Troon 10K TT. Pacing with a difference

I suspect many runners will at some point or other have helped out by pacing a slower runner (or at least keeping them company) during a race. It's a chance to to put your own personal goals aside and give something back to newer runners who need just that little bit of extra support or encouragement.

Last night though was a new experience for me. It was our club 10K time trial and one of our club runners is severely visually impaired. She didn't have her usual guide with her so I offered to try and pace her round for a sub 50 minute time.

It might not sound like a hugely ambitious goal but you have to bear in mind that getting any training done when you're significantly VI isn't at all easy. Imagine trying to run at your 10k pace with your eyes closed! Added to which she'd run in our club 10K last week (50:52 pb) and the Women's 10K at the weekend so a sub 50 was a reasonably ambitious target. Lastly, I'd never guided her before so you can imagine just how much trust she had to put in me!

Running tethered to another runner turned out to be an interesting and fun challenge. Every change of direction has to be anticipated, road surface irregularities avoided, kerbs negotiated, pedestrians & parked cars dodged.

It was the unevenness of the road that caused me the most worry. I didn't want to be the guide that was responsible for her first fall since joining the club! South Ayrshire Council has a poor reputation for road repair and there are areas of Troon that are getting quite potholed now.

We dodged most of them by running in the center of the lanes most of the time. Getting in the way of a bit of traffic seemed preferable to tripping over kerbs or stumbling in potholes and motorists in Troon have become used to seeing Hazel with a guide so we didn't get any aggro from anyone.

My stupidest moment came when we caught up another club runner and I asked Hazel about the runners' hair colour. It was reminiscent of that famous comment by a snooker commentator in the early days of colour television who said something along the lines of "For the benefit of those watching in black and white, the pink ball is lying just behind the green". ;-)

I'd being logging the occasional split as we went round and the first few kms had been into the wind and "uphill". 5km came in 25:09 and at 6km we were 30:06. By 7km we'd managed to claw back a bit 35:01 but the next km was along Fullerton Drive into the wind and we dropped back to 40:09.

We only clawed a little back over the next km (45:07) so we knew that we'd have to work over the last KM if we wanted to get in under 50. I really didn't want to disappoint Hazel and she seemed to be coping well so with the wind now at our backs I paced her along as fast as I dared and she finished in 49:42, a 1:10 PB for her.

I was a great experience and one I'd recommend to anyone.