Middle Distance Project: athletes asked to express interest

Thursday 21st April 2022

The Middle Distance Project is geared to complement the Glasgow Athletics Association/British Milers Club meets at venues like Linwood pictured here (photo by Bobby Gavin)

scottishathletics are keen to advise athletes, coaches and parents that we intend to continue our Middle Distance Project again this summer.

The goals of the project are to accelerate the development of male and female Scottish athletes over 800m, 1500m and 3000m.

To that end, we plan to send a minibus of athletes/coaches down to the British Miler Club Gold Standard Races (North) at Longford Park Stadium, Manchester, over the 2022 summer season.

It’s being planned in order to encourage their progression and development by assisting them to participate in a challenging competition environment.

The programme is primarily aimed at senior school pupils, further education students and late developing Seniors – as well as their coaches.

We are putting the information out now – in terms of the dates – to assist athletes/coaches with the planning process; and we are now looking for expressions of interest for the project.

To express an interest, please email our Endurance Manager, Mark Nixon, by Monday 25 April at the latest on mark.nixon@scottishathletics.org.uk

The key dates for the ‘Trafford Tuesday’ Meetings in 2022 are:

Tue 17 May; Tue 14 June; Tue 12 July; Tue 23 August; Tue 6 September*

The provisional standards for being involved in the project in 2022 are:

Male 800m: sub 1:56 runners only (of which there were 35 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Male 1500m: sub 4:00 runners only (of which there were 53 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Male 3000m: sub 9:00 runners only (of which there were 61 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Female 800m: sub 2:16 runners only (of which there were 29 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Female 1500m: sub 4:40 runners only (of which there were 39 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Female 3000m: sub 10:20 runners only (of which there were 22 athletes in Scotland 2021)

Depending on the level of uptake, coaches and athletes may need to prioritise the dates they would like to compete on – to ensure as many athletes as possible are given the opportunity to participate in the project.

*Tuesday 6 September is provisional based upon uptake