Templeton Woods 10miler 1/10/09
Sandy's report
Obviously it was about as wet as it can be for a race, with a cold wind blowing too. Driving up in those conditions was pretty tough, never mind running the race itself, so it was good to see another pretty strong turn-out from Portobello. Although quite a few people were doing it 'to get their 5' for the championship, especially those who aren't sure they'll feel like running up a hill next weekend! The route is mostly on very minor country roads and it's a pretty tough 10-miler, there aren't many long stretches where you're not climbing or descending, so it takes it out of you. Add to that the weather, which meant several ankle-deep puddles around the route as well as surface water throughout...
So magnificent performance by Mel to come in first lady. Marc and Jonny also did well, 11th and 14th overall. Not sure exactly how that leaves it for the senior men championships but it must be pretty close, could be coming down to the final race of the season at Tinto next week..? Jamie also did well, getting under his pre-race target of 70 minutes. And Bert seemed delighted to have let Ricky and Richard beat him in the final stretch in their own little 1-2-3. I was fairly pleased to get round in 77 minutes. I'd have preferred to get closer to 75, which was my pre-race target, but my time was still 3 minutes quicker than the only other time I've done this race and it may even be a PB (I can't find my result for last time I ran Dunbar 10 but every other result I can find is at least a bit slower). Only other Porty result I know was Shelagh who came in a couple of minutes behind me in 79 minutes as first female vet from Portobello.
Venue was a bit shabby and cramped, especially since everyone was seeking shelter from the weather, but they did a cracking spread of food... Good luck to anyone doing Tinto next weekend. I'm at an all-day meeting about a mile down the road from the race, so I am trying to influence to be allowed out for an hour or two!
Report Sandy MacDonald
ps Just saw that the Dundee Utd game at Tannadice was abandoned at half-time because of how wet it was!!
Mel's report
It was not a day for ducks. Even die-hard ducks in Bruce Willis style vests would have shuddered and balked. Indeed, the most naturally water-resistant of creatures should have been sensible enough to get out the Goretex and the golfing brollies. The truly wise might have taken to their beds in disgust. All around, things were bad, approaching worse: hands were blue; legs were red raw; teeth chattered like involuntary castanets; joints crunched in protest; bones were all but immobilized; toes were definitely falling off. We were dealing with a deluge of Biblical proportions. Train lines gave way to new reservoirs. Villages looked like huge community swimming pools. Football matches which had been of great magnitude only a day ago were called off and forgotten. In town centres, people had ditched the 4x4s and were learning to kayak.
Amid all this, Dundee did not look in the slightest bit bonnie. By 9am, conditions were approaching apocalyptic. But, hey, if the world really was going to end, there was still a Dundee Roadrunners banner flapping tenaciously into the fearsome gusts like a faulty wind sock. Steamed-up vehicles grumbled at snail’s pace past the entrance to the city’s Clatto Country Park as if certain of impending doom. Sure enough, the cars carried men and women in shorts. And vests. It was like watching space craft land ill-equipped survivors of some galactic battle into an unfathomable and dangerous world. Insanity wasn’t a requirement but being certified was at least an excuse for turning up at all.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed, so they say, but no one who had paid any attention to the weather forecast could really have said it was a help. Nor was there any comfort in prior knowledge of a 10-mile route boasting a good few hills that could conservatively be described as “killer”. In fact, due to the latest painful developments in this year’s injury crisis, I had put off making any decision about this race all week. On Wednesday, I had braved Bert’s parlouf session (“just for fun this one”, according to the great man himself). At the end of it, I definitely wasn’t running. On Friday, when my back felt as if it was actually disintegrating, I still wasn’t running. But, since my parents live just across the water from Dundee, I figured a weekend of lazing about ingesting pasta and painkillers might sort me out even if I didn’t run, so I took the train up on Friday after work, doped myself up with diclofenac and hoped my running legs would be returned to me by Sunday morning (actually, to be totally truthful I was always going to run this, even if it meant hirpling about on crutches afterwards).
I had run the race once before, about three years ago, and got round in 70.20, practically on my knees at the finish and looking like death without the warm-up. It’s a tough, tough course that heads out from the Clatto Reservoir area onto the city’s farm roads and loops back round and up through Templeton Woods to a leafy finish. I wasn’t sure I was up for it a second time. But this was in the days before joining the club and experiencing the heady excitement of Bert’s speed sessions and I was keen to see what difference Wednesday night pain had really made. Plus, Dundee is the city in which I mis-spent my youth (at the now sadly demolished West Port Bar) and I have great lasting affection for the place, enough to want to support the local running club and to partake of their famous post-race cake feast.
And so it was. 10.25am and we were on the start line in our Porty vests (some with interesting under-armour, Jamie’s waterproof layer being the most ingenious). We looked for all the world as if we were about to board the Ark two by two. Emperor penguins huddling together had nothing on us for grim determination. In getting to the start, we had already practiced our fledgling triple jump skills through sludge and murky depths. Now it was simply a case of running, come hell or high water. Instinct told me there was a strong chance of both.
