Blue Skies and Black Ice

‘Twas a gorgeous winter morning in Glasgow today, the sky was blue and the sun was shining, however these conditions are usually accompanied by low temperatures and today was to be no exception.  The temperatures had plummeted over night and yesterday’s melted snow had turned to black ice.  The attempted early morning inspection of the Glasgow parkrun course revealed that not only was the usual route too dangerous to run but that the roads into Pollok Park itself were also extremely hazardous.  The unusual decision to cancel the event was taken at about 8:30am and tweeted to the nation. 

View from my flat

My Plan B was to go to Strathclyde parkrun and congratulate Ross Goodman as he completed his 1000^th kilometre of the year.  However, despite my four wheel drive option, my car was unable to make it up the 200m of black ice which would have taking me to the relative safety of Pollokshaws Road and on my way to Motherwell.

Instead, I had to abandon the car, make my way home and opt for Plan C, a run along the road of at least 3miles to qualify me for day 17 of the Marcothon. 

The other view from my flat

I carefully negotiated my way over the ice and snow, the pavement being slightly less risky than the road, and was rewarded by a well gritted, and relatively quiet A77.  I made my way along through Shawlands, where I could use the salted pavements, towards the Pollok Avenue entrance to the park.  The safety of the pavement decreased between Shawlands and Bar 1901, where there was no option but to resort to running on the road.  My initial assessment of Pollok Ave was that it wasn’t that bad, however it didn’t take me long to realise that my feet were sliding as I reached the ice.  I heard a voice saying “Is it a bit slippy” and turned to see the only other runner that I would see this morning………………………..Jacqui Thomson!  I advised her that the parkrun had been cancelled but, like me, she was content to get a run under her belt.  Her trainers had more grip than mine, so I decided to return to the safety of Pollokshaws Road and head back towards home.  Whilst the run would have been about 4 miles and more than enough for the Marcothon, I decided to add another couple of miles and turned around at the junction with Moss-side Road.  This time as I ran down the road CatrionaGourlay, waiting in her car at the red light, called my name and we chatted about the cancellation and the underfoot conditions.  I, and thousands of others, are indebted to Catriona, Richard Leyton and the other core parkrun volunteers who give up so much of their time, in all weather, so that runners can have a Saturday morning 5k.

This time, I turned right and ran along Haggs Road, where the entrance/exit to Pollok Park was worse than Pollok Ave, with the road being covered by black ice.  Again, I turned around and rejoined the main road and ran back towards Shawlands, a detour onto Victoria Road took me over 10k, my target for the day.  A cagey warm down over the black ice and snow took me to the warmth of my home and an earlier than usual but no less deserved cooked brunch. 

Not a bad start to the weekend. It’s great being a runner!

Running in Holiday Mode

It was my office Xmas party on Friday so I wasn’t expecting to be in any great state for racing on Saturday.  With that in mind, I gave the West of Scotland Cross Country Championships a miss, deciding instead to bag another parkrun.  However, I felt surprisingly good on Saturday morning and was confident that I would improve on my last outing.  Unfortunately though, the weather was not conducive to fast times, with black ice and puddles making the course even more difficult than usual.  Race Director, for the day, Campbell Joss wisely advised the runners to “save our PBs for another day”.

Jacqui Thomson

I had a wee chat with Jacqui Thomson during my warm up and she advised me that as well as coming back from an operation, she was also suffering from a cold.  Despite her handicaps, I was surprised to find her running on my shoulder for the first third of the race.  She never said anything but she did seem to have a surprised look on her face when, rather than run around two runners, I shouted “runner coming through” and they moved out of my way.  We were running at 4:16 pace and on a very good day I might have been able to maintain that but running along side someone who has completed the course in 18:47 was a bit intimidating and rather than using Jacqui’s presence as a spur to a good performance, I did my usual and took my foot of the pedal a bit.  That said, I thought I was still having a good enough run and was making my way slowly up through the field.  I was just about to increase my pace for the final kilometre, when I noticed that the two runners that had let me pass them in the first lap were on my shoulder, there was no way that I was going to let them pass me.  I focussed on a guy in white in front and managed to catch another few runners before sprinting down the final 200m to cross the line in 22:31 in 39^th place.

As usual I shared congratulations with the runners around me.  The two guys had actually been father and son and they both complimented me, not only on my race but also my running style.  The dad, Graeme Pert, was delighted to have run a PB of 22:45, taking 8 seconds off of his previous best time and asked me if I could take a photo for them to mark the occasion.  For my part, I was disappointed with my time but delighted to have finished so far up the, albeit depleted, field of 162 runners.

My time was actually the same as my chip time last Sunday, which to be fair was on an easier course.  I had improved last week’s Glasgow parkrun time by 12 seconds but if I had worked a bit harder it could have been much more.  However I had chalked off another day in the 31 day Marcothon and my 63^rd race of 2011 not too bad given that I am kind of in ‘holiday mode’ with my London Marathon Training scheduled to begin on 18 December.  

Once again, huge thanks to my fellow runners, the supporters and in particular the marshals and other volunteers who seemed to be in fine fettle despite it being such a cold morning. 
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