Tour of Clydeside - Day 3 Garscube Gallop

In all the years at Uni I trained around Maryhill Road/Dawsholm Road and in all the years we ran up Dawsholm Road in the University Road Race, I never even knew that Dawsholm Park existed. What a fantastic little park it is; something like the steep and twisty bits of Chatelherault combined with Calderglen. Tonight's race was a 3 lap course of total distance 5km (1 x 1km + 2 x 2km), the shortest race of the series but probably the toughest so far.

The first short lap was relatively open and allowed the field to spread out a little but the start of the second lap was a shock; a couple of sharp, blind downhill bends that almost had me in the trees, then descending further via some stairs before a couple of steep uphill hairpin bends and more stairs leading up to the edge of a steep gorge. Then it was back down to the lowest part of the course before a long steep drag back up to the highest part of the course and round to the end of the lap. One more long lap to go!

Many were there just for this race tonight, including George Stewart who had not raced since Saturday and hence was suffering withdrawal symptoms. Joanne and I continued with the full Tour though. The Garmin confirms that the first lap was fast but at the end of it I was in a bigger than usual pack with the leaders and many first timers. Thankfully the severe climbs of the second lap soon saw the pack reduced to 5 with me sitting in 5th for most of the lap before moving away into 4th on the last lap with series leader Adam Lee out in front chased by two Kilbarchan athletes and Paul Thompson on my shoulder (none of whom were doing the full Tour). The final 100m was a downhill tarmac stretch and I sensibly resisted the temptation to get involved in the 3rd to 6th place sprint and settled for 6th place, saving some energy for the final race tomorrow. I finished in 18:58, consolidating 2nd place in the series. Joanne proved that her strength is her strength and powered ahead of two of the ladies who have beaten her in the first two races to finish in 22:20 and as 2nd lady in the series. We await to see if this has moved Joanne up in the overall standings from her pre-race 4th position. I can see some speed endurance sessions being added to Joanne's training sometime soon!

George squeezed a lot into his 26:52 minutes of action, including twisting his recently injured ankle again, lying down to take the weight off the ankle, walking/hopping, stopping to talk to a marshal for a minute and eventually finishing. Looks like George has to give the rough terrain a miss for a few weeks if that ankle is to recover.

The final race is tomorrow at Cartha Rugby Club, Pollok Park. It is a 10km road race organised by Bellahouston Harriers and entries are being taken on the night with a free BBQ afterwards (weather dependent).

Alan