AN organisation led by athletes has been fast off the blocks in inspiring a new generation of Scottish talent and involving people of all levels.
Stride, founded by Callum Matthews, has been preparing to host its annual Flat n’ Fast race – with runners hitting the tracks on Saturday. Two years on from its first race, Stride hosts two of these events a year, welcoming professional athletes and young amateur runners on to the same track.
“We started Stride as a 5k race for Scotland because there wasn’t much in the country at the time, and we thought with the athletes on our doorstep, there should be stuff like this going on,” Matthews explains.
“There’s not many events like this where you can run the same track as Olympians and be eight or 10 years old.”
The 5k races are held at West Lothian Cycle Circuit in Linlithgow – on a 960-metre enclosed tarmac loop
Flat n’ Fast attracts runners from all over Europe. Callum says: “We’ve had athletes from San Sebastian and Germany. It’s not something I planned to do. It just sort of happened by chance.”
Many athletes may be drawn to Flat n’ Fast as it’s on a course that is AIMS (Association of International Marathons and Distance Races) certified – so any times can be used towards qualifying in major championships.
This means athletes of all levels compete with optimum conditions. “Races are broken up into time groups, giving athletes the best opportunity to run fast,” Callum says. “We want to attract athletes of all levels.”
Last April saw the event “take off” and sell out in 48 hours.
With a strong social media following, Stride aims to introduce a new audience to Scottish athletics.
Matthews says: “We have been quite good at promoting it. Generally, the older generation run events. I think we may have breathed fresh air into the sport in terms of social media.”
Stride’s mentorship programme, the Athlete Springboard, provides support to unsigned, local athletes.
“Springboard was developed to give them the best chance to get to the top of the sport”, Matthews explains, and is “taking the burden and pressure off them. All they have to think about is putting one foot in front of the other.”
Through Springboard, a few hand-picked athletes get access to kit, mentorship and workshops. “I don’t think there’s anything like it in the UK,” the founder says.
The Springboard Athletes will be wearing their new kit at the Flat n’ Fast race today, which is “really exciting”.
Duncan Robinson competed in Flat n’ Fast last April and ran a new Scottish Native Record.
“He won by like 20 seconds,” Callum says. “I think a lot of people just sort of sat up and took notice of him.”
The new record that was made at Flat n’ Fast meant that Duncan was awarded a scholarship to US.
In September’s race, 55-60% of athletes ran a personal best, which was “totally mind-blowing” to Matthews: “It’s exciting to see the kind of opportunities it can bring.”
In the future, Stride will continue to be athlete led, venturing with its Springboard athletes to Paris and Vienna in the summer to race internationally for the first time.
Matthews also hopes to introduce mass sporting events to help “grow the sport as best as we can.”
Stride’s run clubs that are hosted in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London are free opportunities for runners of all levels, “it could be Olympic, Commonwealth medallists that come along, to people who just started running a couple of weeks ago” to have a “good blether and to make connections with everyone”.
Throughout summer, Stride hopes to host “community track nights” that are led by professional athletes.
In the past, it has hosted Mhairi Maclennan, Robbie Simpson and Jemma Reekie.
Matthews says: “There’s such a high dropout rate in young athletes, especially young girls. It was nice for the girls to see someone like Jemma to look up to.
“People are really buying into Stride and as long as they are, and wanting to compete, then we will keep hosting unique, cool, fun events that people enjoy and hopefully bring the sport to a new audience.”
“A dream of mine”, concludes Callum, “is to put on world-class events which attract people to Scotland.”
