Scottish Mens League Match 4, 14th August 2011

Grangemouth hosted the fourth and final meeting in this year's Scottish Mens League. Under my thoroughly inspiring leadership, Whitemoss were lying 3rd in Division 2, a little adrift of Shettleston and Falkirk Victoria but still an outside bet for promotion. It needed a good turn out. Unfortunately, a couple of people withdrew beforehand with colds but I still had a team of 12 athletes and 4 officials out in force.

The league organisers experimented by replacing the 5000m with a 10,000m, the first time such a race had been run for several years. The Division records go back far enough, 15 June 1997 for Division 1 (W. Coyle of Shettleston Harriers with 29:59.8) and 21 May 1989 for Division 2 (C.Heskett of Dundee Hawkhill Harriers with 30:28.9). Always happy to be a guinea pig for an experiment, I lined up with 18 others for a 25 lap trek. My training the previous week had been alright, including a track session of 15 x 400m with every 4th rep plus the 15th one brisker. Times were 72 seconds with the brisker ones in 68, 68, 69 and 70. With Kirsty's good luck text received on cue and a little banter exchanged besides, I was set.

This was as much an experiment for me as it was for the league, my first track 10,000m. I looked to get as far into the race as I could feeling as good as possible. I quite deliberately hung behind Ben Hukins of Aberdeen, Shettleston's Michael Gillespie and early pacesetter Stuart Campbell of Arbroath. 5 laps trundled by without incident then I sort of drifted my way into the lead. The pace didn't alter. I just found myself there. I was working hard without straining because the last thing I wanted was to blow a gasket with say 18 laps to go. Coming up to halfway, Hukins and Gillespie strode past. In another race, perhaps a championship, I would try to cover the break. Here, I was content to keep to my own pace and passed 5000m in 16:07.

I started working harder from here to keep momentum. Central's Lewis Millar came up beside me. I wasn't up for dropping any more places and put in the slightest of surges with 12 laps left to burn him off. I found myself in no man's land with a gap in front and gap behind. I did however have lapped runners to target and pass which eased the strain a bit.

I made it to 17 laps before fatigue took a grip. This is borne out by Cambuslang coach Jim Orr's note of my lap times which show laps 18, 19, 20, 22, 23 and 24 were my slowest. In saying that, I was still on for a decent finish thanks to the good work done during the first 6800m.

My watch time checks became more frequent. I surmised I was on for around 32 minutes. A big effort with a 72 second final lap saw me cross the line 3rd in 32:15.54. I ran the second 5000m only one second slower than the first. Hukins won the race in 31:45.42 followed by Gillespie in 32:00.52. Martin Duthie of Calderglen Harriers filled the B string for me, putting in a determined performance to finish in 36:48.55. I would definitely do another one of these! It's a different challenge to a road race, at least to keep count of your laps. As I heard one athlete say on the start line, "keep going until someone tells you that you're finished."

I dusted myself down and, 10 minutes later, ran final leg in the 4 x 100m relay, helping the team to 3rd place in 50.41 seconds.

Not content with 25 and a quarter laps, I jogged a mile while the final point totals were calculated. Central narrowly pipped Aberdeen for the Division 1 title while, in Division 2, this was the match result:-

Shettleston Harriers, 402 match points
Falkirk Victoria Harriers, 365
Whitemoss, 292
Ayr Seaforth,240
Corstorphine, 206
Fife, 203
Kilbarchan, 154
Clydesdale Harriers, 115
Dunfermline & West Fife, 0
Kirkintilloch Olympians, 0

The final table looks like this:-

Shettleston Harriers, 38 points (1493 match points)
Falkirk Victoria Harriers, 36 (1452)
Whitemoss, 31 (1098)
Kilbarchan, 26 (1097)
Corstorphine, 26 (979)
Fife, 19 (858)
Ayr Seaforth, 16 (653)
Clydesdale Harriers, 11 (416)
Dunfermline & West Fife, 7 (208)
Kirkintilloch Olympians, 1 (51)

This is one place higher than last year. My 2 years in the post are now up so it remains to be seen if a couple of failed promotion bids will see me re-elected. My jacket might be on the proverbial shoogly peg.

For those interested, my mile times in the 10,000m were 5:05, 5:10, 5:12, 5:08, 5:15 and 5:13.