Bike Maintenance

I've had a cold for weeks now but its seemed to be on the wane so I haven't worried that much about it. Over xmas and the New Year there's only a minimum of staff at work so being off isn't much of an option unless you really can't go in. My criteria for being off work sick is being so sick that I wouldn't go for a run - and that generally means I go in. I've had about 2 days off in 5 years, or I think, in total, 4 days off in the 7 years I've been there.

Its more a matter of habit than anything else.

The last couple of nights though I've been so congested I've had to sit up to breathe, and definitely couldn't sleep - probably not helped by running in the snow and ice and sub-zero temperatures... and last night at 4am I realised that there was a. no way I was going running that evening, and b. why was I going to get up at 5am to go to work? So I phoned in.

So now I'm at home with a stuffed up nose and I'm definitely not going out running. It occurred to me that I should face that test of character and adulthood - wash and do some maintenance on my faithful bike which has recently been sporting an orange chain from (the little) salt on the roads and, rather alarmingly, has almost no braking power at all. Well I've done the first part - washed it, which is no mean feat as it means running up and down three flights of tenement stairs with buckets of water and the bike and doing it in such an order that my bike is never left alone in Ned territory. Its an exercise reminiscent of the puzzle where you have to cross the river in the boat with the fox and the chicken and not have the fox eat the chicken. Okay its not that complex...I take the bucket of water down first, because if the Neds steal that its the lesser of 2 evils. (Although they wouldn't know what it is. Foooharhar har. Actually not true. The Neds are probably meticulously clean under their pristine white trackies where as I'm a bit too posh to wash - well, too lazy to wash...)

Anyway. The next stage, once its dry will involve seeing whats up with the brakes and fixing them and then oiling my chain. High tech. I know I know. Its not difficult, its just hard to get started.

After wondering on my last blog whether there is a known syndrome where you want to eat all winter I googled it and discovered that in fact one of the symptoms of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is a craving for carbohydrates and a tendency to overeat and put on weight. Also listed are irritability, sleep disturbance...I've got them all! So does Peter. So part of me is tempted to part with some cash to get one of these expensive lights for treating SAD for which there is some evidence apparently, but also some contradictory evidence - so nothing conclusive. The trouble is I also feel that diagnosing SAD is probably medicalising something more normal and maybe even essential, although inconvenient for a runner. Maybe we need down-time where we're less active, more introspective, less fun to be around. Is it right to grasp for eternal summer? Like old men chasing young women to regain a sense of youth for themselves. Still, what if one of these lights made me feel better? And didn't undermine my moral fibre? What then?

Answers please...

Cabin Fever

Much as I was longing to be off work, the days are short, the flat is small, the telly is no distraction (generally). We'd tried to get out a longish run a few times and found ourselves skating on ice or high-stepping through snow-drifts - unable to cover much ground. So it was without much expectation for a clear run that we took the car to the near end of Silverknowes and ran along the front heading for what we call the Airport loop. The front had been icy but a new shower of snow had made the surface more runable. The weather report had said - 5 so I was wearing three layers on top and thick tights and a woolly hat. This seemed about right.

I had insisted that we take supplies in case it turned into a 3 and a half hour epic wallowing in deep snow at sub-zero temperatures - but when we turned off under the trees up the river towards the airport we found the path in very good condition. This way is sometimes difficult in summer because of the mud but the cold had frozen it hard and the fresh layer of snow took care of the traction. My dark mood from feeling trapped at home with some kind of eating compulsion began to lift as it looked like things were not going to be so hard after all.

Up the riverbank things were pretty nice. The path winds in and out of the trees. There were squirrels and possibly a wren. The ground stayed good all the way.

It seemed quite bright out with the snow but looking back on photos I can see that there wasn't much light - it was just our eyes compensating. I wonder if absence of light leads to eating? We could test it out on rats, or, for that matter, our mouse, which visits when, presumably, the neighbours scraps become too thin on the ground.

What little wind there was was behind us on the way back along the promenade so it was quite warm and the light was nice as the sun was just setting. 11.3 fairly unhampered miles. I couldn't raise much speed but Peter was sprinting hither and thither. (Following smells no doubt.)

To top off an already uncannily good day I got over 100,000 playing dx ball on the computer and the The Simpsons The Movie was on the telly. I'd forgotten how funny it is. All I have to do today is get my exhaust fixed. It inexplicably broke on the way back from Silverknowes. Could the cold have broken the welding? I don't know anything about it so will doubtless have to pay an idiot charge at Kwik-Fit.

