This year's City of Aberdeen Baker Hughes 10k kicked off at the somewhat uncivilised hour of 9.30 on a Sunday morning (23rd May, to be precise, or, to put it another way, yesterday). Since daughter kindly woke me by bellowing in my ear at 7, the time was not a major problem. What might have been a problem was the weather, as the day before had been blazingly hot (sounds unlikely in Aberdeen, I know) and my last attempt at a run, on the Thursday before the race, had to be cut short due to me melting into a puddle after the first couple of miles. Cold weather I can cope with; I have yet to get to grips with heat. Still, it's rarely a major problem round here.
Luckily, Sunday morning was distinctly on the cool and cloudy side. It even started raining at one point, luckily while I was in the Portaloo. Yay! Actually the weather was pretty much ideal for running, so I quickly realised that I unfortunately wasn't going to be able to use the heat as an excuse as I had planned.
Baker Hughes, as it's universally known in honour of the main sponsor, which, like most things in Aberdeen is something to do with oil (don't ask me precisely what), is a fairly big event, attracting over 3,000 runners this year. The route is pretty flat, including two miles along the beachfront as well as a fair amount of uninspiring warehouses, flats, a stretch up King Street (with traffic coming past in the opposite direction, doubtless thinking "look at this lot of idiots causing delays to our important Sunday morning business") and a nice view of the football stadium. So, it's a fast course, for people who are fast, which obviously does not include me.
At 9.10 the runners gathered, shivering occasionally, on the esplanade according to predicted finishing time, with me somewhat optimistically positioning myself in the 56-60 min section (well, the one behind it was 61-75 mins and the one behind that 75+). Kick-off was five minutes late, leaving quite a bit of time to stand around shuffling one's feet, checking the attachment of one's timing chip, pressing random buttons on one's Garmin and craning one's neck in the (unsuccessful) hope of catching a glimpse of any familiar faces. Also had to frequently avert my eyes from the couple directly in front of me who clearly thought this an ideal location for a passionate interlude. I suppose it's one way of passing the time. Also noticed a number of people surreptitiously inserting earphones despite the iPod ban and wondered why I'm so law-abiding.
Got off to a slow start after finally making it to the start line 2 minutes after the gun went off, through the big blue inflatable arch thing and sharp left on Links Road. As ever, I was overtaken in the first few minutes by loads of people, some of whom I was subsequently rather surprised to see walking even before the first kilometre marker... Although I can sympathise, because I always want to walk in races. I don't know why. I can run longer distances in training without even thinking about walking, but it's like some mad psychological thing where I see other people walking and I immediately feel tireder than I really am and want to do it too. (Strangely, seeing other people running faster than me does not have a similar effect.) I managed to resist the temptation to walk by telling myself to HTFU and reminding myself that two people on Fetch had inexplicably bet on me (not proper money, but still) to break the hour.
Sadly, it was apparent from early on that my dream of sub-60 mins probably wasn't going to come true this time, as I finished the first kilometre in 6.18, the second in 6.08 and the third in 6.11 and never actually got below 6 minutes until the 9th kilometre, which I managed in a super-speedy 5.52. It's stupid, because I know I can do it, but this whole "you run faster in races" business doesn't seem to work for me. More mad psychological stuff. Perhaps I need a shrink? Or, more likely, I'm just really crap at running.
I did manage a mega sprint over the last 150m or so once the finishing line was in sight, and overtook about a dozen people, which was satisfying, even though I thought I was about to drop dead as soon as I'd done it. I think I just wanted to get there as quick as possible. Even got some cheers from the spectators (there were spectators! quite a lot of them!) for that lung-busting final blast. Shame I couldn't just have gone a bit quicker all the way round and I might have managed a better time than the eventual 1:01:09. Still a PB, though, and maybe next time.....
Collected my medal, which I promptly lost (dammit!) and hung around on the sidelines for a bit watching really knackered-looking people finishing. The last finisher, according to the official results, had a time of 1:52:oo - the first man did it in 32:00, and the first woman in 35:05. I came 2,261st out of 3,044.
Right, can anyone tell me why I can't get this Garmin Connect info to work on my blog? It comes up initially when I paste in the link, is there on the preview, but then immediately disappears as soon as I hit Publish, to be replaced by a really pointless big rectangle, as above.
Anyway, moving on, I'm kinda looking forward to Juneathon, though whether I will manage to run, or indeed do any other kind of exercise, EVERY SINGLE DAY for a WHOLE MONTH seems dubious. It's not through lack of motivation. Well, it is, a bit. But lack of time/opportunity to get out for a run is the real killer. I'm going to try, though, if only to be in with a chance of winning some really weird footwear.
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