Just not up for it in my 48th Glasgow parkrun.

With having had a hard race on Thursday night and running the Glasgow 800 10k on Sunday my initial intention was to give the Glasgow parkrun a miss this week and have a Friday night out for a change.  However an email from Race Director Richard Leyton, asking me to attend to be presented with my prestigious 50 t-shirt, made me change my plans.  I still went out on Friday with the intention of using the parkrun as a training session. 

I picked up my car outside the pub and headed along to Pollok Park, where, after the usual pre race chatting and my warm up, I and Al Mac Lachlan were presented with our t-shirts in front of almost 300 applauding runners and marshals. 

I made my way into the massed ranks and shortly after we were off, heading down the road outside of the famous Burrell Gallery.  I noticed Martin Myant, in particular, speeding down the hill as I settled into a steady pace.  At the bottom of the hill, we turned left and I was surprised to see that Pamela McCrossan was just in front of me.  She’s an excellent runner and I presumed that she must be one of those that start her races relatively slow.  Suzanne McMahon then went shooting past as Marina McCallum gradually edged in front of me.   As we turned left into the woods and the first hill, I heard Annmarie McCaffrey saying to me from behind “C’mon Ian, help me up these hills.”   “I’m just not up for it today” I replied as I caught her out the side of my eye.  OK I thought, I’ll help her up the initial hills and then I can settle into my training run.  I increased my pace and dodged my way through the other runners, including Martin, as I led her up the first two hills.  We then ran shoulder to shoulder up past the pond and then down the glade.  We overtook a number of other runners along the way, including Suzanne and Stuart McBeath.  I focussed on Marina ahead, as I led Annmarie, now joined by Suzanne up the hilliest part of the route to the half way point.  Stuart returned the compliment here by overtaking us.  We ran downhill, a sharp left and then an even sharper right took us along beside a wee burn before veering to the left, where I sprinted up the hill making my way through a number of runners, including Stuart.  I could hear the sounds of a woman having breathing problems behind me and assumed that it was Annmarie.  As we approached the pond Stuart overtook us yet again and looked strong as he disappeared in front.  Someone shouted “Third and fourth ladies” and “C’mon Ian, make an effort” as we passed him.  Soon after this, I realised that it was Suzanne who was having breathing difficulties as she pulled over to the side to be sick.  Annmarie overtook me at this point and I decided to slow the pace and save some energy for Sunday.  However when I turned left off the glade I started to attack the hills again and it wasn’t long before Annmarie was in sight.  At the top of the last hill she shot off and I chased after her.   I thought we were running fast until a flying machine, in the form of Douglas Pope, came sprinting past me and then Annmarie to finish in a new PB of 20:53.  Annmarie finished one place in front of me and thanked me for helping her get a new course PB of 20:55, shaving 5 seconds off of her previous time.  I was happy enough with my 38^th place and time of 21:02.  Suzanne placed next with 21:10  Stuart had taken an amazing 47 seconds off of his time to finish in 20:43 and kindly pointed out that this was the first race he had ever beaten me in.

After a warm down with Stuart and Jim Breen, I headed to the Burrell for coffee and some more post race chat before heading home, where I was pleasantly surprised to find, from the parkrun web site, that I had also earned a course PB, having taken 16 seconds off of my PB of last October and was now back in the top 20 in the male points table.

kilometre splits: 4:09; 4:11; 4:31; 4:25; 3:46!