CAAC turns 40 years old this Autumn. To celebrate, in early September, we held a race series and a dinner dance. The race series brought together athletes from across the club, with 44 different athletes taking part across at least one of the events. The races attracted a mixture of junior and senior athletes, runners from 5 different squads alongside some former members.
Read on to see how we got on!
But first, some motivating remarks from Jan…
Once upon a time…
Once upon a time in the club’s distant past some of us were introduced to the Tour of a Fife. A series of 5 races over five consecutive days from Wednesday to Sunday. It meant finishing work early and then dashing off to a some random location in Fife for a hill race, trail race, beach race or a challenging time trial.
Initially a few of us went but as the excitement about these races grew the group of CAAC runners grew too. Soon each tour race would be reported on and a growing group of the CAAC performance squad would match other top runners stride for stride. Did you know for example that the CAAC legend Bryan Clark ran the up hill time trial up the road to the transmission towers on East Lomond hill in under 10 minutes? I would surprised if you didn’t because he would not stop going on about it for years after.
The five days were always brilliant and exhausting in equal measure. Suffice to say they were great fun and perfect way to spend time with club mates in some of the most beautiful places that Fife has to offer. Well mostly, not sure Kirkcaldy prom is one of them……
Years later, this inspiration led to the CAAC40 FIVE!
RACE 1 – Trail (Weds 9th)
The series began with a 6km trail race around Corstorphine Hill in dry, sunny conditions. James Dunn took the men’s victory, with Fraser Shaw second and Michael Shuster third. Sophie Collins led the women. 24 competitors overall.
The course was marked with white arrows and flour trails and was generally very well received. There was only one known wrong turn, when Michael Shuster managed to leave the course with just 50 metres to go and lost a place in the process.
There was a great spread of participation, including athletes from across the club as well as an ex-member turning up on spec and another ex-member’s son answering a five-minute call-up and setting off seven minutes after the start.
A big thank you to the volunteers who marked the course, marshalled, started and timed the race. Special mention to Neill Porterfield for combining his morning dog walk with devising the course, supplying the reversible arrows and sourcing the flour, and then apparently denying all knowledge of said flour when questioned by fellow dog walkers the following day.
RACE 2 – Autumn Handicap (Thurs 10th)
Massive thanks to Tom Ferrington for another excellent edition of the autumn handicap! Thanks to the helpers and especially to Sophie and Kira for doing such a good job recording the finishers (we really need a funnel system next year!).
Some really excellent performances in there from the young team, Zack taking the win by holding off Aiden “why are we going off together when his pb is a minute faster than mine” Gowans by a mere 6s, and Fraser running the 2nd fastest time on the night. Mhairi and Vicky found that their 5km times are due a revision!
26 competitors, in this annual club fixture.
RACE 3 – Hill Race (Fri 11th)
Despite being advertised as Kaimes Rd TT, a twist in the tail was added as the finish line was at Corstorphine Hill Tower. A field of 20 raced in more dry and sunny conditions. Runners were set off at 20 second intervals Fraser Shaw (4:28) took the win by 1 second over James Dunn (4:29), with the top four coming in under five minutes.
RACE 4 – Parkrun Time Trials (Sat 12th)
Giving our organisers a bit of a rest, the fourth event in the series was a parkrun of choice. Edinburgh parkrun, fast and flat, proved a favourite.
Ken Spiers, who found himself in France over the weekend, didn’t let that stop him. Whilst France doesn’t have any official parkrun events, he completed leParcRun https://leparcrun.fr/results.php?claim=ok&rundate=2026-09-12 in 19:29, before presumably refueling with coffee and croissants.
Dinner & Dance (Sat 12th)
A break from the racing for a celebratory dinner and dance. A few photos below:
RACE 5 – ‘Mile’ Relay (Sun 13th)
The series concluded with the Mile Relay, bringing the five days to an appropriately social finish.
Six teams took part, with runners representing a broad mix of CAAC athletes.
The fastest recorded individual ‘mile’ (the course was actually closer to 2km!) was Fraser Shaw’s 6:18, with a number of other strong performances including Blair Rosbottom’s 6:51, Kieran Scott’s 7:02, Elliott Grant’s 7:04 and Tristan Rabaeijs’s 7:13.
The relay was a fitting end to the series: competitive, but with the emphasis firmly on getting people involved and bringing the club together. Thanks to Andy and Lindsay for timekeeping.
A huge thank you goes to everyone who raced, volunteered, organised, marshalled, timed, marked courses, encouraged others and generally helped make five races in five days possible.
Enormous credit to Jan – creating a CAAC version of the Tour of Fife was a huge effort, particularly as he had to travel from the East Neuk of Fife and back every day. Huge commitment.
Same again in another 40 years?!
ALL RESULTS:
Written with contributions from Jan-Bert van den Berg, Graeme Reid, Andy Nichol, Lindsay Seywright