Visited my mum's this weekend. Ran the Famous Grouse Crieff 10k today.

The race starts on the playing fields by Morrison's Academy (the local private school). Recently there has been a bit of rain around, but yesterday evening was a pleasant and clear one, and this carried over into this morning. So after milling around in the sun, we set off up the field in the sun. The first km or so is on road (gently up), before a turn off into the woods. Then we're off up some nice quiet tracks, past the odd bemused walker. Up 100m in the second km or so. The next 3km to half-way is a bit of a mix, some flat or slightly up mixed in with some big downhill sections. Not too steep, but you do have to fly down to make up time from the earlier uphill (watch those roots and the muddy patches by the corners). Hits the quads a bit I suppose.

Anyway, half way we pop out of the woods and get handed a cup of water. Still don't know what the guy said to me when he handed me the water. From here it is mostly flat, initially along a nice one-person-wide path with fields either side. The sun is beating down, suddenly seems very warm for a bit after 11am. Not a whisper of wind. Along the path, I'm trying not to drop any further back from the yellow shirt in front trailing the group ahead, while the guy (wearing the same top as me) who I tried to pull away from on the downhills was now no longer in view. Time passes, it's getting tough. The 10k is a race run a couple of percent above the "lactate threshold", where lactic acid accumulates in the muscles, and I don't think an early hill helps that much...

We are now going down a wide wooded riverside walkway. I experience the strange sensation I often have, when my legs are tiring and I feel I am fading, that I seem to be just jogging along so much slower than I was before—but still making hard work of it—and yet my pace can't have dropped much at all, I don't seem to be dropping back. Looking down, the legs still seem to move at the right speed...

A piper gives a bit of a boost, then shortly it's back onto the road, thinking about the approaching grassy finish. The guy I had dropped earlier is back, and makes to overtake me on the tarmac, but I move past again before we turn into the field. With the change of surface, I simply don't have the energy to keep up, and the he passes followed by another while I concentrate on a steady finish. 42:26.

Afterwards, doused in water, relaxing with tea and sandwiches on the grass, it all seemed rather civilised.