Promoting Athletics in Orkney

Orkney Athletic and Running Club added 66 new photos.

2 days ago

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Orkney Athletic and Running Club added 76 photos and 2 videos.

2 days ago

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Orkney Athletic and Running Club

2 days ago

A field of 51 runners tackled a strong headwind on the return section of today’s season closing Dounby Pharmacy 10k. Having flown out down the main road before turning down Russland Road and past the Merkister, quite a few of the runners were looking at their watches in disbelief at how fast they were going. After the turn back into Harray and towards Dounby, quite a lot of us realised that we were not in fact channeling Agnes Ngetich and that the climb back up the hill was going to be a lot less fun than the outbound leg!

Struggling less than most was overall winner and first senior male David Grant, who retained his trophy in finishing in 39:19, the only runner to complete the course in a sub-40 time. First female and second overall was Ava Luke (40:49) with Vikki Budge third in 43:37 and Paul Clark fourth (first veteran male) in 43:40. Other category winners were Shawn Tait (45:12, first super veteran male), Dawn Williams (48:22, first veteran female) and Ruth Spence (52:45, first super veteran female). Ruth in particular deserves a mention for entirely failing to take it easy ahead of running the Berlin Marathon next weekend!

Our final finisher of the day was an emotional one: Helen Cromarty was running the race in memory of her uncle Jim and raising money for the British Heart Foundation, and she was cheered home by a full field of runners, volunteers and spectators who almost to a person had not snuck inside to be out of the wind (although one or two of them were using some of the larger vehicles in the car park as a wind break!).

Overall, it was a well run race in very challenging conditions: I’ve not seen a PB yet but enormous kudos to anyone who did manage one. Thank you to all the volunteers and especially Craig, Sarah and Carrie for all their hard work organising and setting up the race both today and throughout the season, a lot goes into getting these events ready and we’d love to have more pairs of hands for next year - please do get in touch if you could help out at an event or two with the organisation.

Thank you to sponsors Dounby Pharmacy for their continued support of this event, which is much appreciated. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in any of our six road race events - four 10ks and two half marathons - as an athlete, volunteer or just a spectator, to all our sponsors, to Leigh Kennedy, Joel Chaney and Hourston’s for supplying medals and trophies across the season and to the drivers of Orkney for (almost always) slowing down and waving as the runners go by. We’ll be back in April 2027!

Full results in the pictures below and a lot more picture to come shortly. ... See MoreSee Less

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Orkney Athletic and Running Club

5 days ago

Participation League update: with just one race left to go (this Sunday's Dounby Pharmacy 10k) Mervyn Hourston has an unassailable lead at the top of the table, having completed every race this year apart from the Rousay Lap with a good smattering of PBs and SBs as well. It's all to play for with the podium positions though, currently Vikki Budge leads Dawn Williams for second place.

Well done to everyone who completed Harray, Rousay or the 5 Barriers run: as ever, I'm reliant on Strava for PBs so please let me know of any missed or incorrect. Data at:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DrSdOCLAfWMtEozjQucMXeDOy9pctijof68071BCQrw/ ... See MoreSee Less