Wee County Harriers still making big strides . . . after 25 years

Saturday 28th June 2025

By Katy Barden

Wee County Harriers: wee club, big heart . . .

Wee County Harriers have made big strides in recent years.

Speaking to scottishathletics back in 2020, club officials proudly explained the progress they’d made pre-pandemic, notably significant Membership growth underpinned by an effective coaching structure, meaningful local partnerships and strong club governance.

Five years on and chair Mark McDonald – formerly a jog leader in Aberdeen and current Run Director at University of Stirling parkrun – is equally enthusiastic about the club’s position and impact.

‘We reached our highest ever membership numbers last year which was fitting as we celebrated our 25^th anniversary,’ he says, with Wee County Harriers based in Clackmannanshire.

‘There’s been a lot of really exciting stuff happening recently and that’s building on a solid foundation created by club members previously.’

One of Wee County’s most successful initiatives is ‘Couch 2 10k’, a 12-week programme (delivered twice per year in spring and autumn/winter) designed for beginners and anyone wanting to return to running.

Motivated by the hard work of club members Sue Woods and Donna McNeil – together the driving force behind the programme – participants run three days per week, including one coached group session, with the aim of gradually building up their endurance and overall fitness to enable them to run a 10k at ‘graduation’.

‘It’s not universal, but when each cohort concludes we might see between six and 12 (from a group of around 20) signing up to the club and becoming actively involved,’ says McDonald.

‘It’s great to see that, because at the start of the programme there are people who say they’ve never run before or they’re not even sure they can complete it.’

Vicky McMillan and Wiebke Skeffington, who successfully completed Couch 2 10k programmes in 2023, provide a case (cases) in point.

‘I saw an advert for Couch 2 10k on social media, but it took a bit of confidence for me to sign up,’ says McMillan, who is now a fully-fledged member and coach at Wee County Harriers.

‘When we met up for the first session there was a mix of runners – new runners like me as well as people who had been before but hadn’t fully completed the course, for whatever reason – and there was always someone from the club nearby.

‘By around week ten or 11 of the programme we were asked if we wanted to come along and try the club sessions. I found that I enjoyed the club so much that when they were looking for people to put themselves forward to become coaches I put my hand up. I wanted to give something back after what the club had done for me.

‘I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be able to get to this point. Vicky of five years ago would never have gone to the club. I just wasn’t ready and I wouldn’t have felt confident enough to join a group of people I didn’t know very well, or who might think, ‘She’s too slow’.

‘I think I was more bothered about what other people thought, whereas now I’ve got to the point where that doesn’t matter, it’s about me. The club has really helped me build my confidence.’

Skeffington had always kept fit but hadn’t tried running until lockdown. She didn’t enjoy it at first – ‘I was out of breath running for 20 minutes and I didn’t progress,’ she says – but after moving to Devon she began to fall in love with it after experiencing the beauty and remoteness of Dartmoor.

She later moved to Scotland and ‘found’ Wee County Harriers.

‘I saw the Couch 2 10k programme advertised – the normal club programme was too much for me at that time – and within the 12 weeks it was such an amazing experience to actually learn how to train and how to slowly build up,’ she says.

‘I progressed really quickly, and although I was still nervous to join the club I went along to one of the sessions and thought, ‘I can do this!’. I knew we didn’t have many coaches at that time and I wanted to give something back, but I also wanted to go through the coaching process for myself.

‘I quite like teaching people, but I also really learned so much from it myself, it was amazing.’

Wee County Harriers prides itself on being a family-friendly, community-focused club. It has a wonderful ability to bring people together and to give them confidence, whatever they want to achieve.

At the club’s core none of that has changed since 2020, but Wee County Harriers have also spread wings by welcoming new initiatives and broadening horizons.

McDonald mentions the ‘reinvigoration’ of cross country over the past 12-18 months, another example of positive change and a huge step forward evidenced by the fact the club managed to get full male and female teams out at this year’s East District League fixture in Broxburn.

‘The hope for next year is that we can do that across all the League races and that would be fantastic,’ he says.

Racing isn’t everything though.

‘It’s a broad spectrum,’ concludes McDonald. ‘ I think the thing that we try to emphasise is that we don’t mind if members don’t want to race; if they just want to go along to club sessions and run and socialise then that’s fine with us. Nobody ever gets told they’re too slow.

‘People should get out of it what they want to get out of it. We do structured sessions, so we are there to help improve people’s running if that’s the path they want to go on, but we’re also there for the people who come along because it’s a social thing for them and we want to be open to that.

‘I feel that we sit in a sweet spot between the likes of a jogscotland group and a more performance-orientated club. I often say, ‘There are some clubs that are about elite performance, we’re more about elite fun’, and that works for us – that’s the sort of atmosphere we want to provide.’