimmo and Meg Ritchie; and while none of them were in the World Tp 20 for their event there were several not too far away who would be very interested in how much or how little they had to improve to be at that level.   It was also an issue of the magazine that covered Scots results well with the SCCU Cross-Country Relays reported on in depth, the SWCCU East District Championship, the East District League result and Stewarton Cross-Country races for both men and women. 

The 70’s and early/mid-80’s saw the best of “Athletics Weekly” – a publication for athletes and athletics lovers for athletes and athletics lovers.   It coincided with the ‘running boom’ when literally thousands of athletes trained for and succeeded in running marathons.   The standard had never been higher nor had it ever had so much depth of talent.  The magazine covered the scene superbly.   Incidentally the cover changed too with colour being introduced and we had this one (below) with Rob de Castella on the front of a special London Marathon preview issue with 40 pages devoted to the event.   These included AIMS meeting to be held in London, an article on BARR   (how many now, in the 21st century, remember AIMS and BARR?)  a list of all time best performances including all men under 2:10 (47 of them) and women’s performances  under 2:30 (25); the UK all time lists (men to 2:14 and women to 2:45)   and lots more.   

The ‘special issues’ were huge but the everyday, or every week, issues were also big – the one below ran to 64 pages and that was normal and accepted as such by all who bought it as well as by those who produced it.   Nor was it one of those magazines which enthusiasts bought and kept in a binder, taking care to keep it clean, sharp and ‘as new’.   No doubt many were but most were bought, scrutinised marked or had notes taken, borrowed, loaned, discussed …..    I remember lending a copy to a fellow Harrier on a Saturday, him eventually taking me back to his house to return it and us sitting there with a bowl of potatoes and stew talking about it.   (It was a yellow one with green writing!)   It really was important reading to athletes with pretensions to operate at UK or European or World level; it was important too to their coaches.   The coaches were also catered to by the frequent articles on coaching by Frank Dick, Frank Horwill, Cliff Temple, Brian Mitchell and others.   

You will note at the top of the cover ‘Incorporating ‘Women’s Athletics, Modern Athletics and World Athletics’.   These had been either rival magazines or more likely complementary magazines but it may be that the market was not quite strong enough for 4 specialist weekly journals.   The ‘World Athletics’ is an interesting one in that (a) it was produced by Ross and Norris McWhirter before they went on to do the Guinness Book of Records; and (b) it was one of the inspirations for George Sutherland’s excellent ‘Athletics in Scotland’ magazine and there was some correspondence between them.   

The title was bought in 1987 by Emap Publishing and moved from Kent to Peterborough, where, according to Wikipedia, the management sought to repeat the publishing success of its Smash Hits pop title and re-launched AW as an A4 title aimed at teenagers.  publish the Emap was to publish the magazine for 12 years (1987 – 1999)

Whatever their aims and ambitions, the magazine deteriorated.   It seemed to us that the paper was of a lesser quality – as a journal of record it had to be printed on quality paper – but that was not the most important change.   Read the following extract from Wikipedia:  

“Emap made some business decisions that decreased the quality of the product and damaged the magazine’s reputation. First, the previous editorial staff was not retained by Emap thus losing the experience and inside connections these employees had fostered through the years. On top of this the inexperienced editorial team had to deal with a publication date brought forward to Wednesdays, requiring a speedy and expensive turnaround of each weekend’s results. The result of these decisions was that lucrative subscriptions were lost and Athletics Weekly sales nosedived. By late 1989, one-third of sales had been lost and Keith Nelson, Emap’s choice as editor, was moved on.”

