Race News: 12.08.2009 – Tom takes Andy’s record at Glenshee Written on August 11, 2009, by matt.

Owens wins Glenshee 9 – in record time, Nick Swinburn continues winning streak

Tom takes record, but thinks there’s more to come…

Based in the Grampians, and in only its second year, the Glenshee 9 hill race already seems to be a hit with Scotland’s hill runners.

Tom Owens was up for this one and so it proved on Sunday as he ran a great race over the challenging 36km event to take his pal Andy Symonds’ record of 2008 by an impressive 6 minutes. He even climbed an extra hill too on his way to a 5 minute win…

Tom picks up the story:

“I was using it as a steady run and TransAlp training … was initially planning to jog around with Andy Symonds but he couldn’t make it in the end.

I ran the first six Munros with Robbie Simpson (out on a training run of the first half), Alec Keith (he was our tour guide and new some excellent routes) and Adrian Lambert (Canadian mtn runner visiting in Glasgow). I think we pushed each other on fairly well but we were relying on Alec’s navigation!!!!

Felt pretty good so went alone for last 3 Munros. I proved my horrendous navigation skills by taking some shocking lines and visiting an extra hill en route so lost a load of time! … I think that a heck of a lot more time can be taken off that course!”

It seems that Tom is another team member who has benefitted greatly from the SSOT summer excursion to Italy recently, as he concludes:

“All in all a cracking course with a good mixture of terrain, including some quick running. The hills seemed very short after our time training in the Dolomites / Alps!”

Nick Swinburn shows he can shine on any surface

After recent wins at a BMC track 5,000m and round 4 of the British Fell Championships at Y Garn, Nick Swinburn needed a road race win to complete the set. He duly obliged with a comfortable win at the Darlington 10k road race on Sunday – his final preparation race for this weekend’s World Mountain Running Trials.

Swinburn was still suffering the effects of the tough race in the Welsh mountains which he won last weekend but he still had enough in hand to fend off the late challenge of the competition.

“I was always confident of winning once I got away around the 4k point,” said the Bangor University student, “I knew there was someone closing me down but I eased off purposely as my legs were getting sore after the fell race last week. If I had had to pull out something extra then I knew I was capable of that but it wasn’t necessary.”

“I wasn’t concerned about the winning time,” Nick added, “It was a case of getting in a good tempo run before next weekend’s trials in Keswick and even though I had a tough race last week I still managed some hard sessions leading into this race, so to win gives me confidence to do well next week.”

Up coming…

This weekend sees the trial races for the World Mountain Running Championships taking place in Keswick, with Saab Salomon athletes attempting to make to team for Campodolcino, Italy on 6th September.

As we enter the final third of the season the team will turn their attention to such events as the TransAlps race, the Pikes Peak race in the US, English and Scottish championship deciders, the World Mountain Running Championships (dependent on selection) and the continuation of the Skyrunner and WMRA Grand Prix series…

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