Tom Scott Memorial 10 Mile Road Race - Sunday 10th April

This was my third attempt at this race and decided it would fit in well this year with my marathon training.  Given that this was only my second race in six months due to injury towards the end of 2015 I felt I could be doing with another race under my belt before the marathon.

Most people are probably familiar with the route this race takes. It starts just past the boat house and follows the same route as the Strathclyde Parkrun until the turn in the Parkrun. The Tom Scott race contains around the park until the beach end where it then takes a sharp left and heads up towards the road which goes through the park. This section involves a gradual incline. The road continues around to M&Ds before coming back towards the loch again. From here it is a good straight section along the side of the loch towards the boathouse.  After passing by the boathouse it is then a complete circuit of the loch anti-clockwise to finish outside the boathouse.

I was not sure going into this race of how I would approach it. With London only two weeks away I was not sure whether to run this at race pace or whether to get some faster miles in me.  In the end I went for the faster miles, with my average pace being 7.07 minutes per mile, finishing with a time of 1.10.59. (This will definitely not be my pace for the marathon). This was my best time for this course, having previously run 1.16.00 in 2011 and 1.12.23 in 2013.

I felt this year with a combination of having had a three year absence from this race, running longer distances in training compared to three years ago and good weather on Sunday combined to make it feel as if the miles passed by quickly. In fact the weather was ideal on Sunday with no wind at all and this made for a comfortable run along by the loch.

This race incorporated the Scottish 10 mile and West District 10 mile championships and this helped to attract a good quality field and record turnout.

Overall I have not been able to run as fast as I would like at the moment as I have slowly built the miles back up after injury and lack of racing has also shown that i.e the recent Alloa half marathon. However I was pleased with yesterday's time.

I did not see any other Harriers on the day and I had a quick scan through the the results but could not see any other Harriers having run this race (apologies if I have missed anyone).

Julie