George Cummings relay

I did a lot of IT band stretching on Friday in the hope that I would be OK to run on Saturday. Woke up with a mild pain on the outside of my left knee which I took as a positive sign, although I didn't bother with a warm-up before the race in case I was only able to run once. I had plotted the route on gmap-pedometer and memorised all the kilometre points (unmarked on race day) to help me judge my pace better, and being on the first leg also helped as I tried to let the faster runners drag me around. I was aiming for a 3:15/K average pace, although with the first couple of kilometres being almost entirely downhill I tried to make up some time early on and went through 1K in 3:05, then 2K in about 6:15, which means I must have run the first mile in 5 minutes flat. By 2K we were part of the way into our first climb, and I became involved in a battle with a runner from Pitreavie, who would go past me on the flats and the downhills, while I moved ahead on the uphills. My pace suffered a bit in the second half of the race although I picked up a couple of places. On the last long uphill stretch into Houston I built up an unassailable lead over the Pitreavie runner, and also moved up a couple more places, albeit temporarily. In the final 150m or so I picked it up in order to hold my position, finishing 13th in 14:20. This was 16 seconds up on last year and my fastest leg since 2003. Our team finished 10th overall.