For those training at Balerno High School, their will be no training on Monday 1st April (Easter Monday School Holiday), but there is training on Wed 3rd April. There will be no training during the Easter Holidays from Monday 8th to Wed 17th April. Training resumes after the Easter holidays on Monday 22nd April, in Malleny Park – so be prepared for outside.

Those training at other locations should confirm with their coach what the arrangements are during the Easter Holidays.

We now have the fixture list for the summer, and a copy is included with this Herald. The fixtures have been particularly kind this year as we are at Grangemouth, Coatbridge, Scotstoun, Livingston, Pitreavie and Meadowbank ... apart from the Senior Men with our annual trip to Inverness. There is likely to be a further change in the Men's League, but we don't know yet what that will be.

Our first league match is the Forth Valley League on the evening Thursday 18th April at Livingston.

Before our club season officially gets underway there is a meeting at Meadowbank for the members of the Edinburgh and Lothian clubs. Anyone who wishes to compete in this should do so, and an entry form and timetable are included with this Herald. We are treating this as an "Open Graded Meeting" therefore it is up to everyone to decide for themselves what events they would like to do, and to make their own arrangements for getting to Meadowbank. It would be particularly worthwhile for any girls from U13 – Senior who would like to be considered for the Lothians team that competes in the Women's League.

(Formerly the Scottish & North-West League)

Open Graded Meetings and Scottish Games Association

At Open Graded Meetings anyone can enter the event(s) of their choice as an individual (unlike League meetings, where club members are part of a team competing for points). At some meetings races are organised according to likely time rather than age. The main local meetings are held at Livingston and Grangemouth.

The Scottish Games Association (SGA) is the body that overseas the various Highland Games and professional meetings held throughout Scotland. Rule changes a couple of years ago have relaxed the old distinction between "amateurs" and "professionals". As a result, club members can now compete with no loss of amateur status. At most of these meetings competitors are handicapped in races by increasing or reducing the distance each individual runs in order to make the race as close as possible. The most famous event is the "New Year" meeting in Edinburgh, now held on the racetrack at Musselburgh.

We intend to have a second visit to the indoor facilities at Grangemouth on Sunday 24th March, 2.00 – 4.00 and will be leaving from Balerno High School at 1.15. The cost entry at Grangemouth is about £1.65 for juniors, and the stadium would like as many as possible to have the right money.

We would also like to arrange "training session" for parents to go through and practice the organisation of field events, so that come the summer a few more volunteers are confident about helping out as officials. So, we would like as many parents as possible to come along!

After a long and very successful career as a coach, Charlie is retiring from active duty. Although mainly competing in the Border Games circuit, Charlie's athletes have made a big impact when competing for us, and have been very successful in District and National Championships. Arrangements are in hand for new coaches to take over Charlie's squad, and hope to see Charlie coming along to some of the meetings in the summer to see how his athletes are progressing.

The Pentland Runners have had a couple of "Last-Sunday-of-the-month" Water of Leith handicap runs on 27th January and 24 Feb, with the runners starting with various time delays. We intend to make this a regular event and hope to attract more runners of all abilities. Once we get the handicaps a bit more accurate we'll have some very close finishes (and maybe some medals?). The traditional Sunday morning run is attracting several new faces, and we're tackling a variety of routes according to different abilities. Information on a range of future events and other meeting times will be posted on the Pentland Runners web-site,www.pentlandrunners.org.uk.

The current club membership year runs from Oct 2001 to Sep 2002, and we are now chasing up memberships. A list of those received as at 28 Feb is included at the end of this Herald. If your (/ your child's) name is not on the list please complete a membership form  as soon as possible.

Athletics Scotland is the registration scheme operated by the governing body for athletics in Scotland, and we are obliged to encourage all club members to register with the scheme. The first year of registration is free for junior members, and we usually register newcomers after their first outing for the club. After the initial year AS will send out a renewal directly. Please ensure that you or your child's registration is kept up-to-date. We are obliged, under the rules of competition, to collect £2 from everyone who is not registered when they compete. Please note that the AS scheme is totally separate from the club membership fee plus the membership levy we have to collect.

Those members who are registered should recently have received a copy of PB, the Scottish Athletics magazine and a copy of the entry forms for the summer season track and field championships.

On Sunday 20th January we took eight teams of junior members, some reserves and one mascot through to Glasgow for the national junior relay championships at the Kelvin Hall. Three of our teams made it to their finals. The Under 17 women (Catherine Graham, Erin McIntosh, Beatrice McCorkell and Stacey Downie) and the Under 13 boys (Findlay Anderson, Gordon McKendrick, Chris O'Hare and Fergus McCorkell) both just missed out on the medals with fourth place finishes.