Aware of its loyal following’s disgruntlement with the re-launch of Athletics Weekly, in 1989 Eddie Kulukundis funded the launch of a rival title, Athletics Today (above) , jointly edited by Randall Northam and Mel Watman: for the first time in its existence, Athletics Weekly now faced competition.   Mel Watman had been a close colleague of Jimmy Green and been editor from 1968 to 1987.   It was maybe unfortunate that this period coincided with the careers of Tom McKean, Yvonne Murray, Liz McColgan and other top athletes from north of the border.   The magazine was not nearly as good as it had been up to 1967.   The results service was very poor, the layout was not good either with splashes of colour all over the place, articles at times difficult to follow    Despite the sport’s continued successes through the 1990s and the ultimate demise of its rival in 1993, Athletics Weekly struggled in vain to regain its reputation for comprehensiveness and accuracy.

Descartes: Lee McConnell, 2001

The next paragraphs are from Wikipedia’s coverage of the magazine and are worth reprinting in full: 

After a decade’s ownership, Emap admitted defeat and in April 1999 licensed the title to Descartes Publishing, a company established by businessman and athletics enthusiast Matthew Fraser Moat for the purpose. Descartes kept the title in Peterborough and went on to purchase the title outright in 2003. In February 2005 the magazine was awarded Sports BrandLeader status^[1] and in December 2005 Athletics Weekly celebrated its 60th birthday with a charity calendar^[2][3] and a special 100 page edition.^[4]

In 2006 the title changed its publication date back to a Thursday, and increased in size to 64 pages a week; in 2007 an online digital version was launched and in 2009 Athletics Weekly became the first magazine in the world to have all its content commercially available on the iPhone.^[5][6] In 2010 the AW app was relaunched for the iPad.^[7]

A sister company, Athletics Data Limited, was formed to manage the commercial rights of Athletics Weekly’s results data and in 2009 Athletics Data was appointed to run Power of 10, a statistical website, for UK Athletics.^[8]

Taking advantage of the renewed interest in the sport generated by London 2012 and Usain Bolt, the magazine was “highly commended” in the “Brand Extension of The Year” category at the 2009 Independent Publisher Awards^[9] and won a “Media Pioneer Award” at the 2010 Specialist Media Show.^[10]

In January 2010, the magazine celebrated 60 years as a weekly magazine.”

From the enthusiast’s point of view, the magazine was back where it should always have been and from the historian’s point of view too, it was back where it should always have been.   Matthew Fraser Moat is a very interesting character.   A member of Serpentine Running Club, an enthusiastic member of the British Milers Club he is a genuine lifelong enthusiast for the sport.   But whatever else he is, he is the man who probably saved Athletics Weekly as a significant publication, not only in the UK but worldwide.   

.

..

The book concludes with the principal results over the period to 1943.   These are reproduced here but over three separate Pages.  This one goes to 1890.

..

Graeme Bartlett (Forres Harriers)
Graeme won the Ben Nevis Race in 1993. He ran for Scotland in the World Mountain Running Trophy (in Edinburgh 1995), finishing 4th counter when his team won superb silver medals. He won many Scottish hill races and set records. Graeme contributed to many team victories for Forres Harriers, including the North District championships and the cross-country relay. In 2003, Graeme Bartlett became the Scottish Hill Running Champion.

This excellent interview, with the highlight a detailed description of Graeme’s dramatic 1993 victory in the Ben Nevis Race, featured in the very first Cosmic Bogtrotters ‘Cosmic Comic’ (Volume 1:1). 

#

Clubs names tend to follow a pattern  XXX Harriers, or XXX Athletic Club, or for the more adventurous, XXX Striders.   There are some who are a bit different though and of these Cosmic Hillbashers stands out.    What was the club all about?   Before we go on to Fraser Clyne’s article on them, we reproduce their own description of their aims.

Ewen Rennie, who contributed all this material about the club, was a founder member and the first Cosmics coach.

Cosmic Hillbashers – a brief History

In the late 1980’s/early 1990’s many traditional athletic clubs haemorrhaged members to specialist and/or more local clubs. Aberdeen AAC lost members to the off-shoots of Cosmic Hillbashers and Metro Aberdeen Running Club and their respective disciplines.

