I like taking part in the Lindsay’s National Cross Country when I can. Last year I prepared better in that I didn’t start my ultra training until March so had done a lot more speed work. This year due to my ‘collapse’ and broken ribs I have lost 4-5 weeks and also I’ve been doing some longer training runs including 32 miles last Saturday.

I’m getting my excuses in early as basically I found this race very hard work! It is three laps of Callendar Park.

I did a warm up with Grant from Kilbarchan who was doing his first National Cross Country. The course looked really good with only a few sections of mud. The majority was fine and made the course a lot easier than last year. Plus it as dry with very little wind if any.

It was good to catch up with various friends before the start including Andy J, Marco, Karl to name a few.

I purposely started near the back as I didn’t want to go off too quick. It worked well as I felt I started sensibly. I caught up with Ian after 5 mins or so and I was just a head of him for half a lap. He caught up at the far end of the course (far left on the map). Ian was going really strongly and went past me and slowly pulled away.

I came past all the club tents and it was good to get a boost from friends shouting encouragement. Katrina decided to come and watch even though she had ran 20 miles this morning as part of her training for Manchester Marathon on Sun 10th April.

Katrina took a video of all the runners going up one of the hills until I appeared!

There were a few friends also taking photos. Here are some of them ….

Thanks to Thomas Loehndorf

Thanks to Michael Finlay

Thanks to Michael Finlay

Thanks to Neal Gibson (I think this one captures my pain!)

Thanks to Katrina

Thanks to Gordon Donnachie

I always find the second lap the hardest mentally in that I know I still have another lap to go after this one! To make it worse quite a few people were going past me including Grant, who was having a great run, Donald P, who got stuck at the back, and Donald K who was moving better than me!

I was hoping that I would start the third lap before the leaders where finishing their 3rd and thankfully I managed that. I worked as hard as I could over the final lap but it was hard work.

It was good to get up the final few hills and see the finish line in sight. I tried to push as hard as I could right to the line.

The results are out on the Scottish Athletics web site. I finished 458th (out of 631 finishers) in 57mins 16secs. I was also 20th in my age category (M55).