I decided a month or two back to take part the Polaroid 10k race series here in Scotland. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the series, and as the 10k has been a distance I’ve sometimes struggled with (compared to 5k and half marathon’s, my times are a bit below where they “should” be according to time predictors), it seemed like a great opportunity to try attacking my PB.
As there are four events in the series, I decided the first event was really more of a “see where I am” event. The Helensburgh course is also a bit hillier than the 2nd and 3rd events, so if I was going to dent my PB, a bit of patience was in order. My training over the last couple of months has been pretty well focused on the 10k events. A good few sharp sessions pushing my pace and making me feel comfortable. Fellow Glasgow parkrun race director Alan and I have met up on a few occasions now and sneaked in some decent sessions during the week, which complimented my running club sessions nicely. Throw in some good mileage, and I’ve been feeling pretty good about where I am.
So after collecting the chip for timing, lined up at the start, finding a spot at the back of a group of runners from my running club. Didn’t want to set off too fast, and thought keeping pace with them would work nicely. After the start, I was feeling very comfortable. Unfortunately I’d made the mistake of trying out a new setting on my race watch (Garmin 304), and that setting involved it beeping at me if I was under/over pace. Not bad when I’m out training on my own, but beeping watches annoy me in races. So I faffed about and managed to switch off the mode I was using (Virtual partner, if you’re interested), but in doing so noticed it inserted an extra ‘lap’ and also paused things, which threw things out a bit until I restarted it. Consequently my record of the run is a bit messed up, and it’s hard to be precise about km markers.
The course had been adjusted from usual, due to some gas works, and I understand it was a tiny bit hillier than normal. But the hill training I’ve done meant it was easy to keep my effort constant and make good progress in the slightly hillier first half. My pace in the first few km seems to have been around 4:25-4:30 mark (I’d been thinking of something closer to 4:20). But I enjoyed the wide, largely straight roads which gave great targets to head for and a nice bit of consistency, and room to pass runners.
After about 4k I realised my pace was a fair bit slower than I’d been after, so decided to pick things up somewhat. I’d long since past most of the group I’d set off with, so began creating targets, goals, picking off runners and reeling them in. I hit 5k at around 22m42s minutes (hard to tell exactly given my watch laps were out; basing this on Ascent calculated splits), and started to think a negative split was very much on the cards. The second half felt a bit flatter than the first half, so that helped too. Best of all though I felt like I was doing almost all of the passing. Perhaps a couple of people passed me, but if they did, they didn’t get far away. My average pace was falling nicely, and my last couple of km were safely in target 4:15-4:20 range. Broken out by my GPS software, it seems my mile splits were 07:17, 07:20, 07:14, 07:13, 07:09, 06:46 and an average of 06:25 for the last .2 miles. Tasty.
The only negative from the run was through a silly mistake I made as I neared the end. I’d got it in my head the finish was around a particular corner. When I rounded it, I was dismayed to see another 300-400m ahead of me before the corner! I did the right things though: dug deep, kept at it, didn’t lose focus (picked off a couple more runners) – and crossed the line in 44:07, which is a new PB by 20s from my previous best last year, and a negative split. 1st 5k at around 22:42, and 2nd 5k in around 21:25 (give or take a few seconds). I felt in fine form too. Tired from the last km push, but not overly exhausted.
Besides the negative split, I’m feeling quite pleased at getting my race strategy – bar the precise pace – pretty much spot on (a rare occurrence in my experience). Didn’t really feel like I put in my maximum effort, and certainly don’t really feel any adverse affects today. Plenty more in the tank (good job too, I’m running Strathclyde parkrun for the first time!). So the goal for the next event in the series next Thursday is to pick up the pace more to get my time down into the 43 minute range. Aiming for 4:17’s or so in the first half, and then see if I can pick it up any more in the second half.
