Helensburgh 10K 2019

By Ewan Smith

I've written about Helensburgh a couple of times before as it seems to have become a race I do most years. I keep thinking that one of these years I'll be adventurous and try Dumbarton instead but somehow the dates never seem to work. Most years it attracts one or two others from the club but this year I was sole rep. However, my oldest was running with his girlfriend so the opportunity to prove that fether's still the daddy is always good.

As everyone who has had to endure my girning knows (ie anyone who isn't deif and hasn't been on the moon since February) I haven't been running well of late and haven't been able to get the miles in. The week before I was allowing I would be somewhere over 41 mins but a fairly good run at Taynish the Saturday before had lifted the mood and I went hoping to be not too far above 40 min.

To that end I didn't push my way too far to the front at the start as there's nothing worse than having dozens of better runners pass you 400m in. In retrospect this was probably a mistake and a colleague whose garden is near the start remarked next day that I seemed to have got myself boxed in. The first K is slightly uphill and as Helensburgh is the only place I've ever achieved negative splits I was happy enough to reach the mark in 3:58. The 2nd K however has a slight downhill and I fell into my usual bad habits. Even so I was surprised to see 3:41 flag up on the Garmin and I knew that wasn't sustainable.

By the half way mark that second K and a lack of race fitness were beginning to tell; the pace was slowing down and I had a stitch. The only option was to dig in and try to hang on though I really wasn't sure if I had another 5k in me at any sort of pace. By 7k the stitch was easing and I knew I would make it.

In the end I finished in 39:13 ( chip time) so while there are a number of things puzzling me like why things are so erratic and why I'm getting less pain running in fairly minimal shoes than I am in the Saucony guides which have been my mainstay for years. However, it's 12 seconds faster than last year so I'll take that and build on it if I can get the miles in. And above all I'm still the daddy - in my own hoose at least.