Cosmic Hillbashers was founded in August 1993 and rapidly attracted members from AAAC and the local orienteering club (Grampian Orienteers) as well as unaffiliated runners. With the oil industry in good heart, they recruited useful international runners but saw a rapid overturn of members. (See below)   The Cosmic ethos was built around running off-road and enjoyment. This ethos cemented the early membership with social activities and overnight club trips involving a race being well supported.

Nonetheless the point of a running club is running and races. Inheriting EL-Brim-Ick Dash and Cairn William from members moving from AAAC, they quickly added Clachnaben and Morvern to their portfolio with Scolty also transferred to them from an aging organiser. Mither Tap and the Krunce Series became other Cosmic innovations.

Success at Championship and other classic races were also goals and 1999 was Cosmics’ year. The Carnethy Hill Race is the traditional classic start to the hill running season and the Cosmic men posted their intentions by taking the first prize with Bernt Njornsgarrd pushing Gavin Bland to a new course record in taking second place. Dan Whitehead and Greg Barbour also made the top ten with Thomas Bracegirdle rounding off the team in 15th.

There was more to follow with The British Fell and Hill Running Championships coming to Alva. With John Duncan running a stormer on the first leg, Cosmics eventually finished third and first Scottish Team. Not to be outdone, the Ladies finished second! The fact that Cosmics supplied three of the four Ladies for the Scottish Team at Knockdhu the previous year was indicative of what was to come.

Meanwhile Tracey Brindley and Sonia Armitage were part of the Scottish Team which took the Bronze Medal at the 1999 World Mountain Running Championship

Since then Cosmics have not been so prominent at the sharp end of races but, in Veteran/Masters categories, Sonia Armitage and Veronique Oldham were regular winners with Veronique still managing to do her stuff in the SuperVets. Other Cosmic internationalists include Catherine Mangham, Clare Millar (Whitehead) and Dan Whitehead.

Nowadays Cosmics’ strength seems to be in endurance events with Mike Raffan and Alan Cormack leading the way.

                                                                                        EL-Brim-Ick Dash

                                                             Jason Williamson and Colin Larmour displaying the different colours of Cosmic attire.

                                           Jon Duncan (a World Championship Gold Medallist at Orienteering) running away from the field at Cairngorm

                                                                                                       Cosmic quines showing off the Cosmic Logo

Demonstration of Cosmic social side: forming guard-of-honour for Laura as she finishes her first and last hill race (Glamaig). (Her fiance, Steve Rivers, persuaded her to come on the away weekend and then to do the race as you get a pint and plate of food for finishing).

                                           Cosmics endurance runners par excellence – Mike Raffan and Alan Cormack

                                                                                       THE HILL!! By Mike Raffan

As you will no doubt have read in the last blog after UTMB (Ultra-trail du Mont Blanc) I lost any reason to train, so I planned to sign up to The Hill. Only problem was I couldn’t sign up as I didn’t know when I was travelling to Boston for Annette’s sister’s wedding. After confirming dates, I was able to sign up to The Hill with 2 weeks to go. With lack of time for specific training this meant I was relying on UTMB fitness.

The Hill, for those that don’t know, is 1.45 ish miles up a hill, dib your dibber at the top turn around and go back to the bottom of the hill (pub/checkpoint), repeat 55 times for a total 160 miles. If you stop for more than 30 mins, you’re out. If you get to a point where the race crew don’t think you can complete the distance within the time, you are out. The race is in December so the weather has the potential to be really bad. The race starts at 8 pm in the dark, it gets light at around 8am in the morning and then dark again around 4 pm, repeat for a second night. Last year was the first running of the race and Jon Steele was the only person to finish in 47 hours 31 min.

Duggan drove me down to the race so he could shout abuse and most importantly drive home again. The rules are you are not allowed any outside support; this includes buying anything from the pub. We arrived at the bar with plenty of time and the only person that I knew was Sean Malay from the double Cateran earlier in the year. This also meant nobody knew who I was either. I heard Mark Cockbain the race director mentioning to someone that he was the favourite to win the race. I don’t know who it was.

