Rosie Time at Eglinton parkrun

Pre Race

I had already decided to do the Eglinton parkrun when old school buddy Rosemary Blackwood contacted me through Facebook to let me know that she was back in Scotland for a short time and was meeting up with Sandra Murphy for coffee at the Tournament Cafe after the race.

I was hoping to look my best but unfortunately my worst sleep for ages had me looking a bit rough and feeling sluggish as I drove down through the icy fog to Ayrshire.  I arrived in plenty of time for the usual pre race pit stop, warm up and catch up with running buddies.  At 9:30am, with the temperature just creeping above 0c, I lined up, in my shorts, with some 94 other hardy souls and Neil Ash sent us on our way around the 5k mixed terrain course.  Icy paths meant that there were a couple of small changes to the course, resulting in even more of the route than usual being off road.

Cross Country Running?

  After the first kilometre, I found myself between Irvine AC doyens Jim White and Mike Flinn.  I would have been more than happy to finish between these two, who have amassed 38 Eglinton parkruns between them, with course PBs of 20:47 and 21:51 respectively.  My only other outing had taken me 24:34 and I was hoping to take at least one minute off of this.  With Garmin indicating that the 1st k had taken me 4:44, I knew that I would have to work harder to achieve my target.  I held off a couple of challenges from Mike but couldn't prevent him from overtaking me at around 2k.  It was then a question of using Mike to help drag me around the remaining 3k.  A strong finish saw me crossing the line in a time of 22:42, which was frankly a lot faster than I had hoped for.

After getting my breath back, I handed in my token, which indicated that I had placed 26th, before chatting with various old and new running buddies and enjoying a decent warm down.  Incidentally this took my mileage above my previous November record and bears well for the future.

Post Race Smiles

A quick change and I joined some fellow runners and volunteers in the Cafe where I rewarded myself with a coffee and roll in Ayrshire bacon, of course.  Rosie joined Sandra and I later and we caught up on some of our life events which had passed since we last met, some 38 years ago.  Let's hope it's not another 38years before we meet again!  Sure to want me back another day...

Results

Pics by Sandra Hunter

Progress in the Sherbrook Hills

I'm not wanting to turn this Blog into a training log but I do like to monitor my training and see if there are any signs of progress.  My last three outings in the Sherbrook Hills in Glasgow's Southside, would indicate that I'm getting back to fitness, slowly but surely.

Nov 21, 2013            Oct 31, 2013 Oct 24, 2013

Distance	10.43km	10.45km	10.46km
Time	55:40	57:12	58:35
Avg Speed	11.2 km/h	11.0 km/h	10.7 km/h
Avg Pace	5:20 min/km	5:28 min/km	5:36 min/km
Calories	932 C	939 C	937 C

Studio Shoot with Aaron Bird

This week's Kinning Park Camera Club tutorial was a studio shoot with a male model, Aaron Bird of the Model Team.  I was hoping to capture a couple of shots which were harsher than the soft light used for female model shoots and also wanted some of his face to be in the shadows. I was quite happy with the results and he was pleased with them too.  I hope that you like them.

The pictures are available here:

Comments

From Aaron: Hey, cool! Thanks for showing me. I liked the harshness of the photos you took. The high contrast looked very interesting! And it made me realise that I have more stubble that I thought! Thanks for sharing. 

From  Allan Fotheringham: Well as a photographer myself, I do get sick of other photographers slagging every other photographer off. I'll tell you this though, you have to be yourself in your style. You have style, those images are great, lots of shadows, very good indeed. Superb......

Discovering Positives from Negatives

Creative networking with Dundee based Make Up Artist Jillian Elizabeth

As chance would have it, I had work in Dundee last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which afforded me the opportunity to, for the first time in my life, spend the night in the City of Discovery, well two actually.  As luck would have it, the first ever Dundee Creatives Network meeting was being held in the city on the Tuesday, which is my normal camera club night and also my 'rest day'.  It was good to have some like minded people to share a few drinks and laughs with on my first night on Tayside.  On Wednesday, I had my first ever Dundee run, along the N77 and past the airport and back. It was windy, very windy, on the way out but I was like an Olympic Champion on the return leg with the wind at my back.

With no hill work in my training week, I decided to take in the Tollcross parkrun with its 10 hills instead.  It's difficult to compare one course/race with another but, as mentioned in a previous post, Run Britain have devised a handicap for races, known as SSS or standard scratch score.  The Glasgow parkrun, which I had recently raced, was graded as 1.5, the full length Victoria parkrun 1.2 and Strathclyde parkrun 1.0.  This week's Tollcross parkrun was graded 3.0!

