Forth Road Bridge Pitreavie 10k 13/8/06
Two Porty runners, myself and Moray Patterson, crossed the Forth Road Bridge (FRB) early on the morning of Sunday, 13 August to take part in the FRB 10 km race reports Gerry.
This is a well organised and popular race with numbers limited to 350 and this year the race was fully booked prior to the race day. Pitreavie AAC, the organisers, put on an excellent buffet afterwards for competitors so a race I would recommend to fellow Porty runners.
The race starts at the North Queensferry Community, high up in the town and after an early uphill climb, has a fairly long descent towards the start of the crossing of the bridge. The bridge itself is a little deceptive, providing a relatively straight forward ascent before reaching the highest point and then a good descent towards South Queensferry. After this the course heads on an underpass, crossing to the other side of the bridge before making a similar ascent/ descent towards the finishing line at the end of the bridge. This means that the course is more of a downhill than up.
Conditions for the race were excellent, minimal wind that might have hampered the crossing of the bridge. Although I felt I went off fast, this was nothing compared to Moray (Patterson) who headed off ahead of me and near to the front runners. It wasn't til after the first km that I managed to catch him. Feeling reasonable I continued at a quick pace getting through the first 2 km in approx 6 min 30ish secs. I began catching a few folk but could see a few green/ orange vests of Carnegie Harriers in the distance. These guys were not for catching.
I reached the 5 km mark, which was on the descent of the bridge, in 17 mins 30 secs - I was pleased and felt reasonably good. I was quite confident of keeping a similar pace going for the next part of the race. The race headed into a car park before looping under the bridge and here I caught one runner. This turned out to be the last person I was going to catch. I could see two guys a fair distance in front (30 - 50 metres) and had in my mind to go after them in the last km or so. However even before reaching the highest point of the bridge and trying to close the gap I could see that they were not slowing and were looking pretty strong.
I crossed the line in 35 mins 44 secs, strangely 1 second faster than last year - I don't know where I made up the single second. I was 13th overall and 3rd in the vet category. Moray finished in a time of 38 mins 57 secs.Report Gerry Scullion
Full results here
