Spiggie 10k 2026

The Spiggie 10k has come and gone, and with it a lot of positive and negative feelings about the day. Overall I’m happy, but the lead up to the day isn’t what I wanted, and my time wasn’t as fast as I had hoped.

The day itself was quite nice when I got up, it was dry and mild, and there was little wind. I made my way down to Spiggie, got registered (and noticed a timing chip! on the bib), then went out to do a warmup run. I headed off at an easy pace up the hill to get a feel for the gradient, which ended up feeling much tougher than I’d hoped for. At this point I could feel my 47:00 goal time slipping away…

There was still a bit of time before the race so I chatted to some people while doing some dynamic stretches to make sure I was good to go. About 10 minutes before the official start time the rain started. It was pretty heavy, but the relative lack of wind made it tolerable. Even so, most of us went inside for a few minutes before being called out to get to the start line.

This year there were timing chips, so we went to the start line while also giving it a wide berth to avoid messing things up (which probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but it’s new to the club, so better safe than sorry). After a slight delay getting the timing gubbins set up the gun was fired and we were off.

I had set up my Garmin with a Course Pro course for today’s race, and set the lofty goal of 47:00. This was probably already quite optimistic, but I wanted a decent goal to aim for. My 5k times are hinting that I should able able to pull off a 46:00 10k with the right training, so there’s plenty of time to shave off. I’d knocked 90s off back in August, finishing the ZE Run Fest 10k in ~48:00, so a time anywhere in the 47th minute would have been lovely.

My training between ZE Run Fest and Spiggie was unfortunately hampered by an injury. I had suddenly found my right toe getting sore during a run about a week into the block, and running became difficult. I got an appointment to see a doctor and they diagnosed it as extensor tendinopathy. It’s entirely treatable but requires specific exercises to build the strength up, along with plenty of time and patience. The tendon had been strained by a weakness in my right calf, so I also needed to do (and need to continue) single leg calf raises to build the strength up in the calf. The whole thing came as a surprise to me, I thought the exercise I’d been doing wouldn’t have led me to neglect my calf, but here we are.

The injury led me to pivoting to the rowing machine, which left my foot alone to give it a better chance of healing while keeping up with caridio. I’d also planned to add some strength training in, but the first session I messed up a deadlift and tweaked my back (which got tweaked again looking at CDs in a charity and again a couple of days ago while raking leaves out of the garden…), so I ended up completely off exercising for far longer than expected.

The final training blocker was a family holiday to Mallorca. I absolutely loved the holiday, but the travel there and back again (Shetland-Mallorca took ~36 hours each way) wiped out several opportunities to train, and the running I did there was more difficult due to the extra heat. It wasn’t fantastically hot in October, but it’s enough for me to start struggling.

Back to the race and the first 1k is all uphill. This section was also a headwind so the rain was getting right on my face. It wasn’t terrible, just a bit annoying. I started off feeling good, something about adding some effort made the run feel better than the warmup, but I wasn’t keeping up with the goal time. By the end of the first climb I was 8 seconds behind the goal time. I was already pretty confident that I wasn’t going to hit the downhill paces I needed, and the final climb up from the loch I would almost definitely need to walk, so I made my peace with it and carried on.

The entire course undulates. There are a couple of sections on the route where you think it will be pretty flat, but it’s never flat for long. The next ~1k to the turn down to the loch was one of these, flatish, but enough up and down that you’re never comfortable. Thankfully this passed and I got a bit of downhill to open up on. I felt good (but who doesn’t feel good clipping along with less effort?), but still not hitting the paces I needed. My time behind was increasing, but I figured if I still aim for the 47:00 paces I’ll get a decent final time, and at least know when to push or pull back.

The course takes another upward swing, so I had to dig in for this. It’s another ~1k while this happens, but gentler than the first climb. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not, it’s a pretty deceptive climb that ends up tiring you out without realising. I kept the pace well enough, keeping moivated by thinking about the downhill that was about to come, followed by the only flat section of the course! When it finally came I got another confidence boost, and also nipped past a couple of other athletes. The course flattened off as we curved around the loch and I kept the pace going for a bit longer while I psyched myself up for the main event.

The climb up from the loch is brutal. I knew I wouldn’t run the while thing but I knew I could get plenty of it done. I also forgot how long the climb is, there’s a turn half way up so you can’t see the whole thing from the bottom, so when I broke to a walk just before this bend I figured I could get going again in a moment. That moment was more like a solid minute, and I didn’t get going until I was past the hotel and almost at the top of the main climb. A marshall kept us going with some encouraging words (and a cow bell).

The top of the hill isn’t the top of the hill, there’s still more to climb but now it’s gentler and undulating, so you can hardly tell what’s happening. Having spent most of my energy getting up the big climb I was struggling to get the rhythm back to get over the hump and into the final downhill. Thankfully during my walking stint I got passed by a woman in a white top, which pushed me on to keep up. I started running again before she did and passed her, only to be passed a minute later on the gentler slope. we traded places back and forth over that ~1k and up to the final downhill.

When I crested the final peak I got some words of encouragement from a marshall and opened up the pace. It was another lovely downhill, the wind had died back and I had pulled away from white vest top. I cruised down he hill enjoying the moment of quiet in an otherwise pretty tough race. After a wet start and another big shower in the middle of the race it was great to feel just a tiny bit of warmth from the sun that was threatening to peak out from the clouds.

The final 500m of the race makes a gentle climb up the road, finishing with a hard left into the car park of a football pitch. I knew the end was in sight, so I cranked the effort up to max and made my way up the hill and across the finish line. I probably finshed in the middle of the leaderboard. There was plenty of people hanging around, chatting and stretching. I got my medal and bottle of water and joined them. I’m surprised by how many people I ended up chatting with, it felt like I’d socialised more than I thought I would.

I haven’t checked my official time yet, but I stopped my watch at 49:08. That’s a good 30s of last year’s attempt, but nowhere near my PB of 48:02 from this August. I’m not surprised though, it’s a tough course and I’ve not had a great training block between then and now. At the start of the race when I could see 47:00 slipping away so quickly I was pretty disappointed, but in hindsight I didn’t need to be, my time was good (it’s my 2nd fastest 10k ever), and I guess having the lofty time in for pacing egged me on to keep the pace up in the second half. I enjoyed the run, and I enjoyed talking to my friends and other runners, and that’s the bit that’s going to stick with me in the end.