Myself and Tony were entered into the 5K and Dermot was in for the 10K race

Rachel my Girlfriend had volunteered too drive although we did have some difficulties locating the stadium and spent quite a bit of time wondering around various Grangemouth  roundabouts till we found where the race was taking place,

The 5K and 10k routes are both very flat and fast although to be blunt not the most picturesque of routes winding round the town.

Myself and Tony lined up for the earlier starting 5K race with another couple of hundred runners and set off at a pretty fast pace of around the roads around the stadium. The route goes out and then loops back on a parallel road on itself and round a park then finishes in the stadium. I set off at a pretty brisk pace and ended up surrounded by Central AC and Falkirk runners. I managed to pick off a few over enthusiastic youths through 3-4 K but was flagging a bit by the 4 KM and got overtaken in turn by a couple of willey old vets going into the last 500 meters  and had to hang in for the last KM to the finish. Nice to end up in the stadium and managed to break my PB and the 19 Minute barrier and finished in 16th place in 18:48 . Tony swiftly followed in a very respectable time of 20:37  in 25th overall(he cant recall if this is a PB or not and has had to consult the Archives to verify this fact) . We just had time to get showered and changed and back on the course to see Dermot galloping past  the  8 KM marker. He then passed us again going into the stadium some minutes later and looked to be finishing very strongly. Wr sped over to the stadium to see Dermot coming in in a PB of 39.11 in 104th place in what was a top class field of runners. It was also nice to see David Adam turn out for Musselburgh and also finishing well in 44:28 minutes .Overall another good set of performances from everyone and would recommend these races for anyone looking to get decent times clocked up but probably not for the scenery on route