A Half and a Half

After including part of the Men’s Health 10k in my long run last week, I decided to go one better this week and include all of the Glasgow parkrun in my 13.1 mile training run. So it was up at 6:30 am to have a light breakfast before heading off to Pollok Park for an 8:05 start. My plan was simple: to run along the national cycle route (N7) at 8:30 min/miles for five miles, turn around and arrive at the start of the parkrun at 9:30am.


I set off heading in the opposite direction from the parkrun route and made my way through Pollok Park and along the banks of the White Cart Water. I saw a fish louping out of the river to catch a fly and thought how lucky we are in Scotland to have so much nature right on our door steps. I passed a few dog walkers as I made my way along the undulating cycle path. Good practice for the Girvan Half, I thought to myself. However, when I reached Hawkeshead Road I decided to give the forthcoming hills a miss and turned right towards Hawkeshead Station and the Glasgow Road. I met a couple of other runners running in the opposite direction just before Garmin revealed that I had completed five miles in exactly 42:30. A quick drink of Lucozade Sports and I headed back behind the other runners, before turning back onto the N7. It was a warm and humid morning and I was sweating loads but I thought about Mark Cooper and how the day before he had completed his 50th marathon in 56 days in 33 degrees Celsius, in an incredible time of 3:08.

As I neared the end of my ten miles, I could hear the familiar sound of Richard Leyton giving the usual pre race announcements at the start of the 79th Glasgow parkrun. For once, I wanted the announcements to drag out to allow me to get to the start line in time. However as I ran over the hill and around the corner I could see the runners just starting set off. I joined the other 249 runners as we ran down the hill, drinking the remainder of my sports drink before throwing my running belt under my car as I passed by it.

I found myself running along with Katie Smith but soon decided to slow down a bit and keep to my 8:30 min/mile pace. I had a wee chat with the injured Gordon McDonald and Graeme Aitken, who was having an easy run after his Men’s Health 10k and jogscotland 5k earlier in the week. I took advantage of my slower than usual run to thank the marshals, who’s volunteering allows the weekly, free, event to take place. With a kilometre to go, I decided to increase the pace a little and catch a few runners. On the final strait I had to work hard to hold off a challenge from Mark Hannah who had decided to chase after me when I passed him. I placed 106th with a time of 25:00 with Mark 107th with the same time. We congratulated each other before heading over to join the queue to hand in our race tokens and barcodes.

I had completed my long run of 13.1 miles in a time of 1:50:35 an average pace of 8:26 min/miles and had ran my 46th parkrun, getting one step closer to the 50 parkrun mark and the t-shirt which rewards it.

I had volunteered to do a report on the event for the parkrun website and chatted with some of the other runners to get their views on the event, before heading to the Burrell Café for a well deserved coffee and jam scone. Of course I would much prefer to have had a bacon roll but unfortunately, to ensure that they don’t have any left un-purchased the chef has removed them from the menu!! After the usual light hearted banter and serious running conversations it was hope for an ice cold bath, a hot brunch and a siesta before heading back to Pollok Park for the Bellahouston Harriers’ Barbeque, where I had the good fortune of winning a bottle of malt whisky. A half marathon to start the day with and a whiskey to round it off nicely.

Glasgow parkrun 79 results