This week is the Tour of Clydeside Series of Races and my club Kilbarchan host the first one – the ‘Kilbarchan Classic’ a five and a half mile race on the cycle track. With the Devil o’ the Highlands Race only a few days away I didn’t really want to push too hard.

I thought it would be a good race for Katrina to have a go at but she was a bit relunctant so I said I’d run with her which would do me a favour as well as it would mean I wouldn’t run too hard!

Before the race

When we arrived there were lots of good club runners including Chris Upson who we chatted to before the start. There were a number of Kilbarchan folk ready to run as well. We took our place at the back of the field and stayed there!

Before the race Katrina said that she would like to try and average 5.30mins for each kilometre. We ran a bit quick for the first km – 4.42 but then we settled into a good pace and reached the half way point in 23mins 14secs which included a comfort break (and it wasn’t for me!!).

On the way back Katrina was running really well and again kept a good average pace going (despite another comfort break!). With about 2km to go we were on 5.31 pace and so pushed the pace a bit. It also helped that we were catching a guy in yellow ahead. We passed him with about 500m to go and sprinted to the line!

Katrina finishing strong (notice the guy in yellow behind us!)

Katrina finished in 48mins 17secs and I was a second behind! Our average pace was …. exactly 5.30 mins per km. The distance was 8.78km so if Katrina ran the extra bit to make it 10km at that pace it would be 55mins. Very impressive! Her next race is the Marymass 10k on Wednesday 19th August!

After the race with a cup of water and jaffa cake!

Chris Upson won the race with John McMillan from Kilbarchan second.

Michael Finlay took some photos of the race. I’ve put them on Flickr.

Details of the race