Last Duel winning double for Fife athletes in busy weekend of action

Clubmate Rhona Van Rensburg was first female in 43:11 and Paul Harkins (17th in 46:00) and Michaela McLean (42nd in 51:47) claimed special shields for being the first male and female Kirkcaldy Wizard finishers.

Fife AC and Wizards finishers were: 1 Ben Kinninmonth 38:01, 6 Rhona Van Rensburg 43:11, 7 Rory Sandilands 43:13, 17 Paul Harkins 46:00, 1 8Hendrik Van Rensburg 46:05, 21 Sean Brown 46:47, 22 Andy Harley 47:07, 30 Andrew Ritchie 49:16, 42 Michaela McLean 51:47, 44 Zoey Johnston 52:04, 58 Vikki Laing 54.31, 61 Stuart Goodfellow 55:14, 66 Kasia Szafarz 56:41, 73 Heather Finlayson 58:16, 84 Ian Simmons 61.28, 87 Shona Ross 62:25, 89 James Eadie 63:17, 90 John Smith 63:22, 95 Nicky Sutherland 66:54, 96 Nicky McGregor 67:10, 99 Kevin O'Neill 67.35, 107 Shona Turner 69.56 and 115 Sarah Barrie 73.07.

Last weekend also saw the Scottish Half Marathon and Scottish 10k events in East Lothian.

In the half marathon, Fife AC’s Graeme Syme ran 1:33:52, with clubmate Greg Wilson finishing in 1:46:22 despite a hamstring seizing up at 18km.

Wizards Stephen Wilson and Dawn Cameron ran together and finished in 2:04:35. Kirsty Dewar, fundraising for the Myeloma charity, ran 2:14:06, with Carol Kirk home in 2:23:20.

In the 10k event, Thomas Gambino was 12th in 34:43. This race proved to be a coming of age event for the Couch to 5k graduating class of 2023, with graduates Kerry McGregor and Sharron Wilson running together and finishing in 1:02:21, Pamela Dobson home in 1:11:11 and Leanne Reid in 1:14:32.

There were also strong showings by 2022 Couch to 5k graduates Jennifer Hodgson (1:17:05) and Carole Kinnaird (1:19:54).

Results for Wizards ladies in the Linlithgow 10k were: Ainsley Dryburgh 1:00:03, Jill Watson 1:05:56, Laura Roy 1:06:49, Claire Jurecki 1:07:21 and Susan Young 1:17:22.

Meanwhile, Wizard Godfather John McIntyre Senior celebrated a milestone 200th parkrun at the homestead event in Kirkcaldy.

The place to be on Saturday morning though was Craigtoun Park, as St Andrews Parkrun hosted their 500th event, featuring 750 runners.

Ben Sandilands finished in first place, with a blistering 15:44 time. Fife AC clubmates and friendly rivals Ben Kinninmonth and Jamie Lessels had another closely contested battle to occupy the silver and bronze podium places in times of 16:14 and 16:16.

Kevin Wallace achieved an outright 5k PB of 16:34, narrowly edging out rising star Natasha Phillips.

Glenn Barclay only narrowly missed out on a top 10 finish with a superb 17:37. Another young lady who is a rising star in the running community, Katie Sandilands, had an excellent showing with a time of 18:30.

There were also course PBs for Stephen Horrocks-Birss (17:59), Ryan Ritchie (18:53), Greg Wilson (21:49), Linzi Shand (21:50), junior Murray Kinnaird (22:54), Lindsay Quinn (23:32), junior Caera Baillie (26:29), Ian Watters (27:27) and Adele Clevely (40:15).