The runner's individual performance is calculated and a vSSS awarded.  The lower the vSSS the better the runner has performed.  In 2010, I was running well and managed to get 7 vSSSs which were awarded negative scores.  It's been a long time coming but on Saturday, I achieved a -0.4 for the race.  I had achieved a +0.6 at Strathclyde and +0.2 at Victoria park but this was my first negative vSSS in almost 3 years!

Now that's what I call a positive, relatively speaking of course.

Two Minutes Faster at Tollcross #parkrun

Tollcross Park this morning

My seventh race in as many weeks saw me heading to Tollcross Park for the 29th staging of the east end of Glasgow event.  I had run the inaugural Tollcross Parkrun as my comeback race on 4th May this year, in a time of 25:18.  I'm a lot healthier and fitter than then and was confident of getting a course PB, although I knew that the ten hills, on the two and a half laps course, would mean that my time would be slower than that recently recorded at both Victoria and Strathclyde parks.

The introduction of the easier and faster Victoria parkrun had  helped to decrease the, already small, turnout at Tollcross and only 27 had participated in the previous week's race.  However the organisers had worked hard to boost numbers and were delighted with the turnout of 56 runners, the 5th highest attendance that they've achieved to date.

Myself and my training buddy, Adele Walker, started near the front of the race and at 9:30am we were set on our way, wth the other 54 participants, around the hilly and windy course.  I was confident that, as a result of our hard training and her performances at Victoria and Strathclyde parkruns that she would do well and that she even had a chance of a, confidence boosting, victory in the women's race.

I started strong but it wasn't too long before I was being overtaken.  I worked hard around the course, using all of my experience to keep focused and determined and managing to catch a few runners in the second half of the run.  I was satisfied with my performance, placing 13th with a time of 23:14, more than two minutes faster than my previous time.

Women's Race

As I hoped, despite this being her first outing at Tollcross, Adele won the women's event, with a time of 23:22.  Bellahouston Harrier's Katy Smith, was similarly delighted to earn Silver with a course PB of 24:40, with Emma Craig placing third woman, with a time of 24:47.  Katy's son Robbie and fellow Bellahouston Harrier Linda McLean also clocked up course PBs.

Men's Race

With neither Dave Thom nor Shaz Hakeem in the men's race, I had thought that the scene was set for Shaun Butler to take Gold for the first time.  Although he managed his 5th PB in as many outings and took an amazing 33seconds off of his time two weeks ago, his time of 18:55 was bettered by dark horse Billy Gibson, of Dundee Hawkhill, who completed his maiden Tollcross race in 18:27.
Shettleston's John Duffy placed third with a time of 19:19. 

Thanks

Congratulations to all runners and the dozen volunteers who made the event such a success.  The free cake and bottles of milk were added bonuses to reward us for our efforts before making our way back to Tollcross Leisure centre for coffee, rolls, chat and a truly efficient results service.  Many thanks to all concerned in making my 128th parkrun so enjoyable.

Tollcross parkrun

Studio Shoot with Claudia

Saturday afternoon was an 'open day' at Dreghorn Studios, I'm a member of their associated Camera Club and took the opportunity to gain some more studio time and catch a few images of young model Claudia Todd.

Thanks to Hamish and Stuart for the opportunity and their guidance and of course to Claudia for modelling for us.  I'd recommend her if you're looking for a model.

More photos of Claudia are here

Popular Photo Site

Running AL Gannet

14,193 thanks to you! 



That's how many hits we had on iangoudie.com on Friday 8th November. An unbelievable amount and blows all previous records out of the water.  I had posted a few pics of some of those running in the Southside Six on my Facebook page but there were only a total of 281 participants, so I was overwhelmed to see that we had over fourteen thousand hits.

Thanks again, it's much appreciated.

Allie Chong

My 13th Strathclyde Parkrun - Unlucky for Some?

I ran my 13^th Strathclyde parkrun on Saturday 9^th November. Conditions were good as the heavy rain ceased around 9am and there was no wind, or bright sunshine to worry about. There were a few puddles and the alternate, longer?, route was used. After last week's run which I had found difficult, I had decided to start much slower and run a more even paced race. After a sleepless night, the first part of the plan was easy, however after the 1^st k, my pace dropped and stayed there for 3k, I did manage to raise the pace for the last kilometer but not enough to make up for the middle part of the race. I placed 41^st out of 141, with a disappointing time of 22:43.

