The jogscotland events are called ‘challenges’ rather than races, as initially they were aimed at jogscotland members and those new to running. However as the events expanded, they are now attracting club runners of all abilities and a number of Edinburgh AC athletes were prominent in this years race. In previous years Juan and Kim have both been winners of this event.
The Edinburgh event originally used the 5k route round Arthur’s Seat but after two years, moved to its present location at Inverleith Park, with the route using both the park and the Botanic Gardens. As many of you may be aware, (if like me you have had a red faced parkie chasing after you!), you are not actually allowed to run in the Botanic Gardens. No, I don’t understand the rule either, at one point I was banned from the Botanics for trying to get red faced parkie to explain the reasoning behind the ridiculous rule. I was trying to pin it down, what speed constituted running? If an OAP’s hat blew off and they ran after it, were they breaking the law? If red faced parkie chased after me, then was he breaking the law? I thought I was being witty, he thought I was being smart, I was asked to leave and never return. However, they must not have a photo of me inside the guard hut as I have never had red faced parkie getting out his starting blocks and chasing after me during the race.
A long explanation, but what I am trying to say is, you should enter this run if only to enable you to have a wee jog round the Botanics, really, it is nice in there, quiet, peaceful, an ideal place to run. I still don’t know the reason behind the normal exclusion of people out for a healthy jog. I wonder if smokers are banned? What about overweight people? They must do more damage than runners?…… oh no, I feel another ban coming on!
But back to the history of this event, after a couple of years at Inverleith, the numbers taking part grew to well over 1,000 which made parts of the route too congested, so rather than restrict numbers, the race was split into two, the ‘A’ race at 6.00pm and ‘B’ race at 7.30pm, there is a fairly even split of runners between the runs.
Another explanation is required before I go on to describe this years action: Although we had a number of our guys running, because the emphasis is on charity and corporate teams, the team names used reflect that, rather than our athletic club names, so it makes it slightly more difficult to pick out all of our results.
My University jogscotland group were targeting the ‘A’ race, so that is the one I had entered, luckily for me Steve Booth also appeared for the ‘A’ race representing a Cancer Charity, (and wearing a very fetching pink outfit) so I was going to have someone to drag me round. My poor old knees were still shattered from cycling up to St Andrews with Martin at the weekend, so I was going to require all of the help I could get.
I carefully avoided the mass warm up and march to the start line behind the piper, and joined the more ’serious’ runners on the start line. I was chatting to Scott Hastings who was lining up for his photocall on the front line and he remarked that he didn’t fancy his chances against the guys either side of him, I said that he may be right, but I wouldn’t bet if it was over 50 meters! Sure enough, he led off at the front, looking very easy for the first 100 meters; never saw him again after that! A large lap round the grass area then we headed out to the Botanics, very quickly one runner pulled away and there was a pack of about 5 of us running for 2nd place. The Botanics, as mentioned are nice, but the route is full of twists, turns and corners not forgetting a few hills, so it is not easy for a pack to stay together. We were probably more singe file than a pack, but the positions never changed much until we got back into Inverleith Park. The leader then tied up badly and all of the pack wound him in and ran past him. At this point I knew I had the wrong mental attitude for the race, rather than think, great, I can still win this, I actually thought good, that means I’m going to be 5th! Although perhaps I was just being realistic considering the state of my legs. During the last 1k, the pack opened up with everyone making a push for victory, I knew I was out of contention but hoped Steve could hold on to the guy now out in front. Steve held on the best he could and managed 2nd place in 17.48.
The only thing that managed to get me into a sprint was glancing at my watch in the finishing straight and realising I was going to be very close to exactly 18 minutes. It’s certainly worth bursting a gut to get 17.58 rather than 18.00. Might only be two seconds, but you know how it is, sounds like a minute faster ‘what time did you run?’ “Oh, I think it was 17 minutes” and conveniently leave the seconds out! So if anyone is interested, I ran 17 minutes to get 5th place.
After the finish, I met Ian Cunningham fighting against the flow, handing out flyers for our 5k/10k to everyone, so I quickly retrieved my bag along with a pile of forms and joined him in the task. It was clear we were rapidly running out of forms so after the first race was over, Ian headed off for another batch and I manage to fill an hour in the beer tent! With impeccable timing, Ian managed to get back just before the winner came home in the second race, Graeme Brown also joined us and we distributed the forms in no time. Hopefully the effort will have been worth while and if we generate an extra 50 or 100 entries for the 5k and 10k, it was certainly worth it.
The ‘B’ race was won easily by our number one pot hunter William Chadwick who led from the start to finish in what was virtually a solo run in 17.18 (If Will is reading this, I promise I won’t mention the 7 Hills Challenge again….Doh!) We also had good placing by Richard Mead 4th in 18.16 and a rare appearance from Ken Mortimer 9th in 19.36.
We also had a number of our officials assisting with the race, so I would just like to pass on thanks from the runners for your great work, it is much appreciated.
Steve Wales wasn’t running, but was on site taking photos for Jogscotland, so hopefully some of these will shortly find their way onto our gallery.
July 3rd, 2008 by 
Alex 
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