Tour of Clydeside - Day 4 Bella Bellta

Some photos of the Harriers have been added to each of the Tour reports (except Dawsholm Park where the photos were too blurry). Thanks to Kenneth Phillips for taking the photos and forwarding them to Andy Henderson.

Over 100 runners lined up for the final race in the Tour of Clydeside series. The course was the familiar 2 lap loop through and around the perimeter of Pollok Park, run in an anti-clockwise direction (the first time I have raced it this way which I think was slightly easier). The Garmin confirmed that the two lap course with a short offshoot to finish in Cartha Rugby Club's drive was exactly 10k. Amazing! The changing skies on the lead-up to the race suggested that the weather could have gone anyway from humid and sunny to torrential rain but thankfully it just clouded over with a slight cooling breeze developing.

There were many more runners here tonight just doing this one race rather than the series and this required some careful scanning of the field in the first 400m to make sure no series competitors slipped away from me in the lead pack. As it was, series leader Adam Lee had a handful of fresh, young guns to keep him honest which meant that I could observe from a safe distance. Having established a reasonably comfortable 6th position during the first km, I thought this was where I would be happy to finish but between 3 and 4k two of the lead pack slipped back to me and I ran a fairly isolated race from 4k to the finish in 4th position, crumbling a little on the slight incline at 7k but otherwise running a constant pace with a slight acceleration over the last 500m as the scent of the BBQ pulled me towards the finish. My time was 35:52, possibly a 10k pw but then again, the extended 3-race warm-up had a lot to do with that! This gave me a final series position of 2nd overall and more importantly another kick start to my sporadic training.

Joanne proved that she is on the road to good form (if she can also make her training less sporadic) with a fine 4th place in a time of 43:32 also confirming her 4th place in the series. Well done to Joanne. It was the turn of Russell Couper to be the Harrier making a one night only guest appearance on The Tour. Following on from last night's club Auldhouse TT, Russell was satisfied with his 54:30 time and fully intends to do Strathclyde Park parkrun tomorrow, building up some fitness reserves to generously give away on his forthcoming holiday!

A great little race series, impeccably organised by Stewart Irvine, Colin Shields and the host clubs of Kilbarchan AAC, Clydesdale Harriers, Garscube Harriers and Bellahouston Harriers. Hopefully we will see a few more of Calderglen Harriers' regular participants out next year, injuries allowing.