Jimmy Irvine Achilles Heel Bella 10k

It’s been a few week now since the Bella 10K and I thought I’d best write up a little race report on it as promised on Daily Mile when I logged the run!

It was Saturday the 13th November.  I booked my entry a couple of months back along with my friend Doogs and a couple of people from his office that had signed up too.  Race day finally arrived but I hadn’t run for 5 days since my knee made a cracking sound after possibly moving awkwardly on it while walking down stairs. Rested though, I felt it was ok to run as long as I took it easy.  This was Doogs’ 1st 10K race (he’s run a half Marathon a couple months before though).  Any time would be a PB, but the plan was to aim for between 50-55minutes, something I was more than happy to do.

The morning started off well enough.  The race itself didn’t start until 11am (registration after 9:30am) but because my better half was working I got a lift into Glasgow with her and was in the city centre for 8:30.  I didn’t have time for breakfast before leaving, so as I walked out to meet Doogs at his flat I stopped in at a Greggs and bought a Steak Bake, a Sausage Roll and bottle of Lucozade Sport.  Granted, this wasn’t the most nutritious breakfast, but it filled a hole.

Once we were ready to head to Bellahouston Park we jumped in the car only diverting to pick up Catherine (D’s work colleague).  Catherine is an interesting person.  She can run. And run WELL.  She wears Newton Gravitas, runs 4 or 5 times a week yet keeps no logs of distance or times and never has done. She runs because she enjoys it.  I thought that was great.  Personally, I’ve fallen into the stats trap. I love stats and I love running but there’s an amazing simplicity about being able to run naked, as it were, without thinking about how a run affects your weekly average.

Back to the report.  We arrived at Bellahouston Park just after 10am and met Ewan (D’s other work colleague).  We had plenty time to get our numbers, get changed and warm up.  There were loads of people around. 377 runners completed the race, a lot of whom signed up on the day. If you’ve any of the other posts on here you’ll see I run wearing Huaraches most of the time now.  The Bella 10K was going to be my first “barefoot” race, wearing the Huaraches I bought from invisibleshoe.com.  Exciting.  After getting changed into our race gear we waited in the main building, the makeshift waiting area (it was cold outside).  I felt very self concious. loads of eyes were on my feet. One person came up and asked about the Huaraches.  He was a nice guy.  I expected a few snide remarks on the day about the Huaraches but there were none from anyone. All good.  We’re all runners after all I guess, “Barefoot” or shod.

A little later and with the 10 minute warm up done, the 4 of us made our way to the startline.  We waited.  A staff member announced the race would be delayed till 11:10am because some late entries still had to make they’re way up. We waited some more.  The start was then pushed back to 11:30am.  There had been more people entered on the day than they had expected I think.

11:27am.  Shit, I forgot my watch.  I’d have to run this one naked. This panicked me slightly but I thought back to the conversation I had with Catherine earlier.  I’m here to have fun so that’s what I’ll do! I quickly recapped with Doogs what the plan was.  In the end up he asked me to run at what I felt was comfortably fast(ish) pace and he would try and keep up.  Ewan was aiming for 50-55 minutes too so if I did leave Doogs behind, he’d still have someone to run with.

11:30am. After 3 cheers for Jimmy Irvine (A Bellahouston Road Runners legend), the man himself sounded the klaxon and everyone was off.  Some guidelines were issued right before the start – slower runners keep to the left and fast runners keep to the right.  No one took any notice of this. It was slightly chaotic trying to dodge past people.

Lap 1: 0km – 6km.

Catherine was off like a shot.  Doogs, Ewan and I all kept within a few feet of each other as best we could for the first few minutes.  I recognised someone I met at the Clydebank Half Marathon earlier in the year and started chatting away although all of a sudden I felt a realisation that I was running too slowly.  I looked around and saw Doogs about 20 or 30m in the distance.  I said cheerio to the fellow runner and put the pedal to the metal. I think it was just after the 1km mark that I caught Doogs.  Strange thing is, I didn’t slow down.  I kept going.  I felt in good form.  For the next 5km I passed people.  There were a few occasions where I paced the odd person but then they would fall back after a short period.  That was until I caught up with Norman.  The section where we met was a narrow pavement that spanned for a couple hundred meters.  The narrowness of the pavement coupled with other runners meant I just couldn’t get past him.

Lap 2: 6km – 10km

Norman appeared to have a very similar cadence to me, so I settled down and decided to tag him for a while.  Admittedly, up until then I had been running almost flat out.  Once I “settled down” and we passed the 7km marker, however, I felt a tiredness hit me.  At 7.5km we said hello to each other, as you would trailing someone for 1.5km. It’s only manners. For the next 1km I found it difficult to keep up.  I’d be on his heels, then fall back.  My moral was falling slightly.  I caught up again at the incline leading up to the last water station (around 8.75km).  We spoke again, introduced ourselves to each other then Norman offered kind words of encouragement and suggesting I push on ahead.  I was for none it.  I told him we were finishing this race together.

1km to go.  As knackered as I was and I think we both were, I encouraged Norman to pick up the pace. We had less than a 1000 meters to go!  F*ck me, that was one of the longest 1000m i think i’ve ever ran.  At two points I thought the finish line was just around the corner only to see it in the distance. A couple hundred meters to go.  People were cheering us Norman on on the lead up to the finish line.  ”Sprint finish”.  I thought I was hearing things. I couldn’t.  But Norman was persuasive and before I knew it we were racing for the finish.  It was a photo finish.  The both of us crossed the line at exactly the same moment.

44:44!!  7:11 average Pace

I was exhausted from the sprint.  For the first time in goodness knows how long I thought I was going to puke. I didn’t though.  We congratulated each other on a fine race and sprint finish.  Good times.  I had to catch my breath and as I staggered along the finishing area I saw the most bizarre, out of place thing i have EVER seen at a race.  Handing out the medals were two girls, each wearing high heals, tight tops, hot pants and a load of make up.  They looked like they had been hired from Seventh Heaven (a Glasgow Strip Club. Never been, btw).  To top it off, written on their arse was the name of the race…

For a club organised run, this was almost surreal!

Anyway, strippers aside, I waited for a few moments. I got a chance to chat a little again with Norman, then Doogs finished and found us, Catherine wandered over fresh as a daisy having already been finished for a while and then Ewan to complete the group.  We all did really well I think, all four of us coming in under 50 minutes:

Catherine – 40:25!!!

Me (& Norman) – 44:44

Doogs – 47:20 (Awesome first time PB!)

Ewan – 48:27

It was a great race.  One I’ll remember for a long time.  Not only was it my first “Barefoot” race, I got a new Personal Best and met some great new people.  Doogs did amazingly well too, setting himself a great first time PB. It’ll be a hard target to beat.  It all got me thinking about running clubs too.  I never really felt I wanted to join one before, but after that event it’s definitely something I’d consider.  You never know, I might apply to be a Bellahouston Road Runner at some point.

Happy running folks!