Tindle plays it safe while Bowie rediscovers spark
CAMERON TINDLE finished second behind his Edinburgh AC team-mate Allan Hamilton over 60m for the second time in a fortnight at the Emirates Arena on Saturday, but the 18-year-old still professed himself content with his day’s work.
Despite feeling tightness in his hamstring some 10m from the line and instinctively easing up, the teenager from the Borders managed to run ninehundredths of a second quicker than he had done over the same distance at the Scottish national open at this same venue 14 days ago, recording a time which was good enough for a new PB of 6.81 seconds.
Using the 60m event primarily to build explosive power in the early stages of his outdoor 200m, his next two assignments are the British Universities’ Championships and then the British Indoor Championships, both of which take place in Sheffield next month.
“I am happy overall,” said Tindle. “Ten metres out I felt my hamstring tighten a little bit so I just played it safe, I could maybe have pushed on but it would have been at the cost of doing a bit of damage to myself. But it was a good run, much better than I have been running. It is a PB, although still not the time I feel I want to be running or I should be running. But my preparation has been better this week and it is far better than the way I have been running. So hopefully the time will come at the British championships.”
The youngster declined offers from a number of colleges and universities in the United States and elsewhere this summer to undergo a sports scholarship at the University of Stirling but made light of a potential difficulty in attracting top level training partners.
“I think no matter where you go there are always going to be athletes who can help you out in some way,” he said. “I don’t need people sitting beside me, it is good for me to have someone to chase.”
Jamie Bowie, meanwhile, a silver medalist from the 4x400m relay at the World Indoors in Sopot back in 2014, said last night that he was refreshed and raring to go after a seven-month exile from the sport where he briefly considered giving things up for good.
Still just 27, Bowie receives nothing in the way of funding these days but has reconnected with his love of the sport following the extended lay-off. Despite a brave front-running effort, he was unable to get the better of GB athlete Cameron Chalmers.
“It is always good to have different goals,” said Bowie. “But last year because I was quite isolated and training by myself, remotely coached, the level of intensity was a bit too high.
“You are just away and quite close to your goal yet not quite there. But taking that time off, seven months, you appreciate that you miss the routine, you make the training.
“I probably took about four months off, watching the TV, doing nothing. I threw myself into my work, and it wasn’t until October that I probably started to jog again and do a wee bit of gymnastics and things like that.
“I probably did [think about completely giving up]. That is what happens when you are that focused and that set on a goal and you give so much of your life to something but still feel so far away from it.
“It would have been nice to get a Scottish title on Saturday but my perspective on things has changed and it is nice just to get two solid runs under my belt going into the British championships. I am just really enjoying training right now, because there is just a wee bit less pressure and a wee bit less focus.”