One For The Ladies

February 9th 2019 and Arbroath is playing at home to Stranraer. Around 10 minutes in and the keeper takes a goal kick.  He boots it up the park only for the wind to catch the ball and blow it back and out for a corner kick.  This was a sign of things to come on March 3rd 2019...

The Arbroath Smokies 10 miler (ladies only race) was a race I had my eye on for a number of years and with not having a spring marathon this year I thought it would be the perfect time to give it a go.  The corresponding weekend last year had seen the race postponed due to the Beast from the East. No snow this year but gale force winds instead.

The route felt like a run around Auldhouse with a few farm houses here and there and a primary school out on its own (but no sign of a pub!).

The race started on a main road and continued into a residential area, still running on the road.  The next mile or two resembled Leaburn Road in Auldhouse (an up and down road and you can see for miles ahead!).  As soon as we had turned about half a mile into the race the wind was hitting us...hard.  The first five miles were hilly and with the wind hitting us it made for a brutal run.  Joanne who was also running the race ageeed in that at times you could hardly get up any pace as the the exposed countryside meant there was no shelter from the wind.

After about 2 miles you come to a village called Arbirlot and from here you do roughly a five mile loop around this area.   Miles 2-3 were hilly.   Miles 3-4 were a bit flatter but still had the wind battering you. I probably felt by this stage that I had put a lot of energy into the race already between the hills and the wind and I just could not get into a comfortable rhythm on the flat sections.  I had also been running on my own from about 2.5 miles and this was not helping either.

It was only when we got to the second water station at mile 5 that the race turned, wind dropped and the wind was also behind me.  If anyone was to look at my Garmin splits you would see that kilometres 9,10 and 11 were much faster now that I had the wind behind me and I was also on a downhill section (I sometimes like to run some of my mile races in kilometres for the split times - don’t ask me why as I do most of my training in miles).

At about 7.5 miles I came back into Arbirlot and there was a steady climb back out before having roughly a 2 mile run back to the sports centre.  The wind had certainly calmed down on this stretch since I had run on it earlier on the way out but I was heavy legged from the first half of the race.

I finished in a time of 1:13:45 - 8th overall.  I knew I would not be as quick as Brampton as the Brampton course is no way near as hilly and the field is bigger at the front so less chance of you running on your own.  However I was disappointed with how it went and I feel if 2018 was dominated by hot races then 2019 looks like being dominated by windy races (having done the windy Strathaven half marathon two weeks before).  Joanne had also joined me up at Arbroath and she finished in a time of 1:15:23 - 13th overall.

With this being a women only race the race t-shirts were sized for women (and not generic small, medium and large) and while I have received the odd bottle or two of beer after a race this race had a small bottle of wine in your bag at the end.  The spread that Arbroath Footers put on afterwards was brilliant - sandwiches, sausage rolls and cakes - all from a local bakers (I think that is what I look for in a race now - not worth doing it if there is not a good spread afterwards!)

I did finish off my day with a lovely dinner in Arbroath and a local gin down by the sea front.  Thanks to George and my mum & dad for the support on the day.

Julie