Signals Relays & the Perth 10k

 

It was a tad on the warm side when we appeared at Hetton in Durham for the annual Signals Road Relays last weekend. The sun had broken through and we had plenty of time in hand before the start of the women's and vets race. It’s a 2 lapper, each lap comprising 1.1miles of rolling tarmac enveloping a large pond (or small lake if you don’t get out much). I was running leg 3 for the vets M50 team and with Hancox, Bennett and Bracken making up the team, it would need to be a heck of team that would beat us. The numbers were a little down on the usual, but with 60 or so teams from perhaps 30 clubs, there was plenty going on.

We led on the 1^st leg with Bracken. Hancox came in on the 2^nd leg still with only a few seconds over North Shields. They had won the vets title for the past however many years. However, the defection of Bracken from Shields to Morpeth a year or so ago changed the dynamics in our favour.  The Shields lad was a little close for comfort, but I told myself I was in good shape and blasted off for a terrific first lap. The second lap became blidy hard work very quickly as I ran out of steam, but I sensed I had put time into my opponent and sure enough I had put around 20 seconds into him at the finish. I crossed the line in 13:13, the fastest I’d run this event since 2017. And I needn’t have worried about the slim lead as Bennett, running the final 4^th leg flew around the course for the days fastest time and we ended up winning by a minute or so. Sunderland were 3^rd but were never in the running. In the woman's race, Speedy Joe ran the days fastest women's time and they also won their event. Tea and medals all round.

We took off soon after, not waiting for the presentation. We got to Perth at around seven, stopping only for fuel at Dunbar and a bar meal at the Steading off the Edinburgh By-pass. Still plenty of masks on and frayed nerves up here.  A couple of pints before bed and before we knew it, it was Sunday Morning. It was a pot of porridge and a coffee for breakfast before we hot-footed it down to North Insch, collecting our chips for the Perth Festival 10k. There was a queue for the toilets. I took the initiative and sauntered casually past reception at the Leisure Centre to use the other toilets where the queue was negligible.  Mrs Mac tried this tactic 5 minutes later, but by then the way to toilet nirvana had been blocked and the lavatory interlopers were chased back from whence they came.

Conditions outside were ideal and me and Speedy Joe warmed up. There was around 350 running and it was good to see things almost back to some semblance of normality in the running scene.  We started after a brief preamble and I got my head down and cracked on.  I overshot a junction at the end of the Park after 2km and doubling back, found myself behind Fife runner Alan Gibson. I sat behind him for 5 kilometres as he ground out a metronomic pace of around 6:05/km. I mused that from behind, the lines on the back of his neck and his cap pulled tight over his head, he might be in my category. However, it became harder and harder to maintain contact with him. There was no let up. I was goosed. It was almost a re-run of the Tay Ten in 2017 when I lost contact with my wee group. At 8km the elastic finally snapped and I lost contact. I was chased hard by Hawkhill runner Sandy McDougall who had been in front, but overshot the same junction on the return at the same place where I had gone wrong on the way out. She passed me with 50m to go. I crossed the line in 38:35, finishing 2^nd M50 to a Perth runner who managed a 36 minute run. Gibson won the M60 category and he certainly had a good run. We nipped up to Bankfoot to see some family and then took the long road home.  Speedy Joe won the Woman's race and managed a big PB. Mrs Mac also had a good run, so all in all, a pretty successful weekend on the running front.

I promised myself an easy week this week, but have, somehow, I've still managed 2 sessions and a weekly total of 50 miles looks imminent tomorrow. My next target is the 3000m at the Shettleston Meet next Wednesday. It’ll be a PB for sure….In all the years I’ve been running, I don’t recall ever running the 3000, so anything under 11 minutes will do nicely.