Peter and Elspeth's Westies Day Out

A big big thank you to Peter and Elspeth for another great day out at Westie-easter-lands (Peebles). On a lovely sunny cold day various Westies and others went mountain biking and hill running in the gorgeous countryside surrounding Peebles. The main group of runners - me, Elsie, Pat, Isabel, Ana, Cat, Helen, Lois, Steffen, Damon (and bloodthirsty deerhound Anooshka), Ronnie, Chris, Donald, Hamilton, Dave Rogers, Johannes, Drew - had a great 2 and a half hour 3000 ft run, starting and finishing outside Elsie's back door and going up via a steep heathery climb to Newby Heights and then to Preston Law and Hundleshope Heights, where we headed back down a cracking descent to Dead Side and finishing down Gipsy Glen. Pete, Keith and some others headed off on their mountain bikes to Glentress. After we got cleaned up we enjoyed free massages care of Pete & Elsie's friends. Suitable relaxed, we enjoyed oodles of tea, goodies, soup, veggie mush (as Peter so elequently put it!), lasagne, more goodies and, of course, great Westies company. A fantastic day out, and thanks again to Pete & Elsie and everyone else.

Westies Christmas Dinner

36 of us enjoyed a fine night out at Fanny Trollopes restaurant in Argyle Street. The food was excellent as, of course, was the company. Captainess Cat received a well deserved Westie of the Year award to round off a great evening.

Dave's report = Thanks again to John for organising his last Westies function as social convenor. It was well seen that John had organised the tables into old codgers, not-quite-so-old codgers and the young set...guess which table JD put himself in?????
Speeches were up to the usual standard! Cat does a fine line in assertiveness when required; it's superb.
And there was yet another rousing rendition of the Westies Flag; we just get better and better.
Highlight of the evening, for Charlie and I in any case, was getting chatted up by the Polish and Irish burds at the next table....I think it was when I told the Pole that she sounded South African that did it!

Photos here

East Kilbride Cross Country

My report = What better way to spend a sunny Sat afternoon than slipping, sliding and slithering your way round a muddy field in East Kilbride? Well lots actually,after my painfully slow plod which lived down to the low expectations of my cross country ability. While Don and Dave were battling way ahead of me I was doing my best slippery shuffle just to stay ahead of Alan and Hamilton. A slow steady lap was followed by.... a slow steady lap and then finally.... another slow steady lap. It was a continual effort just to keep on my feet, especially on the final wee hill where on the last lap I was grateful not to have slid back down it as I scrambled my way to the top. Overall, fun in a perverse, masochistic sort of way.

Dave's Westie report = More mud and glaur was evident at the West Districts at East Kilbride showground yesterday. Although afficionados reckoned it bore no comparison with Kirkintilloch two weeks ago in terms of the quality of mud, it remained a surprisingly good 3 lap, strength-sapping trail which made excellent use of its sole hill. At least it remained dry and calm, unlike the conditions at the previous weekend's 10K.

The woman's race saw a fine return by Captainess Cat, who started slowly but surely caught Jane in the second lap to be first Westie home. It was a fine prelude to Cat being awarded Westie of the year at the club dinner that evening. Jane finished a few seconds behind Cat, Muffy was next home and it was good to see Pauline back competing to make up the Westies quartet.

In the Men's race, David Riach made short work of the mud, striding easily through the quagmire. Captain Chris was only 1 place behind, but it was further back where the real battle was taking place. Don was determined to gain revenge for the home-turf humiliation by Dave in the Hugh Wilson 10K the previous Sunday. Dave had to admit that his pre-race, 2-in-the-morning, 21 alcohol unit preparation was far from ideal. Nevertheless the two were literally neck and neck from 400 metres until about 1km frome the end when Don's superior strength allowed him to gain enough clear space to strike home for a convincing victory. Dave says "I'll be back", so there are more sparks to come from this pair over the rest of the season!
JD ran a competent race a few minutes behind, although he does seem to lack the leg speed of old; probably the result of too many long hill runs over the summer. Hamilton made his usual last minute appearance, using some excuse about singing in Buchanan Galleries for his late arrival. He didn't have time to collect his number and had to be handed it 200 metres from the finish line! Grimorr was easily spotted in the crowd of runners with his trademark mustard bunnet and DM Hoey vest. Finally Drew came in, one of only 4 Westies (Muffy, Chris and Don being the other 3) to complete the testing trio of races at Kirkie, Kilbride and Kilbride.
The good news was that Westies were third vets team after Shettleston and Cambuslang, with David, Chris and Don being the counters.

Photos on Chris' Blog here
Results
Women
1 Allison Simpson Kilmarnock 25:09
31 Cat 30:54
32 Jane 30:59
41 Muffy 32:30
51 Pauline 34:10
60 finished
team 10th

Men
1 Connor McNulty 33:33
50 David 39:51
51 Chris 39:57
71 Don 42:20
72 Dave 42:29
109 John 46:26
119 Hamilton 47:55
136 Graeme 52:26
147 Drew 59:35
149 finishers
9th team