MUSSELBURGH

In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, my preparation for the Musselburgh 10k was not ideal.
I've had quite a hard week. I'd done 65 miles, but more importantly I'd done three runs back to back (to back) that were all quite quick (certainly in my "blue zone").
Anyway. Having missed this race last year after my unfortunate run-in with the tarmac in the DGP I was looking forward to it.
It's a flat route, but it's not quite as easy as I remembered. Lots of changes of terrain (grass, gravel path etc.) and quite a few tight corners that all take their toll.


Click for bigger picture.



The route starts in Loretto playing fields, goes out to the harbour, a quick turn, back the way you came, then over the "electric bridge" and a circuit of the ash lagoons before heading back over the pedestrian bridge (tricky wee chicane here) and back into the playing fields.

It was a beautiful day and there was a large turn out for this race. It's always nice to start a race somewhere like this, where there is a large area for runners to warm up.

That said. I took one look at the queue for the lavvy and decided to incorporate a wee jog down the road to the Brunton Hall as part of my warm up routine, to use the facilities there.
Got off to quite a good start, but knew within a couple of k that I wasn't going to keep up with the group ahead of me that included Grant and Peter B of Portobello. Just had to spend the rest of the race trying to limit the amount of a lead they were getting on me.
Came back into the park in time to see my PB time slip away, but a mad sprint for the line ensured that I got in under 36 minutes - just! 35:59 by my watch. Got to be happy with anything sub 36.
Great race - and you get a free ice cream from the second best ice cream shop in Scotland after the race (I'm a Luca's man, myself!).
Thats enough speed for me this weekend though - do a bit of LSD tomorrow.