Round Arran Relay

I did no running on Thursday or Friday other than jogging a couple of miles round the club 5-mile trail course on Thursday to collect the signs after the race, although I had expected to be able to get a few more easy miles in. For the Round Arran Relay I had initially been assigned North 2 which supposedly contained a killer hill towards the end, so I had run a few hillier routes over the past couple of weeks. There appeared to be a last-minute change of plan but the assignments were finally resolved on the ferry and I was on North 2 after all.

After the bus trip across the island to Pirnmill, we hung around in the sun for a few minutes before being set off. I wore the Asics Hyperspeed 4. I had planned to go out only slightly slower than 10K pace and hope for the best on the hill. The runner from Central headed off at a fast pace and I stayed with a small group for the first half-mile before breaking away, settling on a pace around 5:45/mile which was easy enough on the flat course, despite a crosswind, before it began to undulate around the 4-mile mark. I wore the Garmin to keep an eye on my pace as there were no mile markers, and went through 10K in 36:04, by which time I could already feel some blistering under my toes. The hill started shortly after the distillery on about 7.25 miles and consisted of a rise of about 500 feet in the space of 2.5 miles. My pace dropped immediately as I struggled up the seemingly interminable hill, giving serious consideration to taking a walking break, although it did at least take my mind off the blisters. It felt like the last few miles of a particularly gruelling marathon, and within the last mile I was passed by Matt Williamson, which was far from unexpected. After reaching the summit I began to get my act together and set off in pursuit down the hill, at least until the stage came to a surprisingly early halt at a layby, where I had to hang around without any shade for the best part of an hour until all the other runners had finished and the bus came to pick us up.

The stage turned out to be 10.37 miles which I completed in 1:04:21, average pace 6:12/mile. This compares reasonably well with other performances, as it looks like nobody has ever run it inside an hour. We were second team overall.

Pace splits: 5:37, 5:45, 5:46, 5:52, 5:58, 5:49, 5:57, 6:58, 7:16, 7:17, 5:42