The town of Arbroath experienced a mini invasion on Sunday 5th March as a group from Jogscotland North Lanarkshire made the journey north to take part in the Arbroath Footers annual Ladies 10 Mile Road Race.

The continued success of Jogscotland in North Lanarkshire was confirmed by the fact that 40 members travelled up to tackle the 10-mile route.

Smiles of satisfaction were the rule as all the members successfully completed the challenging route before tackling the substantial after race buffet with almost equal enthusiasm.

Gill Craig and Geraldine Caroll were completing their first 10 mile race commented,

“We’ve been running slightly less than a year, and to complete 10 miles was such a great feeling, we felt so proud of ourselves, we ran all the way, and even finished quicker than we thought we would, without the support of the group we wouldn’t have contemplated doing anything like this, it’s just fantastic, it’s amazing what you can achieve”.

Some of our other members were completing the race for the 2nd or 3rd time, so clearly there is no waning of enthusiasm for jogging in North Lanarkshire.

Jogleader Margaret Deas comments,

“Both existing and new members have benefited enormously from the support and enthusiasm of the groups, they have worked hard in improving their fitness levels, even through the winter months. Their efforts have been rewarded, not only in being able to take part in and completing events such as this but also the health, fitness and lifestyle benefits gained from regular jogging and running.”

North Lanarkshire’s Jogscotland members would also like to thank Arbroath Footers for their hospitality and their well-organized event, which seems to get better and better every year.

The 2006 “Arbroath Smokies” Ladies Team

This is an extract from PB magazine from 2003 detailing Margaret’s exploits in her first 10k.

32 Year old Margaret Sinclair works as a Chartered Tax Advisor in Cumbernauld. She joined a jogscotland group in Muirhead, North Lanarkshire in March of this year. Her first target as a member was to run the Brittanic Asset Management 10k in Glasgow in May. The women-only race is the biggest of its type in Britain with over 10000 entrants annually. Margaret tells us how it all worked out on the big day:

“I had never done this sort of thing before, so I decided on the Brittanic 10k because I wanted my first one to be a really special experience. I followed the training programme being printed in The Herald and then I heard about jogscotland, so I decided to join to help me along.

“As I build up to the race I decided that I wanted to run it in about 66 minutes. According to my build up, that is what my times were heading towards. Anyway, the day came and luckily the weather was good. I had never seen anything like it before – all women in front of me, all women behind and thousands in the crowds that had lined the streets. The course is flat nearly all the way, but with a small hill about half-way. I didn’t mind that too much though, it would have been much worse had it been at the end.

“At around 8k I felt like stopping and walking, but I had been sponsored at work and I promised everyone I would run it the whole way. Thankfully, I did manage to keep it going – the crowd where a real spur, cheering everyone on. It must have helped too, because I finished in 61 mins 51 secs, much better than I had hoped.

“The end of the race was great – I had a real sense of achievement. As well as a medal and goody bag, everyone received a rose that said on it – ‘for girls who stop the traffic’, which was a nice touch”.

UPDATE: Margaret has recently completed her second block of ten weeks and is due to sign up for a further term. Next on her list is a half-marathon.