All in all, a great event, and a superb way to spend a lovely evening. Some spectacular views over the Clyde, some great support out on the course, and a challenging route, and absolutely excellent organisation: Easily one of the best organised paid events I’ve taken part in.
My apologies for the continued lack of posts. When I’m not working, out running, doing Glasgow parkrun related things, or helping out with parkrun HQ techie things, I’m either cooking or trying to spend a bit of time with Frances.
I’ve also had a bit of a strain in my left foot the last couple of weeks. I suspect a too-tight shoelace a while back, and a slightly odd profile to my feet (oh the things you learn reading this), have bruised or strained something. So I’m doing the sensible thing and resting: Just a few easy paced runs. Think that’s done the job so hope to be back to normal soon and, most importantly, back to some speed training. A shame, as things were really starting to come together for a 5k or 10k PB challenge. Ah well.
Anyway, Frances had an early start on Sunday for work (which sadly lasted most of the day), so I grabbed the opportunity to go ‘give back’ a little and support a couple of friends, the many Bellahouston Road Runners, and plenty of parkrunners I recognised, who were running in the Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon. I’d run this myself last year (1:40:57) as build up to my London Marathon, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I do hope to run it again next year.
We then nipped down to Alexandria to support the runners after a few miles, before heading to The Hill (via the BP garage for a nice cup of coffee). I remember I got a lot of support from Brendan and Nick last year at this spot, as it’s the last notable incline before the descent into Clydebank.
I’d hoped to get to the finish, but managed to get into a bit of a fiddle trying to park up, so all the people I’d been hoping to support across the line had already finished by the time I got there. Everybody seemed to have a good run, and a few PB’s along the way. I think the Bella ladies got three of the top four positions, which is great. A great effort at the front of the gents event too, with a new-comer to the half marathon distance storming away.
But anybody completing the half marathon distance deserves congratulations. It’s a great distance in itself, but also great marathon preparation. Looking forward myself to trying to do a few more half marathons this year.
This morning, I was umm-ing and ahh-ing about bothering to go watch the demolition of some high(ish)-rise flats just around the corner from me. I had a grand prix to watch, a few techie things to do, and coffee just brewed. But figured I’d never actually seen something blown up, so popped around the corner and found a good vantage point to watch the demolition of two blocks of flats in Shawbridge, Pollokshaws, Glasgow.
Of course, I hadn’t recharged my iPhone, so was worried throughout it was about to run out of juice, but it just managed to hang on long enough to record it. Hopefully embedded below:
All very impressive – quite a satisfying set of explosions, and the vibrations set off a good few alarms. Unfortunately the wind direction meant the debris cloud came straight towards us, so made a quick exit. They’ve been stripping the flats down for nearly a year, so I’m pretty hopeful they got rid of the asbestos, but goodness knows it didn’t look like the sort of stuff I wanted to hang about in.
There’s also something quite poignant about watching flats collapse. After all, these were homes for many people over many years, so I couldn’t help but ponder how many people around me were watching the place of so many memories, disappear into dust and debris. The stair or flat shaft in the second building to go seemed to hang on for just a little longer, almost reflecting the reluctance that some may have been feeling.
Nonetheless, impressive stuff, and back to watch the Belgian Grand Prix (one of my favourite races of the calendar), drink coffee, and eat chocolate, whilst Frances is away for the day on the Waverley. Can’t quite understand the appeal of spending 7 hours (down from the planned 10-12 hours) on a boat. Nice for an evening cruse with jazz.
I’ve a love/hate relationship with bank holidays in Scotland.
Simply put, they’re just a bit different from England: An extra one on the 2nd January is well known. There’s also something different with the August bank holiday. It’s at the start of August, not the end. There was some half-baked November holiday for St Andrews day, that nobody observes. There’s a full list on wikipedia if you’re interested.
So far so good.
