Jolly Long Run

Well I went to the club session last night and I was strong as a horse! This snow wading works. In all ran 14 miles last night, 8 miles at tempo pace and because I wasn't the least strong person in my group I chatted a fair amount of the way. This was a form of revenge for all the times people have chatted to me when I'm clearly struggling and can only grunt in response. Its a way of rubbing it in. Definitely a sadistic thing. The plan today then was to run 20 miles as I'm in Glasgow Friday and Saturday and won't have time. I was a bit sobered to get up (finally) and see it was grey and snowing outside again. I needed to get going as quick as I could as I needed to get back to get a new stereo fitted in my car at Halfords. This one can play music from my mp3 player. It was slushy and slidy underfoot on the pavements and the snow was deeper off the streets. I headed up the Water of Leith to get a bit of cover from the trees, up to the "Alan Alan" bridge (see photo) which marks exactly 10 miles from the house. The going was hard and therefore slow and I quickly realised it would be a push to get home, get a shower and get straight back out to Halfords. None the less I took the time to take some bleak photographs to mark the occasion. For a change of scene I came back along the canal and through town via the meadows and Arthur's Seat. Around Arthur's Seat my Garmin developed some kind of hysterical illness from being wet too long, where it kept beeping and couldn't be put off and kept putting its light on and off. The whole bezel thing on the 405 is a pain in the arse and I wish they hadn't tried to be so clever. I was cursing loudly because I had my mp3 player on and couldn't hear myself. I reckon it robbed me of some precious mileage but I had no time to go a bit further to make up the distance so had to make do with 19.33 miles. Anyone who's got Garmin obsessional disorder (God, ho ho) will realise how bad this felt. The good news is the new stereo thing works in the car. I had kind of a gut feeling that there was going to be some bad electronics hiding behind the old one and indeed there was and I could tell the guy who was fitting it was wishing he'd never seen me, but he was very nice about it and managed to cobble together a solution out of a horrible web of wires and tape. When I plugged my mp3 in and it worked I was delighted. I wished I had somewhere to drive to but it was dark, wet and rush hour so I just drove home. The reason I called it Jolly Long Run is it seemed jolly long.