Cover photo – Ian Shield and Leven Las Vegas members with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton

The beginning

Ian Shield from Lundin Links in Fife is very well known within the Fife running community. For many years he was a member and office bearer with the Anster Haddies running club. In 2012, around the time of his retirement, Ian decided to form a running group of his own with the ideal of helping beginners to start jogging and setting fitness goals, hoping they would they would enjoy running as much as him. He based the group in Leven, Fife, as part of jogScotland, Scotland’s recreational running network.

The group name was decided after a brain-storming session among the early members, at least one of whom must have recently watched the movie Leaving Las Vegas. And so Leven Las Vegas Running Club (LLV) was formed.

In the 5 years since its formation, LLV has been hugely successful with more than 250 individuals having now passed through the club ranks.

The ethos of the club can be summed up in three words – enjoyment, giving and achievement.

First and foremost LLV is a social group where members come along to join with like-minded friends and have fun.

Half of all LLV training fees are donated to charity, with many local charities having benefited.

Many club members who first attended LLV as beginners have been inspired to take part in competitive running events. Some who were already competitive runners have joined LLV because they enjoy the less formal atmosphere of a jogScotland group rather than being in a fully-constituted athletic club.

Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay

To mark his significant and positive contribution to the community in forming Leven Las Vegas Running Club and volunteering in various local activities, Ian Shield was nominated by his fellow LLV members to be one of the select few to carry the Queen’s Baton as it passed through Fife during the celebrations leading up to the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Ian described the experience of carrying the baton as a great honour for himself and for LLV and said he was very humbled by being selected on the recommendation of his fellow running club members.

Hartley Cup

The Hartley Cup competition was started in 1985 by a Kinross runner named Eddie Hartley who was trying to create a fun short distance event for local runners. It is a team event contested by a number of running clubs in Fife, Perth, Dundee and Angus, with each club entering a number of teams in various categories. The event is run as a relay with each team member running twice over a one mile distance. There are prizes for the fastest male team, fastest female team, fastest mixed team, fastest male, fastest female and fastest junior team.

Leven Las Vegas first became involved in the competition in 2013 and have done very well so far with two successive male team victories in 2014 and 2015, and narrowly missing out on retaining the male team prize in 2016.

jogScotland Funding Campaign

In early 2017 LLV played a significant part in highlighting the fact that jogScotland were having their funding withdrawn by the Scottish Government.  The group launched a campaign, led by Ian Shield, in political circles and the media to highlight the great success of jogScotland in encouraging thousands of inactive people in Scotland to take steps to improve their fitness and health.

The campaign resulted in LLV being featured on BBC television and radio news.

In interviews with broadcast and print media, Ian stressed the value of jogScotland as an important health initiative in our country where a large percentage of the population suffer from long-term illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, which can be mitigated by taking regular exercise.

The BBC television cameras and reporter Lisa Summers attended an LLV training session to report on the jogScotland funding issue.

Article on BBC news website

Article in the Courier.

Supporting Local Events

As LLV membership numbers have grown, the bright red colours worn by the club members have become prominent at many local events. Below are some recent examples.

Couch to 5k

During the jogScotland funding campaign Ian Shield met many local representatives of health care and leisure activity organisations, all of whom highlighted the generally low levels of fitness in the local community.  Ian decided to take steps to tackle the issue by starting a “Couch to 5k” initiative, where complete beginners to jogging are taken through a 10 week progressive programme of walking and jogging, with the end result of everyone who has completed the programme being able to run a distance of 5km (3 miles) without stopping.

There was a fantastic response to the initiative with over 40 beginners applying to take part.

The Caley Cup

LLV training takes place in 10-week blocks. On the last week of every block a 1.8 mile pursuit race is organised by Chris Russell, who assigns a handicap to each participant based on their previous best time over the course. The race winner is the runner who achieves the biggest improvement on their handicap time, and that person becomes the holder of the Caley Cup trophy for the next 10 weeks.

Charity Donations

Half of all LLV member contributions are donated to a selected local charity in each 10-week training block. The club also carries out other fund-raising activities including the torch-lit Nightmare series of races organised by long-standing club member Chris Russell. These are some of the charities which have benefited thus far:

• Fife Sensory Impairment Centre
• Arthritis Research UK
• Autism Rocks (Fife)
• Mary’s Meals
• Sport Relief
• Macmillan Cancer Support
• Cancer Research UK
• RSPB
• Fife Young Carers
• Sands
• Disability Sport Fife
• Guide Dogs
• Lee O’Brien Solvent Trust
• Levenmouth Foodbank
• Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS)
• Action on Depression
• Open Door Meals
• Deafblind Scotland
• Colin Marr Memorial Trust