Earