Dunbartonshire XC Championships

The event this year was held in Maryhill Park and we could see from watching the junior races that the course was very heavy. It had also been changed to incorporate a tricky embankment which had caused me severe problems in 2009. I went with spikes as usual, and it was just about cold enough to justify wearing gloves. I thought I might have an outside chance of the Vets' prize so was keeping an eye on potential rivals. I got off to quite a fast start on the firm surface of the track and football pitch and was well up the field early on, even moving briefly into second for Garscube despite a muddy stretch in the park proper. I thought at this point I might have been first Vet but as the conditions began to take their toll I slowed down, ending up running with a pack of team-mates at the start of the second lap. John dropped out after the difficult section which I thought made me the leading Vet again, but he got moving again and overtook me on a treacherous downhill, before pulling out later on.

While trudging through the mud later on the second lap, and falling behind my team-mates, I was overtaken by a Vet who ran beside the path on the other side of some trees which I thought marked the edge of the course. This allowed him to pull so far ahead that I contemplated dropping out, not being a counter for our team by this point, and eventually decided just to treat the rest of the race as an exceptionally difficult training run, getting continually harder as the ground got chewed up. On the third lap I was overtaken by another Vet who ran very wide beside the hedge to avoid the heaviest ground, again stretching the definition of the course as I understood it, although I did run beside the path myself later on, as most participants were doing by that point. I ended up finishing 15th overall, 7th for Garscube and in the 4th-placed team. The Vets' prize was won by a runner I hadn't recognised so I was in fact 4th Vet rather than 3rd. Finishing time was 41:29 for 5.90 miles, average pace 7:02/mile. Only 4 runners finished inside 40 minutes.

Pace splits: 6:17, 6:42, 7:12, 7:04, 7:39, 7:17