The Under 15 boys "A" team were going well in their heat, but in a tight four-way tussle for the lead, Tommy Ashby was elbowed coming off the last end and dropped the baton. Although he picked it up and continued, we finished well back in fourth place - down and out – or so we thought. Imagine our surprise an hour-and-a-half later when we heard that two of the teams in our heat had been disqualified, and in spite of dropping the baton we were one of the five fastest teams, and in the final! But as two of the guys had already left to travel home, we had had to promote two runners from the "B" team. All the guys (Kerr Archibald, George McCorkell, Paul Brash and Oliver Kerr) put in tremendous runs and we were just pipped for fourth place coming off the final bend. I think we've got a point to prove come the outdoor championships!

Most of our other teams were in their first year in their respective age groups, but come next year....

The teams who took part were:

U13 Girls A: Claire Carmichael, Mhairi Campbell, Louise Campbell, Neisha Kilner
U13 Girls B: Holly Duncan, Vicki Shanks (U11), Kirsty Jones, Ashley Thomson
U13 Boys: Findlay Anderson, Gordon McKendrick, Chris O'Hare, Fergus McCorkell
U15 Girls A: Robyn Addinal, Stephanie Lyall, Karen Milligan, Emma Mitchell
U15 Girls B: Fiona Dewar, Laura Blamire, Kirsty Dewar, Louise Gillespie
U15 Boys A: Kerr Archbald, Neil Campbell, Tommy Ashby, George McCorkell
U15 Boys B: Paul Brash, Oliver Kerr, Liam Narrie, Michael Smith.
U17 Women: Catherine Graham, Erin McIntosh, Beatrice McCorkell, Stacey Downie

Following a few phone calls from Ewen Cameron, the Edinburgh Athletics Development officer, we ended up providing ten members to the various Edinburgh Sportshall teams. Although we were originally only asked to nominate two athletes for boys and girls U15 teams, there was a lack of support from some of the Edinburgh clubs plus a couple of call-off.. Modesty prevents us from saying which two clubs failed to provide any members, but we provided more members than even City of Edinburgh AC (who were the other club who supported this event)!

Those who took part were:

U15 Boys: Paul Brash, Neil Campbell and Martin Robertson
U15 Girls: Emma Mitchell, Kirsty Dewar, Fiona Dewar, Karen Milligan, Louise Gillespie and Kirsty Sangster
U13 Girls: Claire Carmichael

Congratulation to the U15 Boys team who qualified for the Scottish final which was at Meadowbank on Saturday 9th March.

In the final the boys were sixth (out of six).

Congratulations to everyone who competed in the East District championships, especially all the medallists. There were three track finals where 2 of our athletes were up against each other – Paul McDougal & Shaun Desport were 1st and 3rd in the U17 800m, Findlay Anderson & Fergus McCorkell were 2nd and 4th in the U13 60m, and Stacey Downie & Beatrice McCorkell were 4th & 5th in the 60m. Paul picked up a second gold in the 1500m – a pretty good double.

(Performances in heats are given, with the position in the heat)

Stephanie Lyall was 3rd in the 800m in a time of 2min 26.23sec, after winning her heat in the fast qualifying time of 2 min 29.63. The full results have not yet been published by Scottish Athletics.

The U17 championships were spoilt somewhat when Paul McDougal, aiming to do another 800 / 1500 double, was disqualified in the 800m final after winning his heat and being the fastest qualifier for the final. However there was some consolation for Paul with a win in the 1500m, improving half a second on his winning time in the East District. Stephanie Lyall moved up an age group to run the 1500m as an under 17, and it paid off with a silver medal.

The above championships were held at Livingston on Saturday 19th January. Conditions were on the tough side with an icy wind blowing. Shaun Desport ran an excellent race to become East U15 Champion winning in 13m 28s. The course was over 3200m and there were 35 runners. In the U17 race over 4800m, Philip Purves was 12th out of 27 in 21m 46s.

Male and female top performers are as below.

Shaun Desport was selected to represent Scotland East U15s at the British Inter Counties held at Nottingham on Saturday 9th February. Unfortunately, he did not have a good race and finished 53rd out of 301 runners in 16m 30s over a 4000m course. He was 2nd East counter and the team finished 18th out of 41.

The National Championships were held at Callendar Park, Falkirk on Saturday 23rd February. Shaun Desport was 3rd in the U15 race over 4000m in 14m 13s with 92 runners. In the U17 race over 5400m, Philip Purves was 33rd in 24m 07s with 52 finishers. U13 Stephanie Lyall was 2nd out of 68 in 13m 13s over a 3200m course and U17 Marbeth Shiell was 22nd in 20m 52s over a 4500m course with 32 runners.