Press release

Alastair puts his best foot forward in New York Tartan 10K

A 21 year old student from Scotland is flying the flag for the UK’s newest university by taking part in the New York Scotland Run 10K race on 1 April.

Having recently won the Scottish 4K cross country championships, Alastair Hay, a physiotherapy student from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, is expected to be amongst the favourites to win the New York Scotland Run 10K.

The race is part of New York Tartan Week, an event which celebrates all things Scottish. Now in its eighth year, this festival of activities and events celebrates Scottish culture, heritage and diversity. The Scotland Run is a cornerstone of the Tartan Week calendar.

Alastair, who is hoping to achieve a time close to 30 minutes, will be joined by over 3000 runners for the race around Central Park.

Realising Alastair’s talent for running, Queen Margaret University was happy to support him by flying him out to New York to represent the institution at Tartan Week. The Queen Margaret Students’ Union is also fully underway with a fundraising campaign to support his efforts.

Liam McCabe, Director of Finance at Queen Margaret University and a clubmate of Alastair, will be accompanying him to New York. He said: “Alastair is an outstanding athlete and with his recent successes, we are hopeful that he will do extremely well in what will be a showpiece event.”

The news of Alastair’s participation is spreading through Queen Margaret’s alumni in the USA. Graduates are already making plans to attend Tartan Week in order to meet and support Alastair during the race.

Rosalyn Marshall, Vice Principal at Queen Margaret University said: “Alastair’s participation in the race, and the fact that he is representing Queen Margaret University, is providing us with a welcome opportunity to bring together alumni and friends of QMU from both Scotland and the USA.

“This is a very exciting time for Alastair to be representing Queen Margaret University. The institution has recently achieved full university status and is soon to move to the first all purpose build university campus in Scotland for 30 years. Alastair will be amongst the first students to graduate from Queen Margaret University.”

In true Scottish/American style, runners and race supporters can expect to be entertained by bagpipes and drummers at the Scotland Run 10K award ceremony. Queen Margaret University will be hoping that they can crack the champagne open following Alastair’s performance.

ENDS

Alastair’s running career

Alastair has run with the Central athletics club (based in Stirling) for about nine years however whilst at university in Edinburgh he’s trained mainly with Corstorphine athletics club.

During secondary school he won several Scottish schools track and cross country titles.

In 2006 he won the Scottish junior cross country championship and the Scottish universities cross country championship.

This season Alastair has won the Scottish 4k cross country championship and finished 3rd in the long course Scottish cross country championship. 

The Scotland Run is sponsored by the Scottish Executive.

For further media information please contact Lynne Russell, Press and PR Officer, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, tel: 0131 474 0000, mobile 07711 011239.