Escape from Castle Dalkeith Country Park

Work has not been as busy as usual but for some reason has been taking more out of me. Maybe its the knowledge that everyone else is off and partying and sleeping late or maybe its just the time of year and the lack of light really settling in but it has been an effort to drag my sorry bones out of bed and up the road to work.

Anyway, yesterday I finished up until Tuesday and was reluctant to make any plans at all feeling totally knackered and unable to plan. I sank a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and an after dinner port which was my concession to the party season and as Peter fell asleep in front of the telly at 11pm I chased him off to bed and did some stuff on the computer and was asleep myself by 11.30. Woke up to the windows rattling with the fireworks and then later on from time to time to what I ungenerously thought of as the idiots outside singing and shouting but never lost any serious sleep time to this. At 9.30 am it seemed the right thing to do to get up even though I still felt stunned (like a clubbed seal cub on the ice). After breakfast I felt ready for another nap and went back to bed for a while. In the meantime we'd made a loose arrangement to meet up with Scott and Amanda and get some form of running in. Despite my pitiful motivationless state I did actually want to get out running so after reading a short chapter in my Freud reader and appalling Peter by telling him about it.."What? What are you talking about? Thats a lot of rubbish." I got up and we arranged to meet A and S at Dalkeith for a 7 miler in Dalkeith Country Park.

Scott has a sore eye so was sporting cool Oakley yellow sunglasses. Amanda had her new running jacket on. Brighter and more yellow than the sun itself! We chatted for a little while as we warmed up and then I got hopelessly left behind and kept getting snippets of gossip but not the whole story. It was the hardest I'd had to run in a while and I had to make a continual effort which I thought grimly was good for me but oh it was HARD, although good to be able to get enough grip in the snow to work hard (the surfaces were mostly quite good, optimised by my Inov8 mudclaws which I am growing to love passionately), but definitely hard.

Scott dropped back out of sympathy and we had a conversation which started with my idea that the human race was at a crossroads where two quite different branches were going to emerge. (This is an old hat theory but revitalised it for the sake of debate.) There were going to be the people who order out and the delivery people. The ordering out people would have a functional finger and of course a mouth and big fat bellies and the delivery people would continue to have full working bodies. Scott said this reminded him of a cartoon that he'd seen where there were big fat people who floated around in space and people on the ground who had to feed them. This step into the surreal got me to thinking that the odd buildings in the woods at DCP actually reminded me of a computer game Wolfenstein that I played obsessively for a while. The sophisticated plot of which being that there are Nazis everywere and its absolutely fine, in fact essential, to shoot them all to pieces. There is a level where the countryside is in snow with high towers (similar to the one I'd just spotted to my left) dotted around the landscape which would have snipers in so you had to use the cover you had to sneak up benind them and take them out unawares. I told this to Scott and he got it immediately and pretty soon, in what in psychiatry would be called folie a deux, we were both spotting Nazi encampments in the woods and indeed fat people floating in space "We could shoot them with Nutella" Scott suggested. All this served to distract from the sheer effort I was putting in not to get dropped by my running peers. As I always go running in Dalkeith Country park with people who are faster than me, I am always working too hard to pay much attention to where I am so I have no idea where we went....although it was 8 miles not 7...

But the cup of tea afterwards was mighty fine.

Now its a delight to write nonsense on the computer in our work room, with the heater on and tomato soup, toast and peanut butter and a cup of tea recently scoffed. Happy New Year.

Snowy Pentlands

The team decided to crack down on their recent sloth and alarms were set to get us up and out to the Pentlands early...however, I woke up with the alarm at 8.30am and felt tired and uninspired. Got up and had a look out the window at grey spindrift on Arthur's Seat under a dull sky and went straight back to bed. Buchanan was taking no responsibility for the day - to him setting an alarm means telling me to make him a cup of tea half an hour after I'm up - "and not so strong this time." I prodded him once to see if he was going to insist on getting up - but he asked how the day looked and when I told him said "might as well rest up then. "

There was a worry in the back of my mind that we're both becoming less and less remarkable in terms of hard work and dedication. Were we just going to become increasingly round until running would be something we reminisced about? As our waistlines expanded our recalled pbs would get faster and faster. Sleep soon removed these worries but instead I had an unsettling dream in which I was remembering having fallen backwards off a 100 ft ladder. In my dream I was remembering grasping for the top rung but not trying very hard and then to my horror falling away backwards. I felt a mixture of horror at having fallen and relief at suffering no consequences.

