Oh Deer, Wild Coos and Coupers Two

Despite having way too much alcohol during the week, including Friday night after the Mark Cooper 24 Hour Treadmill attempt, I decided to run the Glasgow parkrun on Saturday morning. I say run, rather than race, as I obviously wasn’t feeling 100% and I’ve also been bothered with a tight hamstring for a few weeks. I felt it ‘go’ one evening cycling over the squinty bridge on the way home from work. However having witnessed Mark go through hours on end of pain, there was no way I was going to shirk a 5k race.

I arrived at Pollok Park in time for a warm up and chat, before lining up with another 312 runners to listen to the pre event announcements, which this week made a reference to some highland cattle who were roaming the park, having left the confines of their field.

Race
I started a wee bit further back in the pack than usual but had a decent start, down hill and into the woods. The 1st k took me 4:13, I watched Claire Wharton and Annmarie McCaffrey overtake me at this stage but resisted the temptation to chase after them and instead I concentrated on my own run. I worked fairly hard though and raised my game at the end to catch a couple of runners, including Alan Gibson who earned a new PB. I exchanged mutual congratulations with Alan and others as I queued to hand in my token, which revealed that I had placed 067. However Garmin was playing up and I didn’t have my race time.

Training Run with Coos and Deer
I then headed out to complete the remainder of my 8mile, at steady pace, training schedule. However it wasn’t long until I noticed Marianne Wilson and others making their way along to Haggs Road had been stopped in their tracks by a stray highland coo, well calf actually. The beast may have looked menacing with its long hair and horns but in actual fact it was terrified more than the runners. I used to work on a dairy farm and used my experience to herd it off the road and over a fence, out of harms way. As my training run neared completion, I noticed a young deer dashing past in front of me and disappearing into the woods. I had heard tale that there were deer in Pollok Park but this was the first one that I had seen.

Post Run
Training run completed, I changed into some dry clothes and headed into a packed Burrell for coffee and conversation. Sadly my post race training had curtailed the time for chatting but I still enjoyed it.

Results
It seemed to take an eternity for my result to be texted to me, however when it did arrive, it revealed that I had completed the 5k course in an acceptable time of 22:07.

Coupers Two
It was only when I looked at the Full Results that I noticed that , although a few regulars were absent, the Couper twins - Louise and Claire - had made the journey from Stirling to Glasgow to experience the joys of the Glasgow parkrun. They weren’t expecting wild coos though. I last heard that they were seen roaming around the Crossmyloof streets, the coos not the Coupers, I hope that they are all now safe and well.
Full Results

Coos report
NB There will be NO Glasgow or Strathclyde parkruns on Saturday 6 August 2011.