10th February
Friday 7th February saw our runners swap their Nike trainers for high heels as we descended upon the Royal Scots Club for food, dancing, speeches and pass the parcel to celebrate our first birthday.
It was a great night with lots of laughter and celebration. A huge thank you to Stuart for organising everything and to Rhea for baking the incredible cake!
31st January
Today we reached a milestone we never dreamed of only a short year ago...100 members. Thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this incredible success.
9th January
And with that...we are one year old! What a crazy first year it's been. Tonight, despite the ice and extreme cold dozens of our most dedicated members (we only have dedicated members!) came out to celebrate with a recreation of our first ever session - a three person team relay.
After an incredible workout we were treated to some custom cupcakes from our incredible safeguarding officer (and club baker). Thanks Rhea!
Here's to another amazing year!
7th January
It is with great excitement that we can announce the next exciting step on the West Edinburgh Running Club journey...Our annual Club Championship!
Watch our promo video for all the details
13th December
Well done Piotr!
As an affiliated Scottish Athletics club with a membership between 40 and 180 people, we are allocated one guaranteed entry to the London Marathon for 2025.
We asked those who would be keen to run, but didn't have a place, to enter a small ballot that would see one lucky winner receive the prize of having to run 26.2 miles!
That lucky winner in our first year is....Piotr Stępień. We are really chuffed that Piotr, a member of the club for a good few months scooped the entry. Piotr is a huge supporter of WERC, having represented the club in the kit at many races already, and always has a smile for the race photographer.
His positive and smiley attitude, and club spirit, makes him the ideal person to represent us on one of running's biggest stages.
Go smash it Piotr.
9th December
Well done Valerie Willis!
Val, one of our most fervent supporters completed her Leadership in Running Fitness qualification this weekend.
Val is joining the coaching team in a slightly different capacity, at least at first, by focusing on supporting Dom to ensure the sustainability of our weekly morning social run, Early Risers Club.
Val has already shown her commitment to the group by planning routes, encouraging participation and being a consistent presence before dawn! Her positive and smiley attitude made her the ideal candidate to help us grow this important part of the club.
Thank you Val and we look forward to seeing how ERC develops with your help, and of course, how you develop as part of the coaching team.
24th November
We are excited to announce that our club is eligible for a place in the 2025 London Marathon through our club's affiliation with Scottish Athletics.
To give everyone a fair chance, we will be holding a ballot for this coveted spot.
To qualify for the ballot this year, you must be able to demonstrate the following:
First claim membership with West Edinburgh Running Club since 1st September 2024.
Must commit to running the London Marathon on 27th April 2025 (not transferrable to another person).
Must agree to pay the £69.99 London Marathon entry cost, if successful.
This year, the entry requirements for the club ballot are minimal however these will be revised next year. Next year, entry requirements will include showing evidence of a rejection email from the main ballot following a personal entry.
To add your name to the ballot this year, please complete and submit the form below by Thursday 12 December 2024.
The winner of the draw will be announced by Christmas.
Best of luck to all entrants!
28th October
And Anna joins the coaching team!
An incredible running weekend for Anna who after winning 3rd female at Path of Condie Half Marathon and scooping the team prize for the club alongside the incredible Jan Anderson, completed her Leadership in Running Fitness course to join the coaching team!
That brings our coaching numbers up to 7...a far cry from when it was just Dom and I back in January. Why do we need so many? Everyone at WERC is a volunteer and thus sometimes work, family and friends have to be prioritised on a Thursday night, and of course there's sickness too. A robust coaching team made up of a diverse and passionate group of our members will ensure the sustainability of the club into the future and ensure we can have a session every week, as outlined in our constitution.
It's also really important that all of your coaches and leaders get to join in the running sometimes, so we can see the club from the perspectives of the members and make changes where necessary.
Well done Anna, you are going to be great!
21st October
As previously announced, tickets for the WERC social night celebrating the club’s 1st anniversary on Friday 7th February 2025, will be available for purchase starting this week at club.
Tickets are priced at £20 per person and include music, food, and a disco at the Scots Guards Club, Haymarket. Full details can be found a few entries down, dated 1st October.
Tickets can be purchased by cash at the beginning of Thursday’s training night from Stuart Leslie or Susan Macleod.
Unfortunately we cannot use the card payment service for this due to the high fees.