"waterproof under-armour"Knowing the challenges ahead, I resolved to hold something in reserve but, as ever, my eyeballs were out of the sockets by mile two. If it really was the end of the world, I figured I might as well run like it. I passed Bert and Ricky around this time and Ricky shouted something like “Go on – you show them!”. I wasn’t quite sure what I would be showing anyone apart from how to die dramatically before hitting the first hill, but I carried on regardless. Aerobically I was chugging along quite nicely – if “nicely” is ever an appropriate term to use about a race - but my feet were already like big cold sponges due to negotiating giant puddles (or were they “water jumps”?) early on and the constant drenching meant my legs had stiffened to the point where my hamstrings felt about half an inch long. Still! Onwards and upwards! Literally.
On the second or third hill I had the strangest sensation that I was surviving quite well. But then I saw a floating hot bath in the sky and realized I was delirious. I wasn’t hearing voices yet, so that was at least something, though there were disturbing noises coming from those audibly in various stages of respiratory failure. The fact that I was still moving at any pace seemed a bonus. I would say that, by this stage, the conditions were making it all rather exhilarating, but I’d be lying. It was just plain hard.
For a long way, I ended up in no man’s land between groups. This was excellent, what with the wind in my face and the rain infiltrating every orifice. Even a nice muddy trench in which to lie down would have been appealing. I could just make out a group of fellow nutters in vests in the distance and fantasised about catching them and tucking in behind them. Then I went too far and imagined actually being in the hot bath I had seen in the sky earlier. I felt like crying. After this, anger, frustration and sheer bloodymindedness set in and I focused on upping the pace and not letting the gap grow.
Major hills over, the downhill sections gave me the chance to turn over the frozen legs a bit and I used the tactic of running alongside those I caught before getting up the confidence to move on past. By this stage, dry shoes were becoming a critical incentive. Surprisingly, I moved up several places this way but still had no idea where I was in the race. I could see, however, that there was a female in front of me and figured that if she was in third I’d better catch her if I wanted a chance of finishing in the top three women – which I did, what with it probably being the end of the world and all that. Once I had managed to pass her, the tiredness really took over. Actually, it washed over me in a very real wave. It was mile 8, but there was still a good old hill finale to relish.
By the time I was on the last incline (in a particularly cruel twist, you have to run back up the hill you initially run down) using my legs at all was a bit like wielding giant ice poles. Nordic walking sticks would have been the thing. As I rounded the corner back into the woods, a marshal shouted to me that I was first woman. Now I realized I had to keep it together, despite the underfoot conditions practically creating a new pastime of forest floor skating.
I’m not sure if my attempted kick for the line made any difference to my speed, but soon I was over it, shuffling through piles of soggy leaves as I heard “Well done lass” from a sympathetic marshal. My parents had bravely got out of the car to see the finish. Marc and Johnny, who had both run fantastically well, had been in for a good few minutes. Scarily, they didn’t even look tired. The rest of the Porty faithful weren’t far behind. Bert later claimed that he and Ricky had caught up with the woman behind me and had decided not to pass her for fear they would bring her back to me. Er, cheers guys. I had run 66.48 and, given the conditions, was pretty pleased – or should that be relieved? – with that.
Further relief was provided in the Clatto centre in the form of carbohydrate heaven and hot drinks. Not a “peh” in site, but heaps and heaps of lovely things ranging from stodgy chocolate brownies to oversized flapjacks and Victoria sponge. As steam rose from rain jackets and quivering fingers clutched plastic cups of tea, it really was like the aftermath of a natural disaster. We did the usual post-mortem of the course in all its horrors and everyone seemed pleased enough with their efforts. “That was hell,” said Bert, and he did have a point. For a moment, it was easy to think that you would never again want anything else in life bar hot water, warm clothing and a giant piece of banana bread. With the odds stacked against them, the Road Runners somehow pulled off an extremely well-organised, friendly event. The world hadn’t ended, but it was more than a little surreal. You certainly couldn’t have made it up.
Report Mel Henderson
These outstanding photos by David at roadrunpics - hope you kept the camera dry, see the whole set HERE
Position Name Age Club Hrs Mins Secs
11 Marc Grierson M17 Portobello Running Club 1 3 31
14 Johnny Lawson M17 Portobello Running Club 1 5 7
23 Melanie Henderson F35 Portobello Running Club 1 6 48
34 Ricky Fraser M40 Portobello Running Club 1 7 57
35 Richard Dennis M40 Portobello Running Club 1 8 0
36 Bert Logan M50 Portobello Running Club 1 8 7
45 Jamie Marwick M17 Portobello Running Club 1 9 50
89 Sandy MacDonald M17 Portobello Running Club 1 17 13
112 Shelagh McLeish F45 Portobello Running Club 1 19 16
165 Margaret Sandeman F45 Portobello Running Club 1 26 49
166 Aileen Ross F45 Portobello Running Club 1 26 49
180 Graham Porteous M50 Portobello Running Club 1 28 28
Some people know how to have a good time regardless.
