Knockhill Road Race

Being on holiday this week provided a great opportunity to try out a Thursday night race that would normally be too far away to get to straight from work. This was the 6th year of the Carnegie Harriers 3.9 mile road race held at the Fife motor racing circuit in memory of their former club president.

A more exposed, wind swept, undulating and wet motor racing circuit it is hard to imagine but these were the conditions that greeted the field of 224 runners who turned up to compete over the 3 lap course of the racing circuit on Thursday evening. It's a great change to do a big race where I could only recognise one or two runners in the field, such is the strength of road running in the East.

I lined up on the front row of the grid beside Knockhill's own version of the Stig (complete with white crash helmet, full fireproof suit and driving shoes; he only lasted 100m!). The racing line was nicely rubbered in following the weekend's British Touring Car Championship races but even so I found myself dropped off the back of the first pack of around 20 runners on the initial 200m acceleration towards the first corner. The track them drops incredibly steeply to the right over a further 100m, so steeply that it actually wastes a lot of effort applying the brakes so as not to over rev the (old) engine. However, I did over do it on that first descent trying to get back in the pack and paid for it over the next half of that first lap, making no real progress through the field until reaching the steady, wind assisted climb up the home straight. Several people mentioned to me before the start that the entire lap was up-hill and they were not wrong; that one down hill section was too steep to get any benefit from and the rest of the back section and home straight was up-hill. However, there are so many twists, turns and blind crests on this course and a variety of slopes (all up hill though) that the circuit was not the monotonous, wide stretch of tarmac that I had imagined it would be before the race.

Laps 2 and 3 were much better. With the new racing shoes nicely up to optimum operating temperature and having adjusted the pacing strategy to the revised aerodynamics package (hair cut in the morning), I started to quickly close the gaps and catch the stragglers coming back off the lead pack. In fact no one passed me after that first 200m and I felt quite good (by recent standards anyway) for the remainder of the race. It all could have gone pear shaped on the last lap though. Having just caught a young Glasgow University Hare & Hound on the blind crest of the chicane, he experienced a sudden fluid leakage and I took a wind assisted gob right in the coupon, temporarily impairing my vision. However, I kept it on track, went passed him (he did apologise on the way past) and continued my pursuit of the next pack. At the end I was 14th overall in a time of 21:15. The race was won by Mike Carrol of Perth Strathtay in a course record of 19:07 and the quality of veteran running in the Fife clubs is so high that I wasn't even in with a shout in the vets competition, there being at least one M40 and maybe 2 x M50's in front of me.

For an entry fee of only £4, we were all presented with a Mars bar, a bottle of water and a can of Red Bull on crossing the line (could have done with that before the race maybe). If that wasn't enough, Carnegie's members and friends put on a huge, free buffet of sandwiches, home baking, teas and coffees to more than adequately feed the hundreds of people who waited for the prize giving. Running is still a really great value sport at the grass roots level, so if you get a chance, find a race organised by a little club somewhere and go and support it!

Further photos of the event here and here.