Alternatively, you can email info@werunclub.co.uk or drop Stuart Leslie a Facebook DM where he will take your name and transfer the payment to the club’s bank account:
Name: West Edinburgh Running Club
Sort Code: 80-22-60
A/C Number: 26525361
(Do not do this without talking to Stuart first, or you may be charged but not be allocated a ticket)
Currently, this event is exclusively for club members. However, if capacity permits, tickets may be offered to non-members at a later date.
We're looking forward to celebrating this milestone with as many of you as possible!🥳
11th October
Congratulations to Keith Stewart on his first night coaching after successfully completing his LiRF qualification last Sunday. Keith is a day one WERC member who is predominately known as the "fast one" but also for his amazingly positive personality, his love of running (and competing!) and the support he gives his fellow club mates.
We are super excited to see how Keith develops as a coach, and grateful for his help.
1st October
It's our birthday and we'll WERC if we want to!🥳🎉🎊
With all we've achieved as a club, it can be easy to forget that we have only been around since January this year. In that short time, thanks to all of our members, we have made an amazing and positive impact on Edinburgh's running community.
That's something to celebrate and as we look to 2025 and our first anniversary, we realise that we have to mark this incredible milestone.
**This is your save the date for our 1st birthday party**
Join us for an evening of food, drinks and music on Friday 7th February 2025 at 7:30pm at the Scots Guards Club, Haymarket.
Tickets are priced at £20 each, with the club subsidising a portion of the cost. Tickets includes:
- A private party room with a well-stocked bar
- A meal with options of chicken curry with rice or macaroni and cheese plus a selection of cold sandwiches and mini pies
- Music from a resident DJ
- Witnessing the coaching team try to dance
Please save the date and let us know in the Facebook comments if you plan to join the celebrations!
We hope as many members as possible can join us.
Tickets will be on sale soon - Watch this space!
23rd September 2024
Well that was something else!
With the club only being 9 months old and less as a fully affiliated club we were not in a position to offer a club championship this year...but we didn't want to miss out on the fun, competitive atmosphere that comes with turning up as a club to achieve local race.
One of our members Tom suggested the Men's and Women's 10k as a good race for members of all abilities to target, whatever their racing experience. A downhill start, known roads, big crowds and a Murrayfield finish were his cited reasons. And he was right! What an event.
Around 40 club members, some who have never raced before, turned up in their shiny new kit and absolutely smashed the race. It was raining PBs with incredible runs from our members, everyone walking away proud of their achievement (PB or not!).
Most importantly their positivity and support from the club to their fellow members was astonishing. Dom and Alan, the founders of the club both said that coming down Lothian road to cheering WERC members was one of their favourite moments. Not just of the race, but their whole WERC experience.
In-fact it was excellent that the Men's race was at a different time than the Women's as it allowed the men to get to the final corner to see the female contingent of the club storm past. It was lovely to repay the favour of support that was shown to them earlier in the day.
We were even approached by a Metro Aberdeen runner who wanted to tell us how amazing he thought our club was, our positivity shining through...and I quote "Everyone is so positive, cheering each other on. That's what a running club should be".
For full disclosure, his daughter is one of our members, but that only makes the compliment more authentic.
After the race it was off to the local pub where we had our first ever WERC social. After some amazing but tough efforts people were happy to take the load off, share stories and drink copious amounts of alcohol (and munch on surprisingly good cheese and ham toasties). It was a lovely moment to see the "community" part of our values set come to life.
Amazing runners of ALL abilities. Incredible positivity. Today was a day where we really lived our values
Thank you, from the committee, coaching team and co-founders, to every single member of West Edinburgh Running Club, whether you ran today, cheered us along (big thanks to Alison and her son for the chocolate and cheering!) or wished everyone well on Facebook. Our values of inclusivity, quality and community shone through.
What a club.
8th September 2024
This weekend (Saturday 14th September) we are "organising " a WERC parkrun get together at Holyrood parkrun. We picked this event as it is a good trial run for the Mens/Womens 10k in a couple of weeks. It has big uphill (like the 10k) and also a big downhill (like the 10k). It tends to be a fairly busy, but friendly event which replicates the 10k. The only difference is that parkrun is only 5k!
Never done parkrun before? You will need to register for a barcode. I have put the link below. You will need to bring this barcode with you either in paper form or digitally on your phone.
Once you have finished the run you will be given a token which you will get scanned alongside your barcode and later in the day you will get an email with your time and finishing position.
