It's been a little while since my last post and, by my standards, I've raced quite often. I therefore have a few races to round up. I start on a low note but things improve hereafter.
Buoyed by my track success over 10,000m, I returned again to Silverknowes Promenade in Edinburgh for the Scottish 5k. There's a saying "fail to prepare, prepare to fail." This applied to me on this occasion as I got my preparations spectacularly wrong. I left work in Paisley at 4pm thinking being next to the M8 would be an advantage. Not at all as I endured a 2 hour drive in rush hour traffic, arriving completely stressed and inadequately fuelled up having not eaten anything substantial since lunch. To cut a long story short I lined up having failed to get into race mode and basically not feeling up for it. In addition, I had worn new racing shoes at the Scottish Road Relay which had not felt entirely comfortable. I was however giving them another chance.
To cut another even longer story short I never really got into the sharp end of the race, the leading protagonists immediately breaking away from me, and phoned in a rather lacklustre effort during which I felt flat footed and deflated. In saying all this, in the cold light of day, my result wasn't a disaster, 16th place in 15:19 and a team bronze earned with Robert Gilroy and Alistair Campbell. However, I felt I blew a chance to run much better. I was so annoyed on the night I just wanted home for dinner and my bed and left almost as soon as I finished without even a warm down.
One of many runners to produce a superb effort on the night was Bryan Mackie (Edinburgh AC) who later told me he had taken the day off work, rested, ate and stayed only a short distance from the course. It paid off for him with a personal best of 15:07 for 10th place. A good result for someone who, unlike me, didn't fail to prepare.
Cambuslang had numerous individual and team successes including:-
1. Personal best for Alistair Campbell.
2. The aforementioned male team bronze.
3. A female team bronze for Katie Bristow, Eve Mackinnon and Alex Lamond.
4. Vet gold and silver respectively for Kerry-Liam Wilson and Stevie Wylie.
Full race results are here. The only way was up, and thankfully that's how things have gone since.