Russell Turner | Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

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Not the Cumbernauld 10k

by Russell Turner - 19:46 on 14 September 2025

After missing the Kinloss 10k, two weeks ago, I consoled myself by signing up for the Cumbernauld 10k, a race I’d had in reserve in case the weekend remained free – which it did because half of City Limits had declared itself unavailable for musical duties.

The race took place today, but without me: the weather forecast earlier this week was so bad – 80% chance of heavy rain thanks to Storm Amy – that I cancelled my Premier Inn room and looked forward to a week properly following a training plan that had become rather freeform because of all the recent 10ks.

Sod’s Law, or the whim of the Running Gods, meant that, on the day, Cumbernauld basked in sun, no rain, and a gentle breeze. Such is life. And thanks to Storm Amy, three runs earlier this week became two, neither of them as demanded by the running guru who created the training plan downloaded from the Big Half website.

So I was determined that today’s long run would follow the plan: 10 miles (or thereabouts if I was suffering).

Thanks to a weekend engrossed in the new 900-page Strike novel, The Hallmarked Man (one of the best so far), it was almost 1pm before I’d read the last word, changed, done some preparatory warm-up, eaten an energy snack and stepped outside into a breeze that hadn’t been there four hours earlier, my punishment for dilatoriness. The plan was simple: 8k with the first 0.1 of each k as a walk, 8k all run, then a smidge more on the end because 16k isn’t quite 10 miles. (I’m still preferring kilometres to miles on the Garmin.) As an added challenge, I’d thrown in a few hilly bits too.

Surprisingly, considering that most of the ascent was in the first half of the run, all went well (although the run/walk continued to the end). I kept up a steady plod all the way, resisted the temptation to cut the run short at 14k when I passed The Rural Retreat (being on a downhill section helped) and hit 10 miles at around 1:47 – only two minutes longer than my predicted time. Some disorganisation at the end meant that instead of the extra 0.1k needed to hit the target I ran a full extra kilometre and finished in 1:54 at 10.56 miles, not fresh but not exhausted either.

Next week’s final run is 12 miles, for which I’ll find a flatter course. The week after that is the River Ness 10k, then Lincoln a week later. I predict a 2:10-20 finish if the weather behaves. That will be fine.

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