Bill steps out to land silvers at British champs

Bill started the race cautiously, wanting to have a clean walk in quality field with walkers from Tamworth and South taking part, but walked steadily through the field and after 20k was siting in fifth place overall.

As the race started to build up Bill increased his effort and confidence and was eventually sitting in second place with three laps of 24 to go.

The results placed Bill second overall in the the 30k race and second in his age group and in the 20k race, which walked concurrently, he was fifth and second in his age group. Double silver made Bill’s day in such a strong field.

All was possible due to Brian Ellis driving 600 miles plus and keeping everyone hydrated and fed at the feed station. All walkers were extremely grateful.

Scotia also took their place, for the second year in a row, at the Clydebank 5k Scottish vets race where they had PBs, joint first and first races on a fantastic night of racing.

Bill and Andrew Fraser raced shoulder to shoulder over the 5K with both fighting for first place and all the honours. In the end there was a perfect result with both crossing the line with nothing to seperate them.

Agnes Ellis completed the race as first woman and with 39 second PB improvement and David Mushet took 1 minute 20 seconds of his previous time on the coursea a tremendous effort.

Congratulations also go to Gordon Jenkins for completing his first race in an amazing time of 38.29.

Scotia wwere also invited to compete in the 3000m Northern England Masters Athletic meeting.

Taking part in his first ever race walk competition, John Reid was the pride of the Scots, finished in time of 24:30.3 and coming third in the M70 group. An amazing result and truly well deserved. Andrew Fraser, who also competed, was overall winner in 16:23.3.

Thanks go to Redcar WC members for their future invitations, and to Archie Jenkins for his kind invite to the NEMAA Champs.

Scotia had the first Scotia Open Championship at Holyrood Park Edinburgh.

This was well supported and thanks go to Linda and Trevor McDermot for their assistance with judging, timekeeping and pictures. Their assistance was invaluable, and experience greatly welcomed. Both travelled from North England to support Scotia.

It was an impressive day for Scotia with medals were won in all age groups from under-11s to over-70s.

1K - Under 11s: winner David 6.38.

Under-13s: 1st Elli 6.38, 2nd Morgan 7.26.

2k - Under 15: winner Briony.

5k: overall winner David Softley, 2nd Lynn Frame, 3rd Katrina Weldon.

Age group winners - F40: 1st Lynn Frame (Scotia RWC) 33.29, 2nd Katrina Weldon (Scotia RWC) 34.04, 3rd Margaret MacLeod. M40: 1st David Mushet (Scotia RWC) 34.55, 2nd Kenny Farmer (Scotia RWC) 40.34. M60: 1st John Softley (Scotia RWC) 33.24, 2nd Douglas Anderson 37.53, 3rd Gordon Jenkins 39.37. M70: 1st Willie Murray (Scotia RWC) 37.49, 2nd John Reid (Scotia RWC) 38.25.