Another Pentlands Run

Another low level Pentlands' run today. Peter went off a little earlier with Ben. (Who else could get him to get up early at the weekend?) I set off to meet Amanda and Scott at Flotterstone for 11.5 miler on road and track. The team were a bit banged up but not broken. Scott's knee is still hurting after falling on it with a rucksack on on some ill-advised ultra running epic weekend. Amanda was suffering from being underfed and overactive and running that edge between training hard and illness. (You should have seen her doing reps. of 6bs at the climbing wall yesterday. Won't mean much if you don't climb but basically you have to be made of wire and steel to climb 6b and something even tougher (I've run out of hard stuff analogies) to do reps on them. At our very best we scratched our way up the odd 6c but not repeatedly.) My legs felt like half-set concrete, a combination of yesterday's 5K and the unaccustomed exercise of climbing afterwards. The wind was forecast to be blowing at 21 mph in Leith so I don't know what it was blowing in the Pentlands. All in all the team were pretty hearty considering and set off in good time.

About a mile into the run (uphill and in to the wind) we saw Douglas Young flying down the road towards us, doing the same circuit but the other way round and starting and finishing at the other side. "Its pretty windy at the top of the road" he warned us, which at the time seemed fairly obvious but a couple of miles further up we saw what he meant. We knuckled down to it -each in our separate worlds. Speaking was impossible because of the wind - and in my case, because I'm not as fast as S and A so I was chugging along behind. Tough it was but fairly enjoyable too. The wind wasn't too cold and there was a fair amount of light around considering the cloud cover. I made the effort to snap a few pictures but I couldn't hang around as I was already getting well dropped.

Amanda started dying off because she hadn't had enough breakfast and she was audibly regretting not having her porridge and contemplating a stop at the burger van which was parked bizarrely at the other side of the hill. At first I thought Amanda's remarks about burgers were coming from a wishful thinking place - but no - there it was - that smell of fat and yellow and red squirty things full of mustard and tomato ketchup. We didn't stop for a burger though and Scott and Amanda charged determinedly up the hill ahead as I puffed and chuffed my way along behind. (I think I can I know I can.)

We all arrived back in good time and shortly afterwards Ben and Peter appeared having been on a trip round the high tops. A and S scooted off to get food and I drove Peter home. Viva the Pentlands. Think I might have persuaded Peter to have a go at the Fling. And when I say I've persuaded him I mean I think Ben might have. Now; tomato soup, oatcakes and processed cheese, cup of tea; bliss.