SVHC TRACK 10K RACE

Sunday saw the start of the Masters Annual race series.
Three Harriers went along to Coatbridge to get dizzy doing 25 laps of the track.
On arriving it was clear to Frances, Stuart and Russell this was going to be testing conditions with a blustery wind and a lot of leaves on a wet track. On doing a couple of warm up laps you could feel the grip wasn't there although the more runners that went round you could see lane 1 was getting cleared up. As you hit the final bend on the lap the wind would hit you to make the final straight hard work and in this type of event you know your going to get this every 400 metres. To start time and off we went. I had to pace this right as this was my first 10k in exactly a year (same event last year).
I set a target of 1hr as I had gone over this by quite a margin last year. First lap and everyone settles in to a long string with 30 runners on the track and it wasn't long, lap 3 I think before the leaders passed me for the first of many times. Stuart passed me for the first time I think on lap 5 with Frances a lap later. Frances doing this as another training run for her upcoming marathon was coasting. As the laps count down you just have to try to ignore your going round in circles and it becomes as much a mental challenge as a running one. I did find I had a proper race at this as one of the competitors was behind me by about 100mtr by half way but in the 3rd quarter of the race had closed to 20mtr. Had to dig deep and ran the last 6 laps averaging 10 - 15secs faster per lap than the previous 6 laps.
Stuart was first Harrier in a time of 42.37 and continuing to get in to good shape. Frances ran 45.21 with Russell finishing in 59.03 over 5 mins faster than last year. Its a slow road back but its going in the right direction. We have a lot of Veterans in the Harriers and many more of you should consider joining the SVHC too as they have a lot of veteran only events throughout the year.