First Race of 2010

Well it was a wee bit later than I hoped for but I managed to get my first race of the decade under my belt. The volunteers at the Glasgow parkrun, faced with a dangerous first and second choice route managed to design a new off-road course and secured agreement from the management of Pollok Park to allow an event to be held on the snow covered fields of the south Glasgow park.

Some fifty-five hardy souls turned up on Saturday, January 9 to participate in the first Glasgow parkrun of the decade. I had decided to wear my spikes, well let’s face it they don’t get used that often and they do look good! After exchanging New Year greetings with fellow runners we assembled at a new start point to be advised of the day’s course route, which would see runners making their way around three laps around snow covered football and hockey pitches.

Without further adieu we were off with Gerry Scullion leading the way. I started near the front but by the time the route made its first turn I had been overtaken by what seemed like everybody. We made our way along the perimeter of one of the pitches, when we reached the far side of the pitch the snow wasn’t as deep, as the path had been protected by some trees. I was able to overtake a few runners here and found myself a couple of places behind Christopher McKiddie. I know that Chris is a lot faster and younger than me and decided that I would try to finish as close to him as possible. A few times I thought I might be able to catch him but he managed to increase the pace and the gap increased rather decreased. However he was still in my sights. I was also aware that Erica Christie must still behind me somewhere and I was hopeful that if I focused on Chris and even those ahead of him, I might be able to hold off the expected challenge of Erica.

As we started our third and final lap, I was immediately behind Chris. Maybe, just maybe I would be able to catch him. However to do this I would need to get closer to him and as we ran along the side of the pitch he increased his lead. Under the trees I could hear steps as someone tried to overtake me. I dug deep to hold them off and at the next corner I had made up on Chris and another runner and took my opportunity. A sharp right, followed by a sharp left, one step on the icy road and another left and right saw us heading towards the start/finish. I was trying to work out where the finish line was and whether the runner in front of me was on his second or final lap when I was overtaken by a bearded runner. I sprinted after him, overtaken the other runner as vended right and approached the finish line.

I placed 20th with a time of 25:04, Christopher was two places behind with 25:06 and Erica 29th with 26:42. I had beaten Chris for the first time. I’ve ran in the same races as Erica for well over ten years and this is the first time I had beaten her, although she still placed first woman. Despite my performance I was still disappointed with my time. However the results show that most people were around five minutes slower than their usual Glasgow parkrun times. Indeed no-one timed under 20:00 minutes on the day. My Garmin revealed that the course was actually 3.21 miles long. I checked Chris and Erica’s PBs to discover that Chris has done the traditional hard route in 19:19 and Erica in 20:06, whereas my PB stands at 21:18. So all and all, although the record books won’t show it, it was a good performance for me in my first race of the ‘teenies’.
Selected Results:

19 Fraser Clark 25:00
20 Ian Goudie 25:04
21 Chris Chennell 25:05
22 Chris McKiddie 25:06
29 Erica Christie 26:42
41 Graeme Aitken 30:45

Full results here: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/glasgow/Results.aspx
Photos: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/glasgow/Photos.aspx