Finally at 11.30 I woke up again and feeling a great deal better got up to a much more affable looking day. Buchanan was still of a mind that we should be going to the Pentlands and the wind seemed nothing like as strong as had been forecast so I didn't put up too much of a fight, just muttering under my breath about how it was going to get dark and we'd be benighted in temperatures below zero or else get lost in a white out.

The road at Flotterstone was a sheet of ice and the carpark was full to overflowing so we had to park at the side of the road. The path up Turnhouse had been polished to a high glassy sheen by sledgers and the wind at the top was cutting and incredibly sore. We kept going though and got out of the worst of the wind. The snow was deeper than its been for a few years coming down the far sides of the hills and it felt pretty safe under foot. (Mostly, although Peter cartwheeled past me at one point, emitting a high pitched shriek.) There was a plethora of walkers - most of whom seemed overdressed and burdened by rucksacks and poles and with their hoods up so they couldn't see the view. I was impressed however by one guy who had an orange balaclava and sunglasses on. It was both a good look (sinister as hell) and would have saved us from the wind sting.

The light was fading so we headed right at the foot of the East Kip down to the Howe and then along to the back of Black Hill where there's a nice little path. We climbed a last hill at Bell's Hill as the sun was setting and then headed down the path onto the road and then back to the car.

Nice run, albeit very slow and felt toasty throughout. We were out for 2hrs 45 mins and felt fine. Maybe shaking off the cold at last.

I am now obsessed with Andre Agassi and intrigued with the drive that sports' people have to be the best. Graeme Obree described just feeling relief when he took the hour record because he hadn't failed. I found a (semi) interesting article in the Guardian on-line about Agassi and other troubled sports' stars. Cricketers, apparently, are particularly prone to depression and suicide.

So I wonder is there more than one way of doing this or do you actually have to have demons to accomplish great things? Is Paula just keeping it quiet? Bjorn Borg? Troubled? Or is there more than one way to skin a cat? I can't finish this thought yet so I'm off to have my tea.

Dicing with ice

We thought we better get out a longer run today before we had to put elastic in our clothes to accommodate our fuller figures. We both continue snuffly and have been lounging around in our jammies drinking red wine and never getting out til after dark. I have seen my abs disappear under a new layer of fat this week. Its a shame. I was never exactly lean. So anyway the best way I know of burning up some fat is to get out a long run.

It was bitterly cold and the thought of going out was daunting. We started planning to go up the Pentlands and then thought better of it and thought we'd go and run out to the airport, but even that started to seem too barren and exposed so we settled for running up the Water of Leith to the bike tunnel then back down via the canal, into town and round the back of Arthur's Seat to get somewhere near 17 miles.

Outside the pavements were very slippy and icy making for difficult running. This got a bit better further up the Water of Leith on the muddier paths. It was a nicer day than it had looked from within a cocoon of cosy heat earlier on. It was overcast but lighter than yesterday. Peter was delighted with all the icy formations and prettinesses the snow makes so ran around taking pictures while I plodded steadily on, somewhat less buoyant. The change of gait to accommodate the ice and snow made for very stiff legs later on.

Anyway we did it, stopping at Scotmid across the road from us to buy soup and rolls for a late and delicious lunch.

Started reading Andre Agassi's autobiography "Open" last night and stayed up longer than I meant to reading - and then dreamed of tennis all night. He had a pretty fierce father! At first I thought it was overly wordy but once I'd settled into it I forgot about that which I guess means he's a good writer. He says tennis players talk to themselves because its the loneliest sport in the world. He says you're out there on the court by yourself and you're not allowed to talk to anyone and you have no real contact with your opponent and you end up just speaking out loud. That's happened to me on some of my longer runs a few times. Find yourself suddenly exclaiming things (or swearing) or having a chat with the sheep. I think long distance running might be up there in the loneliness stakes. Maybe that's why blogging seems like a good idea.

Why would I not speak to Peter since I was out running with him, you might ask. Because he runs too damn quick and just annoys me.

Photos by Peter.

