Rough Running on Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas but I’m not a Christian……..which doesn’t really matter as the festival is actually an old Pagan one, which the Christians adopted and capitalism exploited.  Of course it’s always a good reason for families to get together, for better or worse, and the running family is no exception.  The kind volunteers at Glasgow parkrun put on their usual Saturday morning event and will follow up on Xmas Day with another, whilst my hometown of Ayr puts on the Turkey Trot races on Boxing Day.  Oh as well as running there are parties and other festivities too and of course holidays from work.

I’ve been on holiday since close of business on Thursday and put Friday to good use, running a steady state 10mile run as part of my London Marathon training and the Marcothon too.  This was the furthest I’ve ran since 22 September and I was pleased with my consistency as I maintained a 5min/k pace throughout the run.  I had to hit the shops later on in the day and the madness was enough to remove any doubts that I may have had about going to Sammy Dows.  I had an excellent night being entertained by the Dangerous Brothers.  However I must have had too many pints of the black stuff and I was feeling very rough on Saturday morning, I was nearly sick as I brushed my teeth, so the only thing for it was to head along to Pollok Park for my 89^th parkrun. 

Despite the overnight wind and rain, there were loads of running buddies participating with almost 300 runners, some of them dressed in their Santa outfits or hats.  I managed a warm up without being sick and settled in somewhere near the middle of the pack for the race start.  I found myself running along with former referee Kenny Clark for a while, before bidding him good luck as either he increased his pace or I slowed, at about 800m into the course.  “I’m sure you’ll catch me later” he said as he ran ahead.  I was then joined by, former Bellahouston Road Runner club mate, Louie Plenderleith and then Norman Boyle.  It was as if we had turned the clock back as we ran along together.  Norman took the lead, with Louie and then me.  However as we turned left and started up hill, just after 2k, I took the lead.  I was pleasantly surprised to be overtaking by, the much improved, Angela Campbell at this point. 

Angela, Norman and rough me......

I was feeling rough as Norman overtook me on the downhill section but with him, Angela and Kenny all ahead of me, I had plenty of targets to keep me going.  I caught Kenny at about the same spot as he had left me in the first lap.  I then found myself running at the same pace as a man and woman (Katrina Kynaston?) who were running together.  The three of us passed Angela on the downhill section just before turning left. I could see Norman ahead and the gap between us decreased as we ran the final kilometre.  I was quite happy to finish behind him until the final downhill 100metres, when I sprinted towards the finish.  Although I did catch other runners, Norman must have heard me and sprinted the last 10metres or so, holding out both his arms as he crossed the line just in front of me. 

I congratulated Norman and Angela before finding a tree to be sick behind and then making my way to the barcode scanning area where I shared congratulations with Louie and Kenny before doing my warm down and getting my daily mileage up to 5miles, as per my training schedule. 

It was good to see so many runners and volunteers in the Burrell for post race coffee and chat.   

I had placed 94^th with a time of 23:20, had completed the 24^th day of the Marcothon, and had run my 64th race of 2011.  Once again huge thanks to everyone for making it a great wee race and congratulations to Stuart Gibson for winning with a new course PB of 15:29!!

Results 

Photos