Gayle Lindsay wins December Run of the Month

For the last two years we have awarded a prize at our annual awards for the Run of the Year. We have asked for nominations during the year with a short list drawn up and voted on by club members. The inaugural winner of this highly sought after award was Mr Grumpy himself, Graeme Doig, who ran the 2023 London Marathon in 2:33:21 to finish as 7th V45 and also win V40 silver in the Scottish Marathon Championships.

The 2024 vote was a dead heat between Laura Ross and Paul Hammond. Laura had done the club proud by running a big PB of 3:40:00, also at the London Marathon, and this was rightly recognised by members. Paul Hammond had been nominated for his Fastest Known Time of 45 hours, 26 minutes and 45 seconds for the combined West Highland Way and Great Glen Way, a total distance of 168 miles, and this certainly seemed to impress his club mates!

Following constructive feedback we have decided to vote each month this year on a Run of the Month, with the 12 monthly winners going forward to the annual vote before the awards in December. We also wanted to ensure that races in December itself are not forgotten about so the year will run from December 2024 to November 2025.

As per the headline, we are delighted to announce that the first winner of Run of the Month, for December 2024, is Gayle Lindsay with almost 50% of the vote for her outstanding run of 35:58 at our own Tilli 10k. This was not only a huge PB, but also knocked 89 seconds off the previous women’s club record, set by Gayle at the same event in 2023. Gayle will now go forward to the end of year vote and, since she is based for most of the year in Bermuda, we may need to start thinking about possible video link ups!

Well done to the other three nominees for December: Johnny Cassells, Graham McInnes and Luke McNeil. Johnny put in a tremendous training block with huge miles over a number of weeks and reaped his reward, finishing the Málaga Marathon in 2:57:51, to get his time back under three hours. At the same race, Graham McInnes had a brilliant run to secure a huge new PB of 3:13:16. Last but not least, Luke McNeil would have been a worthy nominee for his run of 77:04 at the Málaga Half Marathon, but was in fact nominated for his time of 34:41 at the Tilli 10k. This was his first 10k under 35 minutes and he also finished as the first PH athlete in the race.

We look forward to seeing who will be nominated for January, which sees the final event of the East District Cross Country League. This race also serves as the first race in this year’s PH Club Championship so will hopefully inspire some excellent performances.