Dreich Night in Irvine

Irvine Marymass 10k, 19th August 2009

For those of you who didn't slit your wrists on reading the title, here's a summary of Westies activity on a grey night in a grey town.

Apart from your correspondent who was visiting the town of his birth to get some overdue race practice after 2 weeks with a dodgy stomach (I swear it wasn't a result of Manny's party!), the only other Westies present were Mr and Mrs Race Addict, neither wearing club colours [1].

The course is pretty flat, with a footpath rising very gently to the midway turn before a parallel road leads back to the harbourside finish. This helps to produce fast times (although nothing as snaketacular as last year) even on a very wet day.

Chris lead the way once again, using his famed diplomatic skills to avoid conflict with an elbow-happy GUHH runner who later watched the big W finish well ahead of him in 35 mins-something, which may well be a season's best for our evergreen Captain. Next came your humble scribe, taking over 2 mins off my Kirkie 10k time from June and 1 min 45 off my PB with 37:26. This was partly fuelled by my mistaken impression that I was at last going to beat Claire Thompson from BRR, when in fact it was some other random TurboChick who was even faster than Claire! Upshot was that after getting caught following my standard stitch at 8k, I beasted myself to beat someone well above the level I expected. Ellie was suffering a lot of leg pain and didn't manage her usual 2nd place, but must have recorded an excellent time anyway at around 40 mins after a late tussle with Erica Christie of Bella Harriers. Thanks to a good shout from Chris at 9.5k, it was clear that Erica had been pipped by Ellie as she arrived at the line with a good gap behind her.

Perhaps Chris can supply more info on times and winners, and we'll try to get a link to the results when we can.

The weather was horrendous on the way home, so I hope the Captain and Captainess got home safely, and the same goes for anyone who chose the club run on the Kilpatricks in this weather.

[1] - I got a friendly shout from a marshall when he saw the Mighty W on my vest. I had an inward chuckle to myself at this, as I lacked the spare breath for an outward one.

Posted by Johnston Orr on Wed 19 Aug 2009 | 10 comments

Category road race