Eztek Ltd takes on the 10k

Alzheimer Scotland was our chosen charity

 Ordinarily this wouldn’t be my sort of “thing”. A mass participation 10k, running with thousands of other people on a rather uninspiring flat course (although the views of the sea are quite nice) however, it was a work related excursion and even though the 9.30am start was less than appealing I thought I had better drag myself off to the start line. First dilemma of the day was what to wear – we had all been given Baker Hughes 10k t-shirts with our race entries, we had all been given Alzheimer Scotland t-shirts for our fund raising efforts as well as a blue Eztek Ltd t-shirt emblazoned with the company logo. So many t-shirts for just one race….

The new Eztek Ltd Sponsored T-Shirt

This photo should improve our marketing opportunities....

I hope he is getting paid commission for advertising!

As a team we were quite an assorted bunch ranging from running obsessives (Bert) to complete running “newbies” (Craig). But the key objective was for everyone to get round, raise money for a good cause and hopefully enjoy themselves along the way. After the obligatory race start team photo we all dispersed into the crowds to take our places at the start line and there were quite a few familiar faces to chat to as Aberdeen metro running club seemed to appear en mass for their local race. We had a little support crew out on route supporting us with a variety of home made banners and a photo of a couple of Eztek runners even made it on to the Alzheimer Scotland website – fame at last!

Team Eztek

 It seemed to take ages for the race to actually get going but once it did I was quite glad I had lined up near the front even though it did mean the first mile was completed at a sharper pace than planned but that was definitely preferable to having to weave in and out of slower folk who start in front which is often one of my major gripes about big events. I’m not sure I have an awful lot to say about the race itself apart from I had forgotten how quickly a 10k seemed to go compared to a half marathon – it was altogether a less painful experience! It was a cool overcast breezy morning so not bad running conditions, thankfully not the beachfront hurricane that it could have been, and there was lots of support on route including a surprise appearance from Simon who popped up on the esplanade as if from nowhere.

I was missing the hills

Race Route

After my fast start my mile times increased with each mile and I did feel as though I was going backwards in the last mile however I had predicted I would run 42 mins and finished in 42.07 and I was happy enough with this given the amount of training that I had lost with my rib injury a few weeks back. After quickly pulling on some warm clothes it was back to the finish line to see the squad come in but. I managed to miss all of them…I put it down to looking out for too many different t-shirts…

Heading to the finish

Everyone finished without incident and then it was back to Satrosphere science centre for a little lunch. 

Some folk turned up just for the cake

John enjoyed the lunch

Martin's brother ran unofficially...and beat us all!

Top marks to Tom for a fab lunch and lets face it, its the post race lunch that really counts

It was Cherylle's first 10k

Next year, eh Christina?

Marina finished an agonising few seconds outside the 1hr mark

 Mention must go to Christina for getting us all organised to do this and for Tom for supplying such a superb range of food. Christina was even heard to say she might consider doing the race next year…but shhhhh… I wasn’t supposed to tell ;-) 

and we all got one of these

 The best news of the day was a couple of our newbie runners were heard to say that they wanted to continue training and find some other events to do!

 RESULTS

http://scottishrunningguide.com/assets/2014/city-of-aberdeen-baker-hughes-10k-running-festival/results/2014aberdeenbakerhughes10k.pdf

DONATIONS TO ALZHEIMER SCOTLAND - we are still accepting donations

http://www.justgiving.com/Eztek-Limited