For the second successive year, I took up a place in the West of Scotland team for the Scottish Inter District 10km Championships, incorporated in the BUPA Great Edinburgh 10k. Selections for things have come my way rapidly in the last 2 years. The pride never fades.
That said, this particular selection wasn’t without its problems. While more than happy to take it up and training progressed smoothly, work had been considerably stressful for a number of weeks. On Wednesday, I had chest pains while driving home which resulted in me toiling during that night's hill session. Friday was a particularly bad day for various reasons. To alleviate the stress of last year's race, I booked a hotel room in Edinburgh for Saturday night. However, struggling to get the working week out my head, I wasn’t even thinking about the race until I pulled on my running gear and went down for breakfast on Sunday morning. The next step was to motivate myself. By the time I got to Holyrood Park with over an hour to spare, I’d been able to put other worries out my head long enough to focus. With only 3 in the West team, myself, Derek Hawkins and Andrew Douglas, and 3 to count for the team competition, my result would matter.
On the start line, I just felt anxious to get stuck into the race. The course was altered due to the work in Edinburgh laying new tram lines. The first kilometre uphill to a roundabout remained the same. Instead of a right out the park though, we took the first exit, carrying on round Arthur’s Seat down a long descent. I was settling into a group with Andrew Douglas and East representatives Alex Hendry and Michael Crawley. Ahead were Tom Humphries (3rd last year), Andrew Lemoncello, Derek Hawkins and a Brazilian. Seeing the leaders coming the other way told me we would be immediately climbing this hill again. So it turned out. Two long, steep inclines inside 3km before leaving the park. Not a fun runner friendly course. The group stayed together.
The course had a more truncated nature with sections through the Meadows and Princes Street cut out. I was hanging in with the group and, knowing the capabilities of the 3 guys with me, it helped my confidence. What didn’t was my time for the first 5km, 16:07. Oh dear! If you’re in any doubt of the course’s severity, there you go. Up until now, the streets had more or less merged into each other. Sections of cobble stones, right turns, left turns, inclines. All I knew was it was unforgiving.
Whatever goes up has to come down and, sure enough, the second half included some good descents. Between 6km and 7km in the Royal Mile area, the group split with Douglas pulling ahead and Hendry and Crawley dropping behind me but close enough to stop me relaxing. At 7km, we passed Holyrood Park heading under a footbridge with me chasing Douglas hard and Hendry and Crawley doing likewise to me. An external factor then hindered my progress. Through the footbridge, I felt something hit the right hand side of my face, blinding me in my right eye. It wasn’t raining so what on earth was it? To put it politely, a pigeon had done what nature intended on my face. The course then went uphill again. I negotiated the hill while trying to restore my sight. Talk about multi tasking. Full vision restored, I went through 8km in 25:34. We then doubled back towards Holyrood Park and the finish.
Above: unclear whether this is before or after the pigeon attack.
The Brazilian ended up withdrawing so I crossed the line in 5th place with an official time of 31:33, 13 seconds adrift of Andrew Douglas and 11 and 48 seconds ahead of Michael Crawley and Alex Hendry respectively. A very hard shift I was glad to see the end of. With Derek Hawkins in 3rd place, the West claimed victory in the Inter District competition. You can’t do much more than that. Tom Humphries edged Andrew Lemoncello by a single second to win, both recording times in the 29s.
The next thing I did was take the water straight out the goody bag and wash my face then had a warm down and lengthy chat with another East runner, Mickey Breen, I got home in time to greet my parents getting back from a weekend in Ayr my brother and I gave them for their anniversary. With such a stressful week, I felt like a drink so finished the weekend off with a family meal and a couple of pints at the Swan Inn in Eaglesham. I recommend it if you haven’t been before.
