Stornoway Running and Athletics Club
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Stornoway Running and Athletics Club |
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SRAC Running For Charity
A good mix of the clubs’ runners of all abilities and ages set off from Portnaguran Lighthouse for the club’s annual Silver Trail Charity Relay Run, the Aird 2 Aird relay on Saturday 27th September at 11.30am. Sixteen runners started at the Portnaguran Lighthouse to traverse the island from east to west, with the added novelty of running form Aird, Point to Aird Uig. (Aird, Tong was almost included but hey, the direct route east to west seemed to make sense!) A stiff westerly breeze made the run that bit more of a challenge, but the thought of the cash been collected en route for the Stornoway District Round Table’s local good causes and charities fund made the effort very worthwhile! OK, yes and some miles shorter than the north to south route of past Silver Trails! But perhaps this is the beginning of blazing new Silver Trail “trails” around the island, eh? How about Aird Uig to Orinsay or Lemerway? That’s North West to South West!
John and Alison MacInnes were the father, daughter pairing to get the running under way carrying the now well travelled baton on it’s fourth charity run. It should be mentioned that the baton no longer has the “Butt stone” mounted on it! The stone originally picked off the ground at Port of Ness light house some years ago by ”Neissach” Alasdair Dunlop to use as a baton some years ago unfortunately came unfixed and sadly lost last year! The “Butt stone”, probably the only piece of Lewisian gneiss that got ceremonially carried from one part of the island (and on one special occasion from Perth to Stornoway in the Mod run) at approximately six minute mile pace, now sits motionless at a lonely Harris road side! So who will offer a worthy pice of rock to take it’s place? Perhaps a free pair of trainers to the rock that best fits the bobbin relay baton with the best story!
Ah where were we? Ah, yes the MacInness’! “Da”, John completed the point1 Callanish Stones Marathon earlier this year facing an easterly that made the going tough that day, but now set off in the opposite direction, but hey, “as the island weather is” the wind turned to meet him head on again! However, budding athlete Alison paced her Dad till the mile change-over point at Portvoller and handed the baton over to the SRAC“express” Alastair Dunlop.
From this point on the runners took mile about efforts on the road while the on board team leapfrogged the active runners and busied themselves by collecting donations from the many cars that stopped and householder’s!
The group were reduced to twelve on the Pentland Road at the Creed River to complete the near fifty mile run and the stop watch indicated that the runners were not going to meet their targeted time of 5pm at the Gallan Head Restaurant! A plan was hatched and following multiple individual half mile efforts the Silver Trail Relay was back on schedule! Such was the “comfort” zone gained by the swift half mile efforts that most of the group ran the final three miles together; perhaps it was the nose of venison stew wafting from Gallan Head Restaurant that drove the runners westwards!
The relay was a superb club event which benefited local charities and doubled as a very good training day together for the eight junior and eight senior runners that turned out to run! The Silver Trail collection boards can be found in all the island lounges and donations will be most appreciated. The Lewis Bar currently hold the charity shield for the largest collection from last year, but who will raise the largest amount this year? SRAC would like to thank Enable, Lewis Builders and Andy at Gallan Head Restaurant for their assistance and contributions to this year’s charity relay, as well as all those who contributed on the road! |
