We're now gathering in club membership fees for the year Oct 2002 – Sep 2003. Many thanks to everyone who has paid already. The list of those who have paid is given later in this Herald (paper copy only), so if your name doesn't appear, then there should be a membership form also enclosed.... so please take a bit of time now to complete it and forward on to Paul McIntosh our Treasurer / Membership Secretary.

We had our first coaching session with a specially invited coach in December when Sed Ramelly came along to do a session on High Jump. We aim to run more sessions, either at Balerno High School or at Saughton.

We also intend to organise a club session at Grangemouth for everyone on a suitable Sunday early in the New Year.

Details on all of these will be passed out at training as and when we get them organised.

We are still aiming to enter boys and girls Sports:Hall teams to compete as "Edinburgh B" in the East of Scotland regional qualifying heat which will be held at Meadowbank sports centre on Saturday 8th February. Information about the events which are on the programme are included in this Herald (paper copy only), but it is very similar to many of the activities we do in indoor training. Several club members participated last year representing Edinburgh in the U15 age group, but as most are now second year U15's we know that potentially we have strong teams in this age group.

The age groups are defined as:

Under 13: Born between 1 March 1990 and 26 February 1992 (P7 / S1)
Under 15: Under 15 years of age an the 1st September 2002

We think there should be enough boys and girls for the U15 teams, but we definitely need some more U13's to make up teams, so if you have a friend who would like to come along and have a go, please bring them along. As the teams will be competing as Edinburgh B participants would not need to be Harmeny members.

The top teams from the 8 Feb will go through to a Scottish final, to be held in Cumbernauld on Saturday 8th March. The top Scottish teams will progress to the UK final to be held in Birmingham on Saturday 22 March, so you could end up representing Scotland!

Lasswade 10th November.

Steph Lyall was 3rd in the U15 race over 3K with 25 runners in 11m 25s. Kristen Lownie 14th out of 26 finishers in the 5k senior ladies race in 24m 48s.

Kirkcaldy 1st December

Steph Lyall was 9th out of 27 in 12m 24s over 3k. Shaun Desport was 3rd from 27 in 16m 02s over 4k. Philip Purves 56th from 196 runners in 37m 11s over 6 miles.

In the Deep Mid-Winter... December/ January is seen by the majority of club members of the off-season, a time to relax, and maybe even to over-indulge, but there is probably a greater range of events going on, and for a few members it contains some major events on the sporting calendar.

Stephanie Lyall, Marbeth Shiell and Shaun Desport were all in winning East teams at the Scottish Inter District Championships held in conjunction with the Reebok Cross Challenge which featured top athletes in all age groups from all over the British Isles. The event was held at Edinburgh's Holyrood Park on Saturday 14th December.

Steph was 14th (3rd East) out of a field of 59. Her time was 14m 07s for a 2.7km course. Marbeth was 16th (6th East) in 18m 36s from 46 runners over 4.5km and Shaun came in 13th (4th East) in 16m 03s over the same course with 47 runners.

If the three maintain their form, they have a good chance of representing the Scottish East District at the London Mini-Marathon in April.

The traditional New Year meeting received more publicity than usual this year when 16-year Dunfermline schoolgirl Gemma Nicol – well known to many of our members – was bidding to become the first female winner of the main sprint in its 134 year history. In a photo finish Gemma was a mere 4/100's of a second behind the winner in third place.

This meeting has a variety of other events for various age groups. As all events are handicapped, ie the slowest athletes have less distance to run, so in theory everyone is in with an equal chance of winning. There are medals for winners, but the main attraction is the prizemoney available, often down to 6th place.

The races are held at Musselburgh racecourse on grass beside the horse course, in front of the grandstand. Following heavy rain the day before and during the morning, it's fair to say that going was rather heavy, and the sprint track got heavier as successive races churned up the surface.

Harmeny members participating this year included Stephanie Lyall and Shaun Desport in the youths 800m. As both are well-known as talented runners they were given fairly severe handicaps and finished just outside the top six.

Alan Anderson (Finlay's dad) had an excellent run in the Open 1600m to finish 2nd (off a handicap of 235m). Bob Douglas won his heat in the veteran's 90m (off 24m) and in the final was literally pipped at the post with the photo finish placing him 3rd. (Next year he might even use blocks and start properly...)

Pictures and a report of the event is at http://www.sportingworld.co.uk/cgi-bin/newyearsprint/thisyearssprint.pl

We would like to see a few more of our local members thinking about entering this, or other SGA handicapped events. For the New Year meeting, entries need to be in by early November – so mark that new 2003 diary now!

The "Porty Prom" is another traditional run held on New Years day. Unlike the "Sprints" (above) entry is on the day, and it is quite obvious that for many competitors, it was very much a last minute decision to run. (What is not known is how many people who intended to run didn't make it due to the previous night's New Year celebrations..)

The run follows a two mile course along the seeafront from Seafield towards Portobello ... and then comes back the same way. This meant that the wind and rain that we were running into on the outward leg was behind us on the way back, thankfully! There were 173 runners this year.

The Championships were held at Corstorphine Hill having been originally scheduled for Aberdeen on Saturday 11 January. The ground was frozen solid in most places (it certainly was where a couple of us were marshalling!), but there were a couple of traditional cross-country spots around the course ie deep squelchy mud.

Kirsty Dewar was 24th out of 27 in 21m 27s and Jenny Hunter was 25th in same time over 4.4k. Our man at the finish observed that they appeared to have a nice chat on the way round. Both were participating in their first cross-country race and should be very satisfied with their performance in what was a Championship race with several of Scotland's top runners.

Shaun Desport was 4th from 25 runners in 21m 44s over 6.4k. He could get a trip to the Inter counties at Nottingham next month on this form. The three boys who finished ahead of Shaun were all from Aberdeen AC. There must be something in the water in the granite city.

Every year the club receives one guaranteed place in the London Marathon. This year the place is going to Cliff Smith who is running to raise funds for the Children's Liver Disease Foundation which helped with a life saving operation for the young daughter of Bill Stobie, one of the club's longest standing members.

As well as London Marathon, Cliff will be attempting the Edinburgh and New York Marathons, plus a few half marathons and 10K's as part of a 100 mile fundraising challenge.

Inverness Bound: OK. Inverness isn't abroad, but the Highlands are quite different from Central Scotland. A few of the Sunday morning runners are aiming to take in the Inverness half-marathon in March. There is also a 3 mile fun run which is held at the same time for those of us who can't manage 13 miles, but fancy a social trip.

See Pentland Runners site for any news