Polaroid Vale of Leven 10K

I felt like I had a slight cold on the evening before the race, but I thought there would be enough of a gap before my next race for me to have plenty of time to recover in case taking part made it worse. As usual I was aiming for 3:30 per kilometre. After 2K I was already 10 seconds down, but this was after the hilliest part of the course so I wasn't particularly worried, and over the next few kilometres I only dropped a further 3 or 4 seconds and was still feeling quite comfortable. I was also starting to make up a few places. The hill back up to Balloch seemed a lot gentler than it had a few years ago, and I could still see some runners up ahead who would normally have been out of sight. On the 9K mark I was more or less guaranteed an SB and sub-35:30 also looked possible. I picked it up slightly over the final stretch to finish in 35:27, in 34th place and first from Garscube.

In the afternoon I jogged round Queen Margaret Drive, Byres Road, University Avenue and Kelvingrove Park with Natasha to have a look at the West End Festival. I had attempted earlier to deal with a blister on the ball of my right foot from wearing Nike Mayfly for the race, but I stopped noticing it after a couple of minutes.