Victories are like buses you wait for
ages then two come along one after another. I had waited 155
parkruns to win my first age category last week at Ayr and then
I repeated my success today at Tollcross.
I hadn't done a hill session for a
while, so I decided to return to the hilly east end of Glasgow
parkrun for the first time since May 2014. I ran a course PB of
22:18 in my last outing and was hoping to do the same today but the
elements were against me. Gale force winds and rain hadn't helped my
insomnia and the signs, were quite literally ominous with Transport
Scotland warning of snow as I made my way along the M74.
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| Tollcross Bandstand |
I was aware that a number of parkruns
had been cancelled due to the weather but thankfully Tollcross was
on, although there were a couple of slight detours across the grass,
to avoid large piles of earth on the path. It was good to see some
old friends both volunteering and running and to exchange New Year
greetings with them before the race. Most people were sheltering
from the wind and snow in the bandstand before Christopher McKiddie
sent us on our way into the hills and the strong wind.
It was tough
going and I was working hard, I found myself playing leap frog with a
younger runner in a blue top for the first 3k but then pulled away
from him and caught a couple of other runners in the last 2k.
A
sprint over the grass on the final strait took me over the line in
14th place, with a time of 22:26. No PB but only eight
seconds off of it, many runners were well over a minute off their PBs
today, so I was happy with that and I don't think I could have
performed much better in the conditions. The icing on the cake was
when I received the results to see that I had, for the second week in
succession, placed first in my age group category and second in the
overall Age Grade score with a WAVA of 69.69%, only being beaten by
the event winner Shaun Butler, who crossed the line in a time of
18:22 and a WAVA of 70.60%.
Fellow Bellahouston Harrier, Darren
Murray placed 11th with a time of 21:54.
Lesley McArdle won the women's race,
placing 23rd overall, in 24:05.
A total of 79 runners braved the
elements in this the 89th Tollcross parkrun, well done to
all of them and also to the volunteers who made the event happen.
Full results here
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