No distance left Toruń for Westerns in Poland

PH Racing Club’s Mark and Mary Western had a successful time last week at the European Indoor Masters Championship which was held in Toruń in Poland.

Mary competed in the 400m and 800m in the F60 category with the shorter distance staged first, starting on Monday. Her third place time of 73.78 in heat 1 secured a place in Tuesday’s final where she went even faster to finish just outside the medals in fourth position. Her time there of 71.70 seconds was just 13 hundreds of a second shy of winning a medal.

Thursday’s 800m was a straight final and Mary went one better this time, with a superb run of 2:42.09 to win a European bronze medal. The gold went to GB&NI teammate Clare Elms, with Karin Wåhlstedt of Sweden picking up silver, and no fewer than four British athletes made the final.

Mark’s week had started back on Sunday with the 3000m, where he competed in the M55 category. This event was run across two heats but with no final. Mark found himself in the slower first heat and finished in a good time of 11:25.42 to finish in 20^th place overall, all the medalists having come from the second heat.

Next up, on Wednesday, was the 800m where Mark ran another good time of 2:36.84 in his heat and finished 27^th overall in a tough category. Finally, he competed in the 800m on Friday where another strong run of 5:17.91 put him in 28^th place.

Mary and Mark set new club records in all five events they competed in and even found time to run the local parkrun on Saturday. From the results, it looks like they weren’t the only international masters runners to have this idea. Incredibly, Mark’s time of 20:51 in 12^th position placed him just 6^th in the M55 category! Mary’s run of 22:27 put her 2^nd female behind a local F35 runner.

Well done to both on an excellent week’s running. It is brilliant to see our athletes taking on such challenges, though it’s not the first medal of the year for Mary Western. Before turning her attention to the indoor arena, Mary Western won a V60 silver medal at last month’s Scottish Masters Cross Country Championship in Elgin, so it’s been a very successful start to the year.

Ed Norton has also added to his medal collection this month, with a V70 bronze medal at the Scottish Half Marathon Championships, which were incorporated into the Inverness Half Marathon. Ed is showing no sign of slowing down with his time of 1:35:08 ranking as his second fastest ever half marathon.

There have been a number of other fine performances from PH members over the last few weeks. Graeme Doig got his first ever race win at the 20 Along The Forth race. A wrong turn probably denied him a sub two hour time but he nevertheless posted an excellent result of 2:00:46 to win by over five minutes and claim first prize. Andy Davis placed 7^th overall and 4^th V40 at the recent John Muir 50k Ultra, timing at 3:58:28. Alloa locals Andrew Wright and Ian Stewart once again took part in the Gartmorn 6 trail race and both finished 2^nd in their age categories, Andrew’s time of 35:09 good enough for 4^th place overall.

Last weekend, Julie Menzies was 6^th female and 1^st V50 at the inaugural Forth Valley Trail 10k at Callendar Park, Falkirk. It was also great to see Wille Rennie back racing and finishing in 2:16:28 for 16^th overall at the tough 11 mile Pendulum Fell Race in Northumberland, which included 3800 feet of climbing. Last, but certainly not least, Martin Butcher completed the Sri Chinmoy 100k at North Inch, Perth. This event incorporated the British and Scottish Championships, in which Martin finished 6^th V40, and his time of 8:55:41 placed him 37^thoverall.

Well done to all members who have been racing recently and thanks to Allan Ramage for the race photos from Toruń and Michael Philp for the 20 Along The Forth photo.