Falkirk Parkrun #19

Results

Having spent from 9pm yesterday to just after 8am this morning on a conference call I was in 2 minds whether to do this Parkrun or not, no sleep tends to not make for a very good run. However I had bought a harness for Oscar (7.5 stone Doberman, famous amongst cross countrying Westies) and wanted to get him into his first race.

I decided to go for it even although I felt exhausted. I did a warmup lap of the lake with Oscar pulling away eager to get up to a Doberman canter and me trundling along behind. We made our way over to the pre race briefing where I think Oscar was barking taunts at the other dogs that were about to race.

I didn’t really know where to stand for the start so I was about 1 row back from the start when they shouted go. Oscar was a little taken by surprise but settled into a pace as we made our way up to second place, almost wiping out some older runner that seemed to be trying to block us in, a quick hop onto the grass saw us breeze by. As we came into the forest Alastair Hay of Central AC had about a 50m lead. This is where Oscar started coming into his own dragging me through the forest desperate to catch Alastair.

We seemed to be gaining all the way through the forest but after the turn Alastair seemed to be pulling away. Looking back I could see we had a fairly commanding lead over the 3rd placed runner as well (Colin Partridge from Lothian RC again).

As we approached Heartbreak Hill I was thinking this will be great Oscar will drag me up but he spotted some dogs off to the left so decided to mark a few trees on the way up. Once the dogs were out of sight it was full steam ahead to the top for the winding descent out of the forest, Oscar powering ahead all the way. We managed to catch a glimpse of Alastair running along the home straight but he was way out in front leaving Oscar and me to push each other on towards the finish.

1st Alastair Hay – 16:21
2nd Oscar (and John Denovan) – 17:11
3rd Colin Partridge – 17:45

I was really pleased with Oscar’s running although I think he was fairly let down by mine today given the lack of sleep. I’m hoping he doesn’t ditch me for a faster partner as he doesn’t like other people being in the lead in a race (he was very focussed on Alastair all the way through the forest but the dead weight hanging on to his lead prevented him catching up). I reckon we should be aiming for around the 16:30 mark if I manage to get some sleep before the race.