Last night was the Black Rock 5. The race starts under the railway viaduct by Kinghorn station, heading up the road beside the station, the other end of which is a bridge over the railway. A strange start, for this year there is scaffolding up by the station, to reduce this road to half-width, for a slow uphill funnelled start... As we turned left away from the railway gently down the road to the harbour, I seemed to be passing people... I can never seem to resist in the early portions of a race. Down another wee hill and we turn around the corner to see the beach and black rock sands stretching into the distance.

The name of the race comes from this— a large part of it is run on the sands out to the "black rocks", the turn-around point. The race is scheduled according to the tide, but of course it's still rather wet, everybody splashing through wet patches and sand and salt water getting everywhere... At first the hard wet sand seems easy enough to run on, but I suppose it does take a little more out of you than asphalt. As we neared half way I was having trouble getting enough breath and my stomach or side seemed to be protesting, so I was happy to try to hang on beside the guy beside me and not let many pass. Somehow the anticipated slowdown never really seemed to occur, and I came off the sand beside the guy I was with at half-way.

Of course having started off by running down to the harbour, we had to run back uphill to finish... Somehow the uphills never seem so bad as one imagines coming down them, so I was okay as we headed back into town. I then started passing folk again on the flat and heading back down to the viaduct, where one sees the hill up to the finish... My legs were fresh enough for a bit of a sprint up this, passing some more people on the way, just in time to cross the line feeling like collapsing. The race is sponsored by the pub at the finish line, so we were supplied with water, banana and a bottle of ale. Great!

A pint and some food later, and it was off on the train back to Edinburgh. I think I'll do this one again next year, 'twas fun. Results are now up for the first 10, the rest go up later. The race was won in a ridiculous 23:12... I came in a little under 32...