Forth Road Bridge 10k - 9 August 2009

10ks - one of those love em or hate em kinda races. I don't know yet which category I belong to but after a fairly successful Tour of Fife I'm PB hunting. It's a nice day but after a warm-up with Isobel I realise I forgot to take my inhaler. Panic panic..... I rush back to the car and hope and pray I have one in my bag but no, nothing there. Shit, no PB for me then. Logic dictates I don't actually need it, as I've already taken the other one in the morning, but logic has left the building so I already have my excuse in hand as we make our way to the start line.

I shuffle in beside some friends, set my watch and we're off. My new race tactic is go like the clappers and try and keep it up. So I do, overtaking lots of people on the first downhill. Even as we go up past Gordon's house I'm still overtaking and doing a good pace. The lovely hill down towards Inverkeithing approaches and by now the drizzle that started as the race did has turned into torrential rain and it's absolutely bouncing. It's funny and cooling and slows a lot of people down but not me, I go downhill as hard as possible knowing I'll struggle once we get to the uphill section towards the bridge.

I'm right, the uphill section towards the middle of the bridge drags on and on and every bugger and their dog overtakes me. Still, I notice at the 5k mark that I'm on target for <50mins and blast off again downhill towards Queensferry, overtaking all the buggers that passed me earlier. Ha!! I toy with getting a drink or not and decide that the few seconds stop will do me good. It has and down under the bridge we go and I realise that the downhill is where I'm making the most time. Again I pass the 2 guys and the Fife AC woman (we've been piggybacking all the way and now I'm ahead) but as we head up towards the middle of the bridge again I know I won't be ahead for long. 2k to go. I glance at my watch and we're about 38minutes in. I try and work out how long it takes to do 2k and it shouldn't really take me any longer than 10 minutes but I'm struggling up towards the bridge and decide to kick in on the final stretch down to the finish. One of the guys has passed me now as has the woman but I set my sights on another guy in front and soon pass him. I miss the 9k mark and assume the finish is further away that it actually is and save my sprint for later but then I realise the finish is only just ahead so I've gone and cocked that one up!! I do manage to pass someone else on the line but as usual I forget to stop my watch and when I look it says 50:12. Okay so it's a PB but is it a sub 50 PB?

I spend the rest of the day analysing what I could have done differently and I don't think anything really. I'm chuffed to find out that evening that my official time was 49:57. Phew, just under 50 but a PB by almost 2 minutes and on what I'm told is quite a challenging course (aren't they all?). Job done, now I really must turn my attention to marathon training.....