The Final Piece
The Finale A winter punctuated by South By Five. Events coming along staccato and before you know Christmas and New Year have come and gone and we’re at the final race in the series! Amazing how quickly it comes around. Last year’s wonderful route twisting and turning through the Queens Park wooded areas was this year unavailable. Storm damage had uprooted a couple of large trees and blocked the route. The addition of some quaint […]
Mudfest
The common theme across folks description of South By Five’s visit to Pollok Park was “mudfest”! Traditionally a muddy route, the recent unsettled and unseasonably wet weather turned the race into our muddiest ever! Even course marking was fun! An out section led to the start of the ‘screaming pits’, with squeals, squelches and wails caught on video and photo by the ever intrepid Blythe! The course then began a two loop circuit with some […]
Saints Day
St. Andrew’s Day The sky shone blue on another beautiful South By Five day. All that was needed was a couple of crossed contrails to celebrate St Andrews Day…. It wasn’t just a blue sky, runners were encouraged to celebrate and several of yous came attired accordingly. Volunteers also joined in, and Colin the Clown AKA Colin the Cone became Coin the Kilt. The alliteration continues, lets see what he comes up with for the […]
Duck Tales
A beautiful cold crisp morning for our “home race”. Linn Park is a just a few hundred metres from Acorn HQ, and Jim is well versed in every nook and cranny in the park. Means Alex can get out even earlier for the course marking. Disappointingly the mud was frozen as was the duck pond! But it had a few hours at that stage to defrost. And it did…. Interest Race 2 at Linn Park […]
Castlemilk Trail Race 2025 brief
What is it? Castlemilk Trail Race is an approximate 10k trail race. There’s a bit of guess work with trail distances, trees interfere with the GPS etc, hence a rough distance. It’s pretty close! It’s our trailiest trail race! A little bit more technical in places than our other events, it will keep you on your toes. Plenty of mud, plenty of elevation, plenty of fun. Obviously an Acorn Trails event. Where? The start and […]
The Battle of Langside – Sx5 – Queens Park
The Battle of Langside Queens Park, the finale. South By Five once again comes to a close. But not before another new route and exploration of the heart of Glasgow’s south side, Queens Park. Named for Mary, Queen of Scots, her opponent at the Battle of Langside, Earl Moray, lined up on Langside Hill, while her forces aligned opposite on what is now Mount Florida train station/Langside College. Langside Hill now forms the central point […]
True Grit
South By Five – Bellahouston Park falls in early January. Always going to be a cold one in Scotland. In the 23/24 series, the race was postponed due to a severe freeze, despite Michelle and I gritting parts of the course the night before. Fast forward 12 months and we were back in a similar position. With planned Saturday parkruns and other events in the city over the weekend falling by the wayside as early […]
My new favourite
To quote a loud hi viz hero, “that’s my new favourite”! Never mind the rest of the amazing route, that finish line at Pollok Park South By Five was tremendous! It takes a lot to beat the Linn Park Trail Race ’24 edition but I think we may just have done it. Archaeologists of the future may find the remains of a missing shoe, or maybe a runner still in that mud! There might even […]
A Stark Contrast
Another South By Five race weekend and another new route. Some sort of “artic bomb” as the click bait press would call it, led to a very late change to the route last year. The snow and ice lending a seasonal magic atmosphere to the race, with declarations of the route being better than the standard route. At nearly three laps, it was a bit too lappy for Alex, so he set about taking the […]