Young Fife hurdler Jack Lawrie celebrated landing a GB and NI vest for the Loughborough International when we went to training with Pitreavie AAC on Monday night.
And it was a special way for veteran coach John MacDonald to celebrate his 88th birthday.
It is 35 years since MacDonald’s daughter, Linsey, went to the Olympics at the age of 16 and came home with a bronze medal as part of the 4 x 400m relay squad in Moscow in 1980.
Now the Scottish coaching legend, who won a ‘Local Hero’ accolade in the Scottish Sports Award three years ago and also happens to be an angling international, has another British international on his hands.
Lawrie has been picked for the 400m Hurdles at Loughborough.
John said: “Jack heard about his selection on Monday from British Athletics and we discussed it at training and everyone is delighted for him. “
“It also happened to be my 88th birthday!
“I’ve coached him for a number of years now, more than five I think, and he is a great lad who works very hard at his athletics.
“Jack is working now doing 12-hour shifts as part of an apprenticeship and sometimes he has to do those shifts back to back. I thought it might affect him over the past year or so but it hasn’t.
“Credit to him, he is still improving and getting quicker so we were hopeful of the GB vest because of the rankings. We do a tough circuits session on a Monday and hills in a public park in Dunfermline on a Tuesday – as well as a lot of track sessions.
“I believe in cross country as a great endurance base and Jack has done that in the past, too, although not last winter because he was working. He will be up against Scotland’s David Martin on Sunday running for GB and it should be a good race.”
John won’t be in Loughborough this weekend but he is bound for Bedford with Jack for the England Athletics under-20s in June and his own dedication to coaching burns as brightly as when he was helping Linsey’s own career which saw those medals won in Moscow in 1980 and the Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982.
“I don’t feel anything like my age,” he said. “Athletics keeps me young and I am down at the track at Pitreavie, or out coaching elsewhere, most nights a week.”