There are also a few more regional holidays up here than I ever observed in England. At times Scotland feels more like Germany, which has plenty of regional public holidays (as well as fascinating customs, in Dusseldorf, of “Möhnen” (generally any female old enough to hold a pair of scissors, brazenly cutting of mens’ ties during Carnival). I’d written a few years back about Glasgow fair, early in July.
The thing is, absolutely nobody I know really observes the Scottish ones, other than public sector employees. Ironic given banks weren’t public sector, at least until recently. There’s that little quirk corrected at least.
The private sector largely has to respond to economic demand, and national companies have to have standards – it’d be mad to disregard orders because of a local holiday most people don’t observe, or have one entire office shutting down when the rest of the company is open. Certainly almost all of my clients are based down south, and I can’t really down tools on a bank holiday, when they’re expecting me to work. One of my clients, an international company, has gone a step further to add bank holidays to staffs holiday allowance, so people have flexibility.
I suppose with a nationalist government up here, it’s highly unlikely we’ll see any standardisation of holidays across the UK. Perhaps there is something nice about having a day off when lots of people are working. Perhaps the idea of national holidays is just altogether antiquated, and we should all just get on with our lives and stop worrying. Or don’t we have enough of them right now?
Anyway, this Monday is the English August Bank Holiday, and it’s a day off that neither Frances or I had realised was coming up, so it’s a bit of a treat. So right now, I’m liking Bank Holidays.
I spent this morning up in Balloch, supporting the hundreds of runners in the Vale of Leven 10k, the last race of the 2009 Polaroid 10k series. I’d have been running myself if I’d got my finger out and entered in time, but figured it’s just as important to do a spot of supporting on occasion to make up for all the cheers I’ve received when running myself! I took my camera along and snapped away quite furiously, and think I managed to capture a picture of almost everybody taking part in the process. My pictures are available on flickr here.
I had a great spot in the first 1k where the leaders were already edging ahead, and snapped most people as they want past, even chucking some money in Tommy’s collection bucket, before jogging to the 4k mark where the runners emerged out from their loop of the Balloch Castle park. After snapping most people there, I then headed back to the finish area to catch most of the finishers. I’d missed the winners, but my excuse is I’d foolishly not put on running shoes or gear, so was plodding along in jeans and heavy shoes. Not the best. Ah well. Didn’t do too badly.
It was wonderful to see so many participants, not only from my own running club, but so many from Glasgow parkrun too. My only difficulty is remembering names! So my apologies if I just cheered something generic. So many people seem to know my name as a result of giving the pre-race briefing to the 1200+ runners who’ve now taken part, I only know a fraction of your names. But great efforts from everybody taking part. It was a warm and sunny day, so looked like it was tough going in the second half of the course, where shade was in short supply!
Regarding the pics: As I say on the notes, please get in touch if you’d like higher resolution pictures, or if you’d like to use the pictures at all.
This morning I was up early (it’s starting to get a bit of a bad habit; Who’d have thought it a couple of years ago!) to help with the marshalling for the Ignis Asset Management Women’s 10k. Not a huge amount to do other than point a few runners in the right direction, and hold a rope to keep the pulses separate, but a useful job that the organisers keep asking my running club back to help with.
After watching the runners set off – all 12,000 of them – I headed out around the course to cheer on fellow club runners who were taking part, as many of the parkrunners as I could recognise, and take a few snaps. You can see all my pictures here on flickr. I’m glad the rain held off for most of the event – only coming on hard after a couple of hours, but still plenty of women out on the course, it can’t have been pleasant. But a great effort by all concerned.
I gather it may have even been a new course record from the winner (not seen that confirmed yet, just rumour). Plus I gather an age-graded world record holder was out on the course too. Excellent stuff throughout the field, from the first across the line to the last.
Yesterday I also rediscovered my photography passion, and popped along to watch the rain-soaked Dick Wedlock 10k, and invitational 10k for international firefighters.
Firstly, very best wishes for a recovery to Shannon, who I understand collapsed during the race, and was airlifted to hospital as a precautionary measure. Look forward to seeing you at a run again very soon.
