Gruber on the Green

A bumper turnout of some 48 runners assembled under the McLennan Arch at Glasgow Green on Friday for the monthly, charity race organised by Kilmarnock Harrier, Al Murray.  It just wasn’t quality that was on show but quality too with four of the runners, finishing under 10mins and a new women’s record of 10:13 being set by Lesley Chisholm.  Whilst Lesley took 17 seconds off of her previous outing, which itself set the course record, my story was somewhat different. 

Record Breaker - Lesley Chisholm

I hadn’t run the event for a long time and as regular readers will know, I’m way off form at the moment but I am working hard at training and hope to see the results at some point.  I knew it wouldn’t be today though as I was still tired from last night’s club training session.  I cycled along from work, did some stretching and a bit of running and was feeling relatively good as I chatted with a host of running buddies prior to the 12:20 Start.  With such a class field, I knew that I would be well to the back.  When we reached the 1^st k, I actually though that I might be the tail runner, there was a little relief when we reached the turning point and I saw that there were at least two runners behind me.

As usual, I upped my game for the second half of the race and I focussed in on my old adversary Alan Fitzsimmons. I just didn’t have the speed to catch him though but I did manage to reel in a handful of runners before crossing the line in a very disappointing time of 12:46.  I placed 39^th out of 48.  It could have been worse.   

On a positive note I ran my quickest paced race of 2012 and achieved a wava of 68.42.  Hopefully, I'll be a bit quicker the next time I run this great wee race.

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