Great Scottish Run 2017 - Race Report

Post date: Oct 18, 2017 9:43:51 PM

By Catherine McLean

It seemed a good idea at the time!!!

Sandy has never ran the Great Scottish Run and as the loving wife that I am I said that I wouldn’t run the GSR this year if he wasn’t with me, being that I have ran it the two previous years without him. So Sandy decided that it was doable for us both to be there and run it this year……his great idea was to get up early, get someone else to milk the cows for us and we head up the road that morning, run the 10km and head back down in time for the afternoon milking! Sure honey no bother at all.

As everyone is aware the weather has been horrendous in our so called summer/autumn so our cows have been in since the beginning of September…it’s going to be a long ass winter! Sandy was still determined that we would manage it. Me not so much. However, I contacted our relief milker and a family member as we need two in the parlour now and they said they could do it.

The alarm was set for 4:30am on Sunday 1st October. Sandy headed round to the cow shed and I got on with feeding the calves. In the rain! Relief milkers arrived and they started. We were in, washed, changed and attempted to eat breakfast before hitting the road at 5:30am. By Inveraray I had to pull in and swap with Sandy and my eyes were closing with every blink, having not slept much the night before having nightmares we weren’t going to manage to make the start line let alone the finish line. We arrive safely in Glasgow, with me moaning the whole way there because of the rain. “We avoid training in the rain, why the hell are we running a race in it!” The road was closed into Shield Road Subway so the car was abandoned in a street around the corner and we took the subway to St. Enochs. Deciding just to head straight to the start line we found ourselves the only ones there at 8:30am. Sheltering from the rain and not seeing any other CRC members Sandy decided to start in the green wave with me.

Usual pre-race warm-up complete, last kiss, good luck and be careful wishes said it was time to get ready. Sandy was just hoping for a good run. I was just hoping to complete it. I’m still struggling with my hip and decided it would be a good idea to take my split new trainers for their first outing (yeh not so smart)! The hooter goes and off we head. I never seen Sandy after the bottom of St. Vincent Street. I set off music playing with just get to the end woman in my head. Sandy was getting irritated having to manoeuvre round folk to get head other than that it was plain sailing for him to the finish line. I on the other hand was struggling. By 4km my hip was starting to niggle pretty bad, I was in desperate need of water intake due to having just a grape and two slices of banana and a sip of water for breakfast. Finally about 8km my left foot was killing me and I just wanted it over with. Crossing the line in a very poor time of 1:12 and a fab time for Sandy of 45:26 it was over and the heavens opened.

Would I do it again that way again……absolutely not. We were exhausted before it let alone after. We did however make it home at 3:45pm just in time to get in the house, change and straight back out to the milking.