Simpson on top of world and enjoying well-earned break

Athletics: London calling for Deeside Runner

Robbie Simpson will spend a couple of weeks relaxing with his family in the peaceful setting of Finzean, Deeside, after achieving a Commonwealth Games and world championship qualifying time of 2hr 15min 4sec when finishing 15th overall and second Briton in Sunday’s London marathon.

The 25-year-old Deeside Runners club member, whose performance was a personal best time, knocking 34sec off the mark he recorded on his debut at London last year and also picked up his first Scottish senior men’s title in the race.

Now he can now look forward to a return trip to the UK capital in August for the world championships where he will be joined by fellow Scot Callum Hawkins (Kilbarchan AAC), who was pre-selected.

Welshman Josh Griffith, who finished 15sec and one place ahead of Simpson, is the third man on the Great Britain team.

Simpson will, however, have to wait until later in the year to find out if he has done enough to earn a place on the Scotland team for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast. Aberdeen AAC’s Grace Carter, Katie Forbes, Maddy Silcock and Rebecca Matheson smashed their club’s senior and under-20 4x100metres record when clocking 47.95sec to win the women’s title at the Scottish relay championships at Grangemouth.

Edinburgh AC finished second in 49.03 with the Inverness Harriers quartet of Eilidh MaGill, Heather Bruce, Gillian Gordon and Eleanor Briggs taking bronze in 49.81.

Bruce, Gordon and Briggs also joined forces

Although he had been hoping to run even faster, Simpson conceded to being pleased with the outcome.

He said: “I’m happy to qualify for world championships as I thought I only had an outside chance given who else was running in the race.

“I would rather have clocked a faster time but the early pace was too fast and we paid for that later on. I was in a group of about eight and we had a pacemaker aiming to go through halfway in around 67 minutes which would have been perfect.

“But we were about 30sec too fast at 10km which was too much. I had to stay with the group but most of them slowed down in the second half. with Anna Nelson to give Inverness gold in the 4x400m in 3:59.51.

There was another gold for the Highland club in the under-15 girls’ 3x800m, with Kirsty Arnaud, Jennifer Mackenzie and Chloe Cheyne recording 7:21.28 to take top spot.

Inverness secured another bronze in the under17 boys’ 4x400m with Calum Tynan, Joseph Pedrana, Ruaridh Munro and Stephen Mackenzie clocking 3:37.68 behind winners Giffnock North, 3:33.63.

Nelson added another medal when winning the

“I was able to run with Josh Griffith from about 10 miles onwards and sometimes he would be ahead, other times I would be in front. At the end I couldn’t quite stay with him. I felt tired from about 15 miles and it was hard but I was able to just keep pressing on.

“I knew we were the first two Britons and if I could hold on I would be guaranteed a place in the worlds.”

Simpson hopes to recover quickly before returning to Mittennwald in Germany where he has been based for the past couple of years.

He said: “There’s not really a lot of time between now and the world championships, so I’ll need to think through my preparations. women’s 400m hurdles at the Scottish universities and colleges championships at Grangemouth. The University of Edinburgh student recorded 62.51sec, while Kirsty Reynolds (Robert Gordon University) was third in 70.68.

RGU celebrated a number of gold medal successes with Adam Hobson winning the men’s javelin with a throw of 53.20, Hannah Cameron (Robert Gordon) taking the women’s 800m in 2:14.77 with Zoe Bates (Aberdeen) finishing third in 2:18.28, Dionne Milne

“I’ll probably talk with Callum Hawkins as he had a similar period of time between getting Olympic selection at London last year then performing really well at Rio later in the summer.

“I’d be interested to hear what he did. I don’t think I have to change my training very much and I’m not sure if I need to do many other races.

“When I go to London in August I’m going to try to pace it better. There will be less pressure to go chasing a time, so I’ll concentrate on trying to keep to an even pace and hopefully I’ll feel stronger until later in the race.”

Having achieved world championship selection, Simpson is also keeping his sights on the possibility of a 2018 Commonwealth Games place, having satisfied the Scotland qualification requirement of running faster than 2:15:30.

He said: “The other Scots guys who I thought might be contenders didn’t do so well at London. Andrew Lemoncello fell right back and ran a slow time, while Tewolde Tsegai dropped out.

“Hopefully my time will be good enough but the qualification period doesn’t end until October.” winning the women’s discus with 41.02 and Marcus Morton clearing 1.97 to win the men’s high jump.

Inverness athlete Paula Gass (Stirling University) won the women’s javelin with a throw of 39.69.

Scotland international Kelsey Stewart (Aberdeen) won the 200m in 24.98, while Eilidh De Klerk (Robert Gordon) was second in 25.60.

Daniel Ress (Aberdeen) won the men’s 400m hurdles in 54.03, while his clubmate Fearghas Thomson won the men’s 3,000m steeplechase in 10:15.16.

“When I go to London I’m going to try to pace it better”

Robbie Simpson: Worlds standard