With the race being in the dark for 10 hours, at the start I didn’t feel the boredom that everyone predicted, instead you just get the tunnel vision from the head torch. You start at the side of a busy road for about 200m then turn off to the right. It was around freezing so everything was icy. After another 200m, you’re on to land rover tracks for the rest of the hill. A gradual incline, and then you get to the hole in the wall and the bit I described to myself as the real start of the hill. Down for a few hundred metres and then the proper hill starts. It’s still not that steep, since Mark wants the whole thing to be runnable. The first lap I had no idea where we were going, so I stuck with the group until we got off the road – but after that the pace felt too slow. I had my Sunnto on just clock mode so I was just running as I felt. I got to the top and turned back down. I counted in my head when I passed the next runner, 30 seconds. First lap just under 24min, I was told I was going too fast by the race crew but I just laughed at them.

I got told later the social media chat was was along the lines of 1st lap “Don’t know who this Raffan guy is but he’s going too fast”. Lap 3 “He’s still going, it’s freezing outside and he is wearing shorts! He must have northern spirit”, “No, he’s Scottish”. Lap 5 “He is still wearing shorts and he has a beard. He is hardcore!” By this time, it was well below freezing and my beard was getting icicles forming in it. When I grew my beard for the whole year last year, one thing I wanted to do was get a snow beard but didn’t, so now job done! For the rest of the night and day it was steadily gaining a few minutes at a time on the guys behind me. When you dibbed in there was a screen at the checkpoint and if you could think straight you can work out how far behind the next person was. Two laps was a comfortable lead.

It was a full moon and the sky was clear which meant that you could see enough without a head torch; I think this actually helped me keep the pace up. Throughout the race I went into the pub 3 times to get some more layers on, since I slowed when I started to get a bit colder. I managed 100 miles in about 19 and a half hours. This was going to plan, as I knew the weather was not going to be as nice on the second night. After every second rep I stopped to have some food. I started with my own chia charge bars and some other things I had in my supplies box like dried fruit. In the morning I started to get some food from the race crew, usually porridge. I would ask for it on one lap and they would have it ready for the next time I was there. I wasn’t worried about it being hot – I just needed to pack the calories in. I added my own custard to the mix just for extra calories. On the laps that I didn’t pick up real food, I grabbed a gel from the race supplies. They were sponsored by Gu gels which I have never had before, turns out they are now my favourite gels. I have no idea what flavours they were (I liked them all) but it was the consistency that I found really easy to eat while running. Mark told me to take some home at the end of the race, but guess what? I forgot.

The race was 160 miles. This was far too much to get your head around when you are running, just thinking about how far you have left to go is not nice, even laps were too much. I ended up breaking down into how many double marathons to go, or sometimes marathons. It somehow seems like a smaller number. Like the distance, the lure of the warm pub was there to make you want to stop. I tried to stay out of the pub as much as possible. I think I was in there 3 times to get extra layers or new batteries for my torch.

Most times when I stopped, I started to get cold. I would put my buff on at the start of the lap and my thin gloves. By the end of the road section my buff would come off as I was hot again and at the top of the hill the gloves would come off for the trip down.

During the day the wind gets up and the freezing fog comes in. Every time on the down lap the wind was just at the wrong angle so that I couldn’t protect my face. Down the right ride of my face was feeling cold. Every so often I had to rub my right eye just to warm it up. After a few laps I could see a milky blur in my eye. Bugger, the wind must have scratched my contact lens. Oh well, nothing I could do about it as I didn’t have any spares with me.

At about 5 am on the second night the batteries started to run out on my torch. Luckily, I had put some spares in my pocket, but what I didn’t think about was that I had to get the batteries the correct way round. They ran out just before the hole in the wall. I hid down out of the wind and tried to use one of the glow sticks that was placed to mark the route to see what I was doing. This was not a fun experience, especially when I was falling asleep while running. I didn’t think this was possible before but now I was running along and suddenly waking up when I would kick a stone further down the course. I had been holding my head torch in my hand to try to waken me up a bit. Not long after I changed the batteries it seemed like the sun came up again very soon. It may have just have been the concentrating but I was awake again. This was enough to get me to the end. The lead, that I had forced in the first few laps, I was able to keep right to the finish.