Yak in a Buffalo

It was a nicer day today and my flourishing and increasingly productive cold was fighting with the desire to get out and do some training since I'm off work for a week. (Random annual leave to preserve sanity before Christmas.) While enthusiasm was winning I dreamed up a plan to go and do mile intervals at the meadows at 10K pace with half mile recovery jogs X 5. I went to tell Peter about this (who was still in bed having been up tinkering with the website and putting some friends' wedding video together) but even while I was explaining the session I realised that I felt dizzy and maybe it wasn't a good idea. Luckily he didn't think so either and instead he suggested we noise up his brother Neil and see if he would be available for a gentler run round the park.

Neil is strikingly like Peter to look at and presumably has similar running potential but he only dips his toe in from time to time so he remains in the first stages of running. It was a nice change to jog down to his house about a mile away and set off for Arthur's Seat by a different route from normal. We went round the perimeter in the mud and thorn bushes, rather than round the roads, starting at the London road end. For once we stuck fairly consistently to chatting pace.

I had worn my Buffalo - a nice bit of kit made of fleece on the inside and pertex on the outside that friends who live down in the Lake District swear by. It hasn't seen much action over the couple of years I've had it as it often turns out to be too warm. Its got zip-down sides for ventilation and is designed to be worn with nothing or a minimum underneath, so ventilation has to be balanced against indecent exposure. It was just about right for today anyway. It was raining on and off after we started running but it didn't affect me at all. Neil and Peter were chatting pretty much all the time and it was nice to run along in company but not say much. I'm not good at running and talking anyway and my breathing was a bit laboured with the cold.

Once we'd gone round the park we were still quite fresh so we did a couple of laps up one side of Hunter's Bog and then along the path that takes you up to the top but branching left so we came down a ridge at the other side...it might be called the Dasses. The trouble with having been running round Arthur's Seat for years is I've made up names for bits of A.S. where I know what I'm talking about - but nobody else would. I call this the old middle way. So we went round the old middle way!

It was grey above (although there were some nice views of a sunny looking Fife from time to time) and it was wet and muddy under foot, but it was good to be out and about. We tried to talk Neil into various adventures...with who knows what result. He has the sporting gene too but has concentrated more on swimming thus far. (Although he has run a marathon - he's done more than many people with his running.)

Anyway - another winter's day's run so we will be allowed to eat again this evening! We are both just trying to minimise the damage of our colds and this time of year's pull to be lazy and eat too much. Tomorrow night is Club championship awards night and Richard's nasty handicap race in which we get given a hellish handicap as punishment for making off with our age group prizes for another year. I have to say Peter probably deserves his - and I deserve mine for consistency, attendance and resisting the temptation to have a baby for another year - but I'm maybe not the best runner in my age-group! You know I would gladly relinquish my champion status if more of the women would come and do the championship races. If any of you are reading - come on, it is fun! and it makes you good at racing.

Dunbar XC

Lovely race which went fine despite having a dicky tummy yesterday and less so today. I've got a kind of cold that seems to come and go too - will probably be a bit worse tomorrow again. Today it was great to get out in the daylight and Dunbar and surrounds looked fabulous in the hazy sunshine. It was mighty cold but there was almost no wind.

I had to fight very hard to keep Rachel behind me.

The course was varied and interesting - the hardest bit being the 1st stretch of sand which was soft and power-sapping and I wasted a bit of strength trying to find somewhere with better grip to run on. There was a bit over a mud flat where the surface was strongly reminiscent of sticky gingerbread. The stuff through the forest was my favourite. It was the last stretch and by this time my lungs were hoo-ing but I had to go for it. Gently undulating and nice to run on but with the odd root that could cause a major upset if you let your attention slip. The course was nearer 5 miles than the usual 4. Thank you Dunbar for another stunning race. I ran the whole way with the song "Meantime" sung by Georgie Fame blasting away in my head for some reason. I am really enjoying the Borders XC series. Can't recommend it highly enough.

After that we went for a post race run on the beach near Lucy C's at North Berwick. I "let" the faster runners go and enjoyed pottering along on the sand looking out to sea where there was a mysterious cold mist with various large rocks jutting up out of it. If you ignored the cold you could nearly convince yourself you were somewhere exotic like Vietnam. N B Law had a furry blanket of fog over the top of it and a few skeletal trees that looked oriental. (I'd have to say Chinesey. Is that a word?)

Thanks to Ian Nimmo for taking pictures of the Porties (especially me) and then letting us know about it.