Scottish Men’s 10km, Edinburgh, 5/11/17

A blue, clear sky greeted the 1,500 runners of all ages, shapes and sizes who had decided to evolve, take charge of their destiny and decide to get off the sofa to assemble at the Lawnmarket at the base of Edinburgh Castle. We were there for the start of the 2017 Edinburgh variant of the Scottish Men’s 10km road race. Being November in Scotland the clear, blue sky brought a chill to the proceedings but thanks to my trusty bin bag I was fairly comfortable in my running gear as I waited for the starting gun along with my fellow runners.

I had entered more for the experience and fun rather than an eye-balls out run through Edinburgh.

We didn’t have long to wait and soon we were speeding around the historic Old Town of Edinburgh, a far more interesting route and worthy of the Edinburgh name than some events held in these parts. It was an undulating course with the first 4km mostly down, followed by a flattish part then 2km up, before flattening out for the final 3km and the finish in Murrayfield stadium, the home of the Scottish Rugby Union.

This is a 2 minute speeded-up video of the whole run.

On arrival at Murrayfield we ran up the side of the pitch, no time for school boy dreams of scoring that try to win the Calcutta cup, it was over as soon as it started it seemed.

And then we queued, it was a slow queue, no reflection on the volunteers giving out the medals and other bling but the organisers hadn’t given enough space to allow the runners to keep moving and be a fluid line. It’s a pity as it was the only negative on a very well organised event.

Eventually I made my way through the queue to collect my bag. That’s me for the year with organised events, apart from parkrun; my lack of recent running has made me more creaky and tired than usual. Now it’s time to rest and give my running legs some lenient weeks or maybe months to recuperate. If you want to run an event in Edinburgh this is a good one to add to your “todo” list. I doubt if I will do it again unless I am there to run with someone and pace them along. Nothing wrong with it but there are so many events to try, are there not?