Johnny Hall's Travels and Travails

About 25 folks at my work had entered this race, most of them non-runners, so I thought I'd get in on the action and see if I could improve upon my 2 previous attempts. Unfortunately, my big target for the year was to complete the Long Classics series of Scottish hill races, and the first of those was the day before the 10k. So, I decided to wait until the morning of the race to decide if I was up to it. Luckily (I think), I didn't feel too bad on Sunday morning, so we all drove into Edinburgh and made our way to the play park at the Meadows, where the girls played while I warmed up. I jogged up to the start, saw a few work folks and got myself up to the front, in order to be in front of the masses when we hit the choke point through Prince's Street Gardens. This also meant that I was on TV (hello Mum!) because the race was live on Five and I was right behind the elite men when the race started, and I was wearing my Moorfoots vest which is pretty noticeable. I got off to a quick start to get my legs moving and tried to relax into it. A couple of people from work caught me at the foot of the climb through Holyrood Park, so I settled in behind them. The climb through the park is long and draggy for a road race but compared to a hill race, it's nothing, so I kept up the pace pretty well. The half way mark came at 20:25 for me, which meant that I was running well, if not brilliantly, I just had to make sure not to die a death (like the day before), so I kept it all steady and then concentrated on form through the tricky bits at Cowgate and the Grassmarket, when there was a headwind and a couple of short, sharp rises. Through the Meadows, there were a few people there that knew me, which was nice, including Becky and the girls - I got a nice shout for "Daddy" from Emily, so I kept the pace on and pushed on. The last kilometre was a drag up to Potterrow, with another wee headwind - I didn't feel like pushing the boat out, so I just ran normally through the finish, for a final time of 41:24 and a top 200 finish (out of 7800 starters). Can't complain about that. I was fourth finisher from the work contingent too, out of 24 starters, not too far from the "winner", who went about 30 seconds faster. Not an amazing time, but a PB (I've not run too many 10k races though) and close enough to 40 minutes to help me realise I can get under that barrier if I commit to it. All that, and we were still only at about 11am, so I went back to the play park, met the girls and wandered up to the Commonwealth Pool with Emily on my shoulders so the 4 of us could play at Clambers and have lunch.