The 2021 Scottish Master Marathoner Award - Neill Kelly takes the Honours.
With running now almost fully out of Covid-induced hibernation, there’s some news of SVHC members’ performances in marathons over the last year, including the 2021 Award, which takes account of races from 01/10/2020 to 30/09/2021.
2021 Award
There were few races in Scotland from October last year to September, but the Strathearn Marathon in June saw a few contenders shake the cobwebs off their trainers and deliver decent performances. Mike Houston and Gerry Craig with times of 02:50:30 and 03:09:09 respectively came up with age-graded performances of 73.80% and 73.69%. Blowing those times well out of the water was an age-graded performance of 84.30% by Timothy (Tim) Kirk of Inverness Harriers who crossed the line, all 76 years of him, in 03:31:48 to win his age group and nearly the award. But there was one better on the day – Neill Kelly of Metro Aberdeen Running Club. Neill, 58 on the day, had a cracking time of 2:49:47 for an age-grading of 85.92%. Great stuff and both our first place man and Tim (an ex-Olympian in Mexico City as the coxen of the mens 8 rowing team) were first in their age groups at the recent BMAF Marathon Championships in York.
Neill is Member of Metro Aberdeen and Stonehaven running clubs as well as SVHC.
He has been running since he was 15 for fun and general fitness but his first ever competitive race was only in 2014 when he was 51, encouraged by his wife, Louise, and son, Jason, who were - and still are - competing regularly. Jason, incidentally, holds the Strathearn record of 2:33:07 from this year’s race too. Now, when you check what that age-graded performance is for Jason, you’ll find the calculator comes up with a measure of 79.85%. We’ll leave it to the family to argue over who is the best performer, although Jason also did Scotland proud by taking 2nd in the Celtic Plate 100 km in Dublin this year.
Since running his first marathon, Loch Ness, in 2016, Neill’s focus has been mainly on marathons and ultras, with a few half marathons too. He also dabbled for the first time year with 10k and 3k distances, which he says went well enough but were a bit intense for his liking to do too often!
Neill’s big target this year was the BMAF marathon and he was absolutely delighted to come 1st in V55 in a new PB of 2:47:05 – age grading of 88.13%.
This is Neill’s last year in that age category and next year when he’s one of the youngsters in V60 folk had better look out!
Some pictures of the top two to go with this.
2022 – An early Marker
Talking of Loch Ness, the mark to beat this year is from Susan Linklater of Shetland AAC and key member of the SVHC XC team in previous years. Susan came down for the race and won the FV60 category hands down, finishing in 03:49:07, an age-graded performance of 84.30%. Seemed to us to be the best age-graded performance by any athlete in the race that day, including both the male and female winners – Stuart Livingstone and Megan Crawford.
The Award Rules
Ø Will be awarded annually to the best age-graded performance (using WMA Tables) recognised by the SVHC Committee in a Scottish Athletics permitted marathon run in Scotland by a member of SVHC over the age of 35.
Ø For the purposes of this Award the year will be 1st October to 3oth September.
Ø To be considered for the Award athletes will require to have been in fully paid membership of the SVHC on the date of competition.
Ø Winners of the Award will receive a commemorative medal and a cash prize of 100 guineas (£105) and have their race success featured in the Club magazine
Ø While the Committee of the SVHC will keep a watching brief on race results it will also be in the gift of individual athletes to bring their performance to the notice of the Club’s handicapper for ratification.
Ø The decision of the SVHC Committee in deciding on the Award will be final.
Ø While the SVHC will underwrite the Award for at least 20 years, this will not preclude us seeking sponsorship for it to support masters athletics in Scotland.
Background
The genesis of the Award came from discussions following a £2,000 legacy left to the Club in 2015 by Bob Donald, late Honorary Life President.
Bob was a keen marathoner and long-time supporter of Masters athletics and the SVHC felt it fitting to recognise one outstanding performance annually in an event which is sometimes focused on big city marathons to the detriment of other races.
Previous Winners
Here, for posterity, is the roll of honour of previous winners. A lot of high bars to get over!
Year Race Runner & (Age) Time WMA Grading
2017 Stirling Andy McLinden (66) 3:03:05 88.91%
2018 Stirling Rhona Anderson (54) 3:09:56 84.47%
2019 Stirling Rhona Anderson (55) 3:12:08 84.62%
2020 Loch Ness Katie White (38) 2:42:03 84:35%
2021 Strathearn Neill Kelly (58) 2:49:47 85.92%