Mark the race director joined every runner for the last lap!

                                                                                              Heart & soul effort from Mike Raffan

Ultra enthusiast Mike Raffan, whose running CV includes the UTMB and the West Highland Way race, has just achieved what is possibly his most satisfying competitive achievement.    The Aberdeenshire man took first place in the Isolation Ultra, organised by Cockbain Events, recording a distance of 180.2 miles, on a 50 metre course within the confines of his back garden.

What makes Mike’s performance even more remarkable is that he completed the epic run towards the end of the April-long window after setting out a 106 mile marker earlier in the month. AND he had undergone open heart surgery earlier in the year.

The IT specialist at the University of Aberdeen had the benefit of a scenic, if tight, course, with views across the North Sea from the garden of his family home near Collieston. He was also supported by wife Annette and young daughter Flora.

But Mike didn’t have a classic preparation for this serious ultra challenge as he had undergone surgery to correct an anomalous right coronary artery on 25 February. This followed concerns Mike had last year when he noticed that he was finding it hard to breathe while running uphill. This difficulty became more pronounced and Mike sought medical advice.

He describes the diagnosis: “I was born with my right artery growing out of the wrong place.” The upshot was an operation at Glasgow Golden Jubilee Hospital.

Mike told runABC Scotland online: “I was out of hospital after just three days. The nurses on the ward were not sure about discharging me so early as they had never let anyone out in less than four days – the preference is seven. However, I passed all their fitness tests and the surgeon said it was ok for me to go.”

After just 10 days, Mike went for a slow two-mile run with his wife Annette keeping an eye on him.

“Every time I went out, I felt I had to hold my chest. The rehab physiotherapist told me this was due to the impact and that my chest bones had not fused together properly, so I started doing a lot of cycling instead to get to get my fitness back.”

Mike had only started running properly again when he decided to make the Isolation Ultra attempt. He said: “I relied on muscle memory and stubbornness to get me through the challenge. The run was slow. Stopping so often to turn around was like doing a bleep test for 27 hours.”

Event conditions required a maximum loop of 100 metres at your home and a non-stop (not staged) run with a 1 hour maximum rest stop.

Event organiser Mark Cockbain was effusive about Mike Raffan’s double ultra effort: “Only a few weeks after heart surgery, he came back for a second attempt smashing out 180.2 miles to become the Isolation Ultra ‘Cooler King’.”

A major inspiration for the ‘convalescing’ Raffan’s superhuman effort was to thank the medical team at the Golden Jubilee Hospital and he has already raised over £2,000.

                                                                                                The Tunnel Ultra by Alan Cormack

I have participated in events organised by Mark Cockbain previously and when he announced the Tunnel Ultra in 2018, I was instantly intrigued. The concept of the Tunnel Ultra, is 100 laps of Combe Down Tunnel near Bath with 55 hours to complete.

I had attempted the Viking Way in January during which I was timed out. My immediate thought when being driven to the finish line in Oakham, was that I did not want to compete in The Tunnel. I seriously considered pulling out. Once I had something to eat and a good night’s sleep, I was glad that I hadn’t said anything to Mark and didn’t really give it much thought until a fortnight before the race.

It was when we received the Race Brief telling us about the lack of parking near the start that I seriously started thinking about the race. What I wanted to do was to arrive in plenty of time, be well rested and be as relaxed as possible before the race start. I immediately contacted the local hotel about being able to park in the car park and after being told of the cost, I decided to look elsewhere. I found a farm shop half a mile from the start who were more than willing to allow me to park my car and camp.

I arrived the day before the race, walked down to the tunnel entrance and ran down through the tunnel into Bath for a swim and a shower. I then understood when running through the tunnel, about the strange music and lights.

