On Saturday the 14th May three Maryhill Harriers, armed with barcodes and inspired by the exploits of Captain Curran and the Shuffler, turned out among a field of 400 runners for the Glasgow Pollok Parkrun. And this was the first time any of us had run this race or any of the Parkrun 5k’s for that matter.
We arrived in plenty of time and Caroline got chatting to a runner she knew named Katy, from Bellahouston Harriers. Katy then kindly offered to show us the route and so we set off for a warm up lap. I think all three of us were pleasantly surprised that despite rumours of “everest-like” climbs the route wasn’t too bad, and if anything made the Nigel Barge look like a mountain marathon. That said, running what feels like an incline during a warm-up is very different from running that same gradient at 5k pace. But whatever happened, we unanimously decided the hills would not be used as an excuse.
We returned to the start, listened to the pre-race instructions, and then gathered in the starting funnel. At this stage, it’s worth noting that Caroline and I were running our first race of 2011 – shocking, I know – so weren’t exactly sure how we’d get on. Hence we didn’t really push to the front, and as first timers at this event, gave most of the runners around us the benefit of the doubt. The start of the race was sounded and immediately I felt boxed in running at a pace that was definitely too slow for 5k (bearing in mind that I normally start my 5k’s at 100m pace), so I did the same thing any runner would do under the circumstances, I jumped off the road onto the grass verge. Half a kilometre into the race, I realised Caroline had done exactly the same thing as she drew up alongside me. We must have passed about 50 runners and had found a bit of running space. I was feeling comfortable so thought I would settle here for a bit, worried I would exhaust myself too early, but Caroline pushed on passing other runners and after dropping back 5m or so, I let myself get dragged along with her. As we approached the end of the first lap we hit the first part of the two-hill combo, and I was still feeling quite good. There were plenty of guys ahead but I could only see two women in front so pushed on to try and reel them in, thinking Caroline was right behind me. Unbeknown to me, Caroline had settled into her pace and had let me go (may have started too fast and now wanted an ambulance).
I managed to pass the closest of the two females, but the other was getting further away, so I latched onto an older male runner and just tried to stay on his tale. Approaching the two hill combo for the second time, I was still on the tale of that runner and we were just on the back of a group of four other runners. Half of me wanted to just coast home but I decided that in my mind the race would start again from here – I was sitting 6th (in this group) and I wanted to finish somewhere in this top 6. I used the first hill to get past three of the runners, and summitted the second hill having past another of the group but feeling like I was about to be sick. Only one runner remained, and I felt quite happy to follow him to the finish. But as we passed the 200m to go sign and started the downhill to the finish my testosterone got the better of me – I began sprinting with everything I had. I managed to pass the final runner in my imaginary group and my momentum took me past another in the process just before crossing the line. I held it together in the finish funnel, managed to stay upright to collect my token, but then immediately collapsed onto my knees at the side to bring up the remainder of some crunchy nut cornflakes and milk that I had for breakfast earlier that day. The runners behind me got to watch, and probably felt quite smug that they didn’t feel that bad (at least I would have in their shoes). Is a victory still a victory if you have to be sick for it?
Caroline finished only moments later as 3rd female (21:20), but thankfully by that time I had made myself look respectable. We moved down the path and joined the queue to show our barcodes and hand in our tokens, where Chris promptly joined us (after finishing in 24:06). Thanks to all the volunteers that make Parkrun possible. We all thought it was a great event, and were happy with our times despite none of us feeling especially great that morning – Caroline was feeling the affects of a bad case of pine pitch canker, Chris was feeling like he might have been coming down with dutch elm disease, and I had been to the doctors earlier in the week with blue stain fungus and a bad case of butt rot.
38th Stephen Jones 20:23 37th male
61st Caroline Jones 21:20 3rd female
128th Chris Hever 24:06 116th male
Let it never be said that the length of race report should be in any way correlated to the length of the race being reported
