Cramming and a deep tissue massage.

Is it you again?

Yus.

I thought you had given up running?

Yes I had.

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling kind of contented because instead of trying to thrash myself through another long run I was just going to run about 6 miles and then tidy my room. Maybe other stuff. I was looking forwards to it.

So what happened? I don't know. I looked at the weather map and the wind was going to be light and turning east. So I could just go back the way I came last Monday. I'd get all the nasty stuff out of the way first. Also I remembered Alan Aitchison's look of scorn last Saturday when I told him I'd set out to do a long run but retired at 10 miles. "When is your marathon?" he asked me. "The third week in May" I told him. His brow furrowed. "It's not an exam. You can't cram for it."

Damn these runners and their plain-speaking ways.

I told Peter and we put a plan together.

I felt really fine for the first 7 or so miles. In fact I was concerned I was going too fast - I thought Peter would not ever catch up with me at that rate. We'd built in a pretty large pace differential and I was not going as slow as I was supposed to be. So I dillied and dallied. I took a while tip-toeing down the scary Salveson steps that are looking a bit more cork-screwed every time I see them.

Anyway - round about 8 or so miles I heard the familiar blowing of Buchanan barrelling down the path and I knew I was caught. By this time I was nearly done anyway.

By 13 miles I really was done. So was Buchanan. I had some paracetamols, which I don't approve of. But I did anyway. It took about an hour to notice them but then it was nice my legs didn't hurt so much any more. By this time we were jogging and chatting. Peter compared me to Willie Murray, our club-mate - which is a compliment, because Willie is world class, but he's also in the over 70s.

Anyway, I won't guff on. It was a bit of a cheaty long run. Super-slow and I only covered 17.8 miles to the train station at Dalmeny. However I had run a 63 mile week. Which was a bit of a jump from the 36 miles I'd run the week before.


Today I got up and ran 5 miles on reluctant legs and then I went for a deep tissue massage at Knot Stressed on Montrose Terrace. Oh my word. The pain. The pleasure. I was extraordinarily spaced out by the time I left, in fact I felt like I was drunk, so I came home and had a big sleep. The guy I saw was Juan Mases, and I'll be going back.

But tomorrow I'll be going back to work. :-(