COREY Campbell got the new year off to a flying start as he set a new Scottish indoor record over 3,000m.
The Dunbar athlete was among those competing in the New Year Miler meet at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow on January 6.
The event incorporated the scottishathletics under-17, under-20 and senior 3,000m championships.
With the 15 laps getting increasingly faster over the evening, Campbell took part in the last race.
It was won in an impressive 8m02.47s by Ben Macmillan from Central AC, but Campbell held his own in the race of older age category runners to finish in an outstanding fourth position with a fantastic time of 8m13.97s.
Not only did he win the under-20 gold medal for the 3,000m championships, he set a new Scottish indoor record for the distance.
Speaking to scottishathletics, he said: “I’m very pleased.
“I was hoping for more but it is early season and I am still getting into that sort of track work and working towards those fast times.
“I cannot complain but I wanted to stick as close to those guys for as long as I could.”
Also competing at the event organised by Glasgow Athletics Association was Flora Henry from Team East Lothian (and running for Glasgow University).
She won a bronze medal in the female under-20 category with a strong run of 10m50.17s.
There were personal bests for both Ronnie Brown and Fraser Lupton, who ran times of 9m03.86s and 9m18.54s respectively, while Aidan Page had a good run to start the season with a time of 8m50.31s.
Two days later, runners turned their attention to the outdoors and the Borders League at Paxton House.
Jessica Bullen was back racing and in good form after her back surgery last year.
The Borders cross-country races are always challenging conditions and regarded by runners as ‘true cross-country’ – with plenty of mud, hills, wind and freezing temperatures.
Bullen was first in her age category, with Flora Lawson finishing third in her age group.
Angus Wright won the senior race overall – an excellent result over the tough course.
There were four top-10 finishers in the junior boys’ race, with Jacob Lamb fifth, Josh Cooper seventh, Thomas Gornall ninth and Alfie Pugh 10th, while Ben Anderson finished strongly in 19th place.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Team East Lothian (TEL) and Musselburgh had a strong cohort of athletes selected to represent Scotland East at the Inter District Cross-Country Championships.
The event was held at Scone Palace, near Perth, and the athletes were selected based on their performances at a previous qualifying cross-country, as well as their recent form.
It could not have been a better start to the day, with Cerys Wright seeing off the competition to win the 3k under-13 girls’ race and making it gold for Scotland East on the podium.
Also competing for Scotland East from East Lothian clubs in this race were Imogen Turner from Musselburgh (14th), Flora Lawson from TEL (18th), and Ava-Rose Curtis from Musselburgh (40th).
In the boys’ under-13 race, both Jacob Lamb and Josh Cooper from TEL finished in the top third of athletes.
Lamb was 18th and Cooper was two places further back.
The under-15 boys’ race also had great performances from TEL athletes running in Scotland East vests as Fraser Lupton finished in 13th, while Howie Allison was 16th.
In the tough combined women’s U17/U20 race, Eily Sinclair and Ella Nicolson ran well to finish in 20th and 24th respectively in the U17 category.
In the men’s U17/U20 race, Ronnie Brown was fifth finisher in the U17 category and contributed to the Scotland East team gold in this race, with Innes Wright finishing in 18th.
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