Jack Crawford Springburn Cup 10k Race

On Sunday 10th March we had 4 harriers racing at the Jack Crawford Springburn Cup 10k race – Alison Lessells, Kevin McPhilips and his daughters Rachel and Lauren.

I had entered this race about half an hour before entries closed on the Thursday as had decided if I wanted to run a decent 10k time this year it would be good to get a race in early on and give a marker to beat for the rest of the season.

The race started at 9am, in the housing estate across the road from the Leisuredrome in Bishopbriggs where the course goes through the residential area for about a mile or so with a few short sharp hills thrown in before it drops down to the canal and goes out to a turning point round some cones just past the 5k mark and then comes back along the canal finishing just before the bridge near the sport centre.

It was pretty windy on Sunday morning so the good thing about going through the housing estate first was that you were more sheltered from the wind than you were on the canal as it was a headwind for the first 5k and then we had the wind behind us for the way back.

I was aiming to try and run 4:30kms for as long as I could to get close to the 45 minute mark. There were a few kms in the first half above this pace due to the headwind but I realised when I got to about 7k that I was on target to get close to 45 minutes as long as I could keep under 4:30 pace. I got to the finish and was delighted to beat my target time of 45:00 with 44:46. Kevin McPhilips also had a strong race finishing in 45:49 and was also happy with his time but thought he could have went out a bit faster at the start to get closer to 45 minutes. Rachel was next harrier in and had been targeting breaking 50 minutes so was delighted with her new PB of 49:31. Rachel was also first U20 so well done Rachel, Lauren has recently joined the Tuesday night beginners group and she was also delighted with her PB of 65:09, despite suffering from a stitch from about 2k onwards.

Afterwards there was lots of home baking back at the sport centre in exchange for a donation to the Beatson cancer charity. This was a well organised race with chip timing, pretty much a flat course and it was also good value for money – think it was £10 to enter so I would definitely recommend to others.

Alison