Where do you start??? very pleased with my time also, 50:19 which is a pb for me that i hadnt expected having only run 3 times since the half marathon in edinburgh 3 weeks ago - so quite chuffed. i had been going to trot round but decided it would be fun to try for my first official snow pb. like iceblue said(brill report by the way iceblue) the first 5k was a skoosh but the 2nd 5k was full of bigger than small inclines i am pleased to report however that i only did my second half 30 seconds slower than my first half but mind u the first half was quite congested and i ended up covering 0.1 of a mile more than any of the other wee toon runners with the amount of weaving in and out i had to do
what a lot of male runners, did the irish women hear we were coming and not bother or could they just not keep up to the speed of the wee toon runners very nice to pass men on the hills, i remember thinking if i could run the gobagrennan hill that id done at jogscotland with djd then i could do these ones, had been told there was a big hill at the end and thot the one at 7k - 8k was it and as i was catching my breath on the down hill of that one i looked and saw the "big hill at the end" and it was out b4 i could help it - i just shouted f*** - no way, look at that thing!!! but instead of greetin i just ran right at it, i knew if i didnt that my time would b out the window cos id managed 5 minute k's the whole way upto that. after that the legs were pretty much dead but i held on for dear life
then i saw the 600m markers and wanted to push but realised i was pushing all that i could what seemed like far away on the horizon was other markers coming up, surely they were so far away they must be 200m but no they were 400m, so it was just hang in there and get to the line. once i crossed i was rewarded by some hand shakes and hugs by the lovely irish men i had run with, they hadnt garmins so i shared the race details with them and we all decided that we were all brilliant
that done i headed with iceblue to the meeting point of "W" for wee toon runners to be greeted by our supersid and his lovely wife jane. supersid had run a 42min race and looked as fresh as a 20 year old. after that pans lass and moi joined us both having crossed the line together in 54 min and on their heels was catherine gallacher (daughter of supersid) with 55 min, excellent time for a first outing. and the rest of the wee toon runners filtered home each and every one of them with a pb.
this really is some result considering the course is a trifle harder than the MOK 10k route so expect many more pbs in may
and off to the pub we went - and straight to the public bar, no fancy lounges for us jist right in amongst the "real people" and as we were sitting partaking of the black stuff the news came in that oor sid had been promoted to "super" status as he was listed on the website as second male in his age category (this category shall not be named) this of course was all that was needed to make the afternoon go even better than it was going to already
this story could go on for hours, no official diary was written as pans lass joined us in glasgow and had the directions for me but im hopeful more people will post their fave memories, much is censored like the reason for the song "ring of fire" being so poignant for me, coally bags and firemans lifts are also out of bounds as is the identity of the mysterious Lady J
i must say tho that the irish dancers were good but the scottish country dancing girls just did themselves proud and i think we showed that place how to party all 15 of us in our bright yellow Jogscotland Campbeltown t-shirts and bottles of water