It did feel good though to finish strong and at no point did I think about dropping out.  I've continued to train hard and this was my 4th parkrun in 4 weeks.  My time was actually 43 seconds better than my last outing at Strathclyde and co-incidentally was the same time that I had run there on 11^th December 2010. There's always positives if you look hard enough :-)

Race report

I had noticed that Garscube's AlanBlair was well in front when I saw the faster runners and he ended up winning in a time of 17:15, some 35secs in front of runner up Richard Mannering, with Motherwell's Andrew Buchanan placing 3^rd with a time of 17:56.

Unfortunately Alan's wife, Emma wasn't so successful as she missed the Start. The plaudits in the Women's event went to Claire McArthur, who won Gold (9^th overall) with a time of 19:22. Remembering her barcode this week, Ada Stewart had another great run to place second in 21:34 with Red Star youngster Gillian Johnstone placing third in 21:58.

In her first outing at Strathclyde and only her second ever parkrun, my training buddy Adele Walker placed 4^th woman and 36^th overall, in a time of 22:02, 9 seconds faster than her Victoria Park time of two weeks ago.

It was good to see so many running buddies again at one of the friendliest events on the Scottish running scene and to catch up with some old friends over coffee at the Waterfront cafe.  I had ran my 127th parkrun.  Thanks to all for making it such an enjoyable day and good luck to Moira Nichol and Pat Smith who should both clock up their 100^th parkruns next week.. Who knows, I might clock up my 128^th.

Southside Six

Winning Man - Alastair Scott

I've not yet had the opportunity to run this local race, through six parks in Glasgow's Southside, although one is actually in East Renfrewshire.  The event has only been going for a couple of years and sells out within a matter of hours.  I've run most of the course and I've cycled it all.  It's hilly, over mixed terrain and is 16miles long!

Women's Race Winner Katie White

Some 400 runners had signed up this year, including a large number of my running buddies. Unfortunately a few of them had fallen by the wayside by the date of the race but that didn't affect the remainder who enjoyed the testing event in decent weather.  I say 'enjoyed' obviously that was after the race itself had finished, during the race and in particular the last few miles the race had taken its toll on many of the runners.  However most of them still managed a smile for the photography, who also helped them across Darnley Road.

Well done to everyone who competed or supported the event.  New Bellahouston Harrier Alastair Scott won the race with a time of 1:32:22, a new record!  Whilst Garscube's Katie White won the Women's event in 1:40:35 (11th overall).  Some 281 runners completed the 16miles.   I'll maybe join you next year.....

Results here
 
My Photos here

NB some entrants had obviously given their places to other runners without advising the organisers.

Greenock Glenpark's Donna Clark enjoys the last mile

Best Race in 12 Months

I had my hardest training week of the year and I'm cofident of getting the results in the months ahead but my 126rd parkrun and my second at the new Victoria Park event gave me the opportunity to test my progress.  There was a good turnout of running buddies, not least of the contingents from Clydesdale Harriers and Bellahouston Harriers, among the 177 runners who lined up in the west of Glasgow for the free 5k event.  It was a bit chilly as we lined up for the 9.30 Start and the frozen marshals kept us right as we ran around the three laps of one of Glasgow's prettiest parks.  I started fairly quickly and then unfortunately slowed down a bit as I struggled a bit both mentally and physically but after playing leap frog with Maryhill's Chris Hever, he eventually left me behind as he ran to a PB. I did manage to catch Westerland's Peter Grassl in the final strait to cross the line in 74th place, with a time of 22:24.  Slower than what I would have liked but 15 seconds faster than two weeks ago, round a slightly shorter course.  So I'm still making progress and I was delighted to look back at my records to see that it was actually my best race performance in 12 months, just outside of my target of 70% wava and enough to bring my Run Britain Handicap down, albeit it only by 0.1.  But progress is progress and as I said earlier, I'm sure all the training I'm doing at the moment will transform into performances in future races.   

Once again many thanks to the volunteers who braved the cold weather to allow us to enjoy our run.

Dumfries House

The Duke of Rothesay

Work took me down to Dumfries House in Ayrshire for a workshop on a Prince's Trust programme to assist young people gain access to rural employment.  The Princes himself was in attendance and I had the opportunity to meet him and a number of people working on various projects within the estate.  Of course, I took my camera with me and managed to take a few photos, despite the rain and mud.

Working Horses

The new arboretum

Female plasterer

are you pointing at me?

My photos are here

Halloween Studio Shoot

With this week being Halloween the Camera Club decided to arrange for model Fiona Watson to be made up as a broken doll and pose for a few photos for us.

Of course a few members of the Club also took the opportunity to dress up.  Sadly there were no toffee apples or treacle stones.

More photos here: