Athletics: Mum and daughter both set new personal bests in same race

Feb 11 2010 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

LOTHIAN RUNNING Club’s mother and daughter pairing, Mags and Lana Turnbull, both achieved personal milestones last week at the 16th meeting of the weekly Edinburgh Parkrun.

Both set new personal bests with Lana, in her eighth time at the event, smashing her top time for the course, which she had set just seven days earlier, by an astonishing 21 seconds on Saturday.

Lana completed the 5k – as did a total of 167 runners – along the murky Edinburgh waterfront in 19 minutes 56 seconds.

This placed the Lothian Club runner 25th overall, second female, and first Junior female (15-19).

Meanwhile, her mum Mags finished not far behind as 13th female to set a new PB at 24mins 17secs and place 85th overall.

In the men’s race Ross Milne and Scott Balfour also produced excellent performances. Ross finished runner-up in 16mins 16secs – only four seconds behind winner Ray Ward.

Scott finished 11th overall and first among the veterans (MV 60-64), crossing the finish line in 18:42.

A trio of county club runners also made the journey to Galashiels on Sunday to contest the fifth and penultimate event in the 2009/2010 Borders XC Series. Alistair Robertson, who has regularly attended this series, turned in another good performance to finish 21st overall and second junior, completing the course in 32:32.

In the women’s categories Saran Jones got round in 43 minutes dead to place 86th and third FV45, with Kate Kitchen 93rd and second FS in 43:50.

The Scottish Masters’ Cross Country Championships took place on Saturday, with 101 veteran athletes from all over the country turning out in Forres.

However, only one took his place in the starting line-up flying the flag for Lothian Running Club — Ian Leggett.

The club’s sole runner worked wonders to win the MV 70 category, completing the 10k in Grant Park in 45:40.

Finally, 238 students from all over Great Britain lined up for the Women’s race at the British Universities and College Sports Cross Country Championship at Stirling University on Saturday.

In a high-quality field LRC’s Sarah Inglis, representing Edinburgh University, finished in 31st place.

Sarah covered the tough and challenging four-mile course in 24:46.