I hadn’t run since Christmas Day, in fact I’d hardly been out doors at all as my flu kicked in flooring me completely. Things actually got better and worse as fever kicked in and toothache came calling on the night of the 30th December. Thankfully my dentist had an appointment on Auld Year’s Day and, as well as treating the infected filling, she also put me on a course of antibiotics.
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| Right cheek Swollen with toothache - pic by Chris Quinn |
I’m not quite sure if I should have been drinking when taking antibiotics but it was Hogmanay and Guinness, red wine and malt whisky had to be taken. Not surprisingly, I woke on the first morning of the year with a bit of a headache. I had to get up to take my antibiotics and decided that I might as well sweat out the alcohol and maybe some of the germs too by participating in the first park run of the year.
It was great to see so many friends both running and volunteering. I was surprised that this was the first time that some of them had participated in the Pollok Park event, this was my 102nd attempt. We were busy exchanging New Year greetings, when Race Director, Campbell Joss, advised us that a tree was blocking part of the route and today’s run would be slightly more than the usual 5k.
Some 164 of us set off at 9:30am, I was feeling rough but was still able to run, although I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I faded. After a mile, I was enjoying the downhill section, when I felt a slap on my back. “Happy New Year” said ’Geordie’ Jim Robinson as he overtook me and ran into the distance. I’m not in Jim’s class but I did know that I had some rivals behind me and I wanted to beat Cambuslang’s Terry Dolan, who had placed ahead of me on Christmas Day. I was suffering though and had to dig in deep for the mental strength to keep going. It worked though and I started to work my way up through the field. With 1k to go, I thought that I could see Geordie Jim ahead and was that Irvine’s Jim White ahead of him too? It ddn’t really matter if it was them or not, I was going to focus in on them and use them to pull me through the last part of the race.
Up the last hill, down to the right turn point and then a final 200m downhill sprint and I crossed the line in 49th place, just behind Geordie Jim, with Jim White in 41st place. Terry Dolan placed 50th in 23:54. I was extremely happy to get a top 50 place, my first since Christmas Day 2011! However my time was a disappointing 23:49. I had worked much harder than my last race and was feeling shattered. My mood was lifted a little when I worked out that the course had been 0.26 miles longer and that this equated to me taking 5 seconds off of my 22:42 last week. Although that time wasn’t great either, I had noticed that the Run Britain Rankings had giving the race a ranking of 2.8. Probably the highest for any race that I’ve run on the road. My ranking had been 1.8, which means that I did OK, relative to others in the race. I’ll be interested to see what today’s race ranking will be.
Again, it would have been good to stay after the run for some refreshments and chat but a quick exit home for a hot shower was probably the correct choice.
Many thanks to everyone for providing such a great start to 2013.
Full Results
Chris Quinn's pics
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