On the day of the race, I had a good night’s sleep and walked down through some muddy fields to the start line where I recognised quite a few of my fellow runners. Due to the location of the race, all the runners had to be self-sufficient. Some runners had taken chairs and plastic storage boxes. All I took was an extra pair of trainers, some extra clothing and a carrier bag of food. I felt very lightweight!

At registration, we were all given a dibber to be worn around our wrist so we could “dib” in at the end of each lap. After a group photo and a quick race brief, we set off in bunches of five at 5 second intervals.

As this was a railway tunnel, my GPS watch wasn’t going to be of much use. I had no idea how to pace myself so I set out and started running at what I felt was a reasonable pace. I did get a comment from another competitor that they felt I had gone off too fast so I made a conscious effort to slow my pace down. I had a long way to go and I didn’t want to fatigue myself too early.

Another drawback of the uselessness of our GPS watches was that it was difficult to know how far we had actually gone and it was easy to lose track of how many laps we had done. There was a whiteboard which was updated occasionally with the lap count. During both nights, this wasn’t updated due to Race Director Mark, staying in a luxurious hotel while we were running up and down a railway tunnel!

It was reassuring to know that I was keeping well within the cut-off which was 100 miles in 27.5 hours. I was so paranoid about forgetting to dib in at the end of each lap, that on some occasions I was double dibbing and this confused me and Richard Weremiuk who was in charge of the tracking system.

Mark had kindly provided a checkpoint which was 100ft outside of the tunnel, this was a luxury small gazebo with the finest leftover Pot Noodles and Cup-a-Soups from The Hill On Tour Ultra. We felt very spoiled indeed and Mark is clearly going soft. Many thanks to Karen Webber, Dave Fawkner and Byron Crook who were superstars, keeping the kettle on the boil and masterful at keeping the Pot Noodles constantly on the go.

Time was just immeasurable in the tunnel and it was hard to tell the time or even tell what day it was. At some point during the race, runners were starting to take rest periods and have a sleep, covering themselves with foil blankets and Karen Webber’s Dry Robe was also a very popular blanket. During a rare period when it wasn’t being used, I grabbed it, put it on and lay down for 2 minutes on the path to shut my eyes only for Karen to give me a kick to tell me to get going again. She was very firm.

During the night the lights went out and mercifully, the weird music was also switched off. During the evening, we had to use our head torches and it was actually easier to see as the tunnel lights were very dull.

On the 2nd night, the number of runners started thinning out so when I was starting a lap, I suddenly realised that the number of runners had diminished and I was wondering where everyone had gone. Come Sunday afternoon, I was surprised how few of us were actually left and it became a very lonely race apart from the general public running and cycling through.

By the Sunday evening, we were down to four of us: Bryan Clary, Bobby Irvine, Lena Conlin and me. It was really surprising and disappointing that Bobby and Lena pulled out after such a heroic effort of getting so close and I really hope they come back and complete The Tunnel Ultra race as they are more than capable.

That just left Bryan and myself who was 6 laps ahead of me and he asked to run with me so I ran with him until he became the first finisher. I had my last 6 laps to do on my own with the Tunnel to myself. This was when I started hallucinating which was a very strange experience. I was so delighted to be on my final lap and I have never been so happy to finish a race, ever.

Once I had finished, Mark said that he had never wanted someone to finish a race more, which meant a lot to me.

I want to say thanks to Mark, Richard, Karen, Dave and the other runners for all of their chat, encouragement and support. A special thanks to Byron who was an absolute superstar, who kindly drove me back to my tent at the farm as I couldn’t face walking over muddy fields at 11pm.

I started running 14 years ago age 38, my first race was a 10k, it just about broke me! I enjoyed a few marathons then I stepped up to the D33, a local Ultra in Aberdeen before trying a 55 mile ultra and I continued to push the distance. I have done over 70 ultras now and it has given me so much, physically and mentally. (Alan finished second in The Spine last year – Winter Pennine Way Race).