All parkruns in Scotland start at 9.30am - we are suggesting we meet at around 9.15 in the park - at Queens Drive. You can't miss it - look out for all the people!
We hope to see a few of you there both newbies and regulars.
29th July 2024
Club kit orders are open once again. The deadline to order is August 16th and the order form can be found by...
5th July 2024
Last night saw the inaugraul event of our (hopefully!) yearly club challenge...ONE HOUR TO THE TOWER.
With Corstorphine hill so close, it would be rude not to force our runners up and down it on regular occasion, so we designed an event to do just that.
A personal challenge, not a race, runners are given one hour to see how many times they can get up and down from the base to the tower. Loads of runners managed 3 times, 2 times and 1 time up and down but who did the most?
Well, the record as of 2024 is...3.9 times...with the runner in question, Oliver Girdham, being only 60 seconds behind getting down for a fourth lap! Let's see you break four next year Ollie.
We were treated to ice cold water and some home baking from Rhea and Anna...exactly what you needed after an hour of hill "torture".
Well done everyone. Can't wait for 2025.
Check the facebook page photo album for more pictures!
27th June 2024
Over summer we would like to introduce another string to our bow in the form of...The Early Risers Club. This weekly social run will start at 6am sharp from Saughton park, waking you up with a gentle paced 6-7km run. The aim is to get back for 7am. This won't be the same day every week, so keep an eye on the Facebook and the upcoming sessions page.
This is exclusively for paid up members, so remember to sign up!
14th June 2024
It is with great pleasure that we can announce…
🥁🥁🥁🥁
Our application to affiliate with Scottish Athletics, and thus become a real proper grown up running club, has been SUCCESSFUL! This makes West Edinburgh Running Club officially Edinburgh’s newest running club!
This is an historic day in the life of the club. Dom and I would like to mark this special occasion by thanking the club for their support, and most importantly their belief in us, as we have taken on this amazing, and sometimes overwhelming journey:
- Thanks to the coaching team; Daphne, Stuart and Jan for their commitment, hard-work, talent, and positivity that has allowed so many people in the club to achieve and exceed their goals over the last six months.
- Thanks to the committee; Rhea, Alice, Susie, Stuart and Tom for the advice, support and knowledge that allowed us to take this idea Dom and I had and turn it into something real, tangible, and most importantly sustainable. Your dedication to the club and its members got us here and will ensure the club continues for years to come.
- And thank you to the membership. Those of you who signed up early, not knowing how the club would be developed. You gave us confidence that we could achieve these lofty goals, and the motivation to meet the standards you rightly expect of us.
- Lastly, member or not, thank you to everyone reading this, whether you come every week, join us sporadically or if you’re thinking about joining us in the future. Thank you for caring about the development of this club…and watch this space, because we’re just getting started!
So, what does this mean for the club? We have lots to tell you, but we’re not quite there yet! We are pulling together a communication that will go out next week to our members detailing how the news will affect you, and what happens next! In the comments below you are more than welcome to ask any questions, but rather than answer here we will incorporate the answers into next week’s formal communication.
From the bottom of our hearts. Thank you. We are so excited about the future of the club and hope you are too.
Alan and Dom
Chairs of (Scottish Athletics affiliated!) West Edinburgh Running Club
5th June 2024
Club race!
We are thrilled to share details about our inaugural club event.
We've received some fantastic suggestions for future events from our members. For our first event, we are hoping to see a huge turnout from West Edinburgh Running Club at the Men's 10k Edinburgh and Women's 10k Edinburgh on Sunday 22 September 2024. We are treating this race as a club event and hope that as many of our members as possible will register to participate and then join us afterwards for a social gathering at a central location.
This well-established 10k race is suitable for all skill levels and abilities, beginning in the city centre and finishing at Scottish Gas Murrayfield, nearby our home ground! With different start times for each race, you'll have the chance to support our club members and cheer them on from the sidelines, whether you're warming up for the race or cooling down after your run.
With our new club kit now ordered, we can showcase our club and proudly run in the colours of Edinburgh's newest running club!
Please remember to choose West Edinburgh Running Club as your club when registering!
This race is open to all levels of experience. If you're keen but apprehensive because you've never participated in a race or haven't run this distance before, please reach out to Alan or Dom. We're here to help you reach your goals and ensure that everyone has the chance to enjoy the event!