Last year I ran this race, and set a new 10k PB of 45:01 and came away thinking what a great race it was. It was a bit narrow in places, and the slightly icy conditions we’d had made it a bit perilous, but all in all it was a great run. This year, despite setting a new PB of 44:21, I’m feeling a bit disappointed.
Conditions didn’t help. Whilst the conditions had been great at the earlier Glasgow parkrun, the wind had picked up a bit, and the canal course was much muddier than last year. A much larger turnout too (347 participants, compared to 262 last year) meant a lot more passing, and my poor start positioning (I almost always start too far back) meant I had to do quite a lot more, and got held up a fair bit.
My splits tell the story: 4.21, 4.36, 4.22, 4.24, 4.29, 4.34, 4.36, 4.28, 4.36, 4.03. Whilst my Garmin got the course distance correct, I wondered along the way if the km markers were perhaps a bit squiffy. But from my own experience with the parkrun, Garmin’s are a bit of a nightmare for race organisers: So many experts are created with these GPS devices, and they’re usually wrong.
I’d been aiming for times consistently under 4.25 to get close to a 43 minute time. After setting off and winding through the housing estate, the 1km marker was a short distance along the canal. At this point I really realised my poor start position choice, as I was stuck behind a few slower runners that took me a while to get past. Too many trees, and the narrow canal path. I managed to squeeze past, and past a few others at the first turn when we crossed the canal. I settled in and set a good couple of splits, passing fellow Bella Iain, and setting my targets on Norman, who’s always been a great pacer. I decided to just hang on and see how I felt. Eventually I managed to edge pass Norman around the 6k split, but my timing wasn’t good, as we rounded a corner into a stiff and cold headwind, and started the gradual incline up for the second canal crossing. My splits between 5k and 8k are much worse than I’d wanted, and the stiff headwind and incline took their toll. Norman eased back past me between 7k and 8k, and it was all I could do to hang on.
The 8-9 km section was tough. The canal path gets a bit more uneven, and I found myself in a pack of runners. There wasn’t too much hope of finding enough in me to get past, but we all managed to keep each other going, although Norman was easing further away. Whilst I somehow managed to find a bit more in my legs in the last 1k, it wasn’t enough to catch him. Norman finished in 44.12, and I managed 44.21.
As fellow club runner Andy commented afterwards, “A PB’s still a PB”, and I certainly take some delight from reducing my 10k PB from last years 45.01, I’d taken a full minute off my Nigel Barge time last year. This year I managed to take only 15s off the time. But if I’m searching for excuses for not getting a 43 minute time, the larger competitive field, and less than ideal conditions, combined with my poor start position, are probably the answer. As well as finding my 10k times don’t quite fit with what I’d expect from my half marathon and 5k times.
This will probably be my last 10k until after I’ve finished the London Marathon. I’m taking some succour from fellow club runner Ewan’s comments that after finishing the Florence marathon last year, he’s found a new burst of speed in his legs. The marathon training improved his endurance, and it’s precisely endurance I struggle with, at the brisker 10k pace.
So, despite a new PB, I’m still feeling a little bit disappointed it wasn’t faster. But there’s a definite challenge for my post-London running, and that’s no bad thing
I was in a meeting recently regarding the forthcoming Glasgow parkrun, and one of the Pollok park representatives asked if I’d support the effort by Friends of Linn park to bring a pebble beach picnic area and improved pathways to the park.
I love Linn park – it’s Glasgow’s second biggest park, after Pollok, and absolutely delightful. It’s also one of it’s least well known. When I ran through there recently with some fellow runners, many commented that they’d never been to the park, and it boasts a few beautiful outlooks over the Cart. More about the park at the councils website.
The effort by the Friends of Linn park is competing with another project to win funding from the Big Lottery People’s millions, so needs people to phone up and support it. Lines open on Monday 24th from 9am, to midnight. Details on STV Scotland Today on the 24th, and via biglotteryfund.org.uk/peoplesmillions. There’s also more on the Linn park website.
I’m delighted to finally be able to announce the launch date of the Glasgow parkrun: A free, weekly timed 5k around Pollok Park. This joins the 10 other parkrun events that take place around the UK, and is the first parkrun event in Scotland.
The provisional start date we’ve agreed with Pollok park management is Saturday, 6th December at 9.30am, outside the Burrell museum. The all important sociable coffee and chat follows in the Burrell cafe. The parkrun occurs every week at the same time. Plenty more at:
If you want to take part in this, or any of the other parkrun events, you just need to register with parkrun before your first event: http://register.parkrun.com/ - It’s a one-off process. No need to repeat each week.
parkrun’s are run entirely by volunteers, so please get in touch if you’d like to help. You might be racing later in the day, want to give something back to the running community, or be recovering from injury and want to stay in touch with running friends.
We’re particularly keen to get names down for the first few weeks as the event establishes itself. See the Volunteer tab, drop me an e-mail, post a comment, or speak to me in person.
We’ve a bit of a dilemma over our central heating. The boiler we have is around 30 years old, so clearly a classic example of the sort of boiler that we’re being encouraged to upgrade to newer, more efficient condensing boiler systems. If we also moved to a “combi” boiler we’d lose the hot water tank (we don’t make much use of it, on the whole, as we have an electric shower), and – I’m told – automatically save about 25% or so on our gas bills.
The complication comes in the fact that our boiler is outside the house, so we have no gas coming in to the house. I’m a big fan of induction hobs, so have no desire to return to gas hobs, so don’t really want to bring gas inside if we can avoid it. Why in the house? Well it turns out that modern boilers are designed to be inside. They’ve complicated parts, and consist of copper and complex electronics. They just can’t live outside without proper protection.
In comparison, we’ve currently got something a solid-workhorse of a boiler: It lives in a simple walled structure (single bricks) with a basic roof and door with some basic insulation. It just about withstood the gales/storms last week. It’s got (I understand) a cast iron core, so can withstand the temperature and humidity variance that comes with being outside in the boiler house. It’s also very uncomplicated. It heats water, has an outlet flue, and the only electronics are the ignition system and the pump. Hardly complicated. But because of the solid cast structure, it takes a fair bit more energy to get up and running in the mornings.
We could put the replacement boiler in a cupboard in a spare room (where the hot water tank is). It’s perfectly safe. The only place you can’t put a boiler is, I’m told, a bathroom. But personally I don’t like the idea of a boiler in a bedroom: it’d certainly be something I’d query if I was buying a house. Other locations in our house aren’t possible for a variety of reasons to do with layout, distance from gas meter and so on.
Whilst our boiler did break down recently (turns out the thermocouple needed replacing), I was rather reassured that it’s easy to fix (Although the markup charged for the thermocouple itself was eye-watering). Newer boilers with their electronics strike me as a bit more higher maintenance as they get older. Specialist parts are expensive even at the best of times. And there doesn’t seem to be a market these days for simple, cast-structure boilers that can work outside the house.
So our option, if we’re against getting gas run into the house, is to build-up our boiler house a bit from it’s current form, so a combi-boiler could be installed outside at the appropriate height, and to install a proper door/roof to keep the elements properly out. But after talking to the boiler repair engineer, I’m somehow reassured that our existing boiler, despite its various inefficiencies still has a fair bit of life left in it. A classic example of old and reliable
Perhaps I can assuage my green-guilt with my ‘inefficent’ (but simple and reliable) boiler by keeping the hot water tank and getting solar panels fitted to reduce the need to fire up the boiler for the hot water we rarely need. But then is that practical in sunny Glasgow? Or perhaps we should get rid of the electric shower and use this hot water we’re heating? But I rather like the consistency and power of an electric shower.
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