Piece of Cake for Iona at Pollok Park

4 OCT2009

On the fifth anniversary of the parkrun phenomenon, Scottish adventure runner, Iona Robertson took first place in the women's race at the 42nd Glasgow parkrun. Just one week before representing Scotland at the Kaisermarathon in Austria, where Iona will run the 26.2 miles from Söll via Scheffau, Ellmau, the Ski-region Wilder Kaiser towards the finish at the top of the "Hohe Salve" at 1.829m above sea level, she settled for the slightly less arduous hills of Pollok Park. In her parkrun debut, the 29 year old Glasgow based Aberdeenshire lass completed the 5k course in 18:36, a WAVA of 79.57%.

Shettleston Harrier Tom Owens was the first of 184 athletes across the finish line on Saturday, October 4. He completed the course in 16:30 and posted an age grade score of 78.18%.

Parkrun regular Shona Donnelly earned second spot in the women's event with a time of 20:23, just two seconds ahead of Clydesdale Harrier Marina McCallum. Fresh from finishing second women at the Dumfries Half Marathon, Marina improved her parkrun PB by ten seconds to claim third woman in 20:25.

Some 54 seconds behind Tom Owens was Irvine's Patrick Cullinane, who earned second spot with 17:24. In his first parkrun, Brian Anderson finished just one second later, gaining third place with a time of 17:25.

In her fourth running of the parkrun, Strathclyde University student of mathematics, Marjon Ruijter finished in 29th place, matching her PB of 21:01. Marjon, who comes from the very flat West Netherlands told SCOTTISH RUNNING GUIDE "This is a fantastic race and a testing course. The trees and bushes protected us from the strong wind and I'm starting to get used to the hills. The organisation is great and I'd recommend the parkrun to anyone."