Dead Runners society race report
Great Scottish Run half-marathon, Glasgow - Sunday 25th August 1996
Sheffield was a good run,
I took my time recovering from the marathon and then trained hard through the
summer in preparation for some racing and dead runners society encounters in the
USA. Just before I crossed the pond I went north of the border to do the same in
Scotland.
Afternoon all
Tony here in Cambridge after a busy weekend.
Saturday morning Shelley and I drove from
Warrington north of the border to
Edinburgh where we stayed with our elite duathlon friend Lorna Rice.
Sunday morning off from Edinburgh to sunny
Glasgow to run the Great Scottish Run
half-marathon. Drove round the city centre a few times trying to find the race car park but we ended up
parking in the street by the river Clyde.
Off to the finish area to get my racing gear on, met up with Glasgow's very own dead runner Davi Thom outside
the changing tent. Shelley, Davi and I
walked and jogged over to the race start. We arrived
about 5 minutes before the start, Davi and I tried to
get to the appropriate starting area for
our race numbers but there were thousands and we ended up a long way behind the start. Met up
with Val Russell just before the gun,
nice to see you again Val.
A huge explosion went off, this was the
starting gun and we didn't move, eventually after 2 minutes of shuffling we crossed the
line, Davi didn't get away from me for
another minute so I can say I ran with Davi in a race for a few mins :-) Shuffled on round the square and
eventually got into a
run of sorts
although it was very crowded, lots of j*ggers in the way. Got to 1 mile in 11 mins by now I was running along at
7.15 pace and weaving my way through the
crowds, didn't feel too enthusiastic about running hard. Ran on at this pace to 5 miles (39.59), fairly
hilly bit of course
through a park, on
exiting this park I had a bit more room to move and I speeded up to 6.45 pace and kept working my way
through. I passed Lorna just before 9
miles, felt pretty tired by now but I was *racing*. 10 miles in 1h13.57, going pretty hard in from then. Tough
going in the park in the
last mile but
the crowd support and the bagpipers and the drummers were very encouraging. Kept going hard to the end and
finished with a lot left in 1h34.17 (my
time, start line to finish line 1h32.08). Pretty tired on finishing, legs a bit sore. Through the finish area
and got a drink and a banana and off to
the changing tent. Got some clean clothes on and waited for Shelley then we joined the huge queue to leave the
finish area and made our way back to the
car.
We eventually found our way to Davi's house
for the fun part of the day, the eurodead
encounter. Paul (PJ) Henney was there, I was planning to run with him and then beat him but he must have got a lot
nearer the front than me at the start and
he ran 1h28. Lorna turned up, no sign of Val or
Howard Glynn though :-( Lots of food and drink and
chatting amongst the eurodeads and
friends and family, Sheila Fairweather and Claire Blair turned up after running a track race in Edinburgh,
nice to meet some more of our elite
eurodeads. Team photos were taken, hopefully some of these
will turn up on Davi's eurodead photo page
eventually.
After a very pleasant afternoon Shelley and I
headed south back to England, I got back
to Warrington at 9.30pm and Shelley had to keep going on to Cambridge after that, she didn't get home until
1.30am :-( Yesterday with a lot of help
from my family I finally moved properly into
our new house in Cambridge, a van full of most of my
possessions from my house in Warrington
was driven by my brother down the M6 and A14, we now have some furniture in the new house.
After a very busy weekend I finished it off with a run on Shelley's new toy, a treadmill which we have in our house. It took a bit of getting used to but I did 3 miles, starting at 8 mins mile and finishing at 7 mins mile, I had to concentrate hard to keep going, there's no easing off on a treadmill. I was absolutely drenched in sweat at the end, in retrospect my new cotton Great Scottish Run shirt was not the best thing to wear on a treadmill. I can't see me doing too many long runs on it but I will use it for speed sessions.
Off again on thursday over the pond for DRSWCIV and California. I found out today I've got 2 trips to France coming up later this year, its all go!
Looking forward to seeing some of you for real later this week, I'll not be on the net for a couple of weeks after today.
bye tony "world traveller" bell
tony bell
ageing chemistry student and
marathoner
department of
chemistry
university of
cambridge
amtb2@cam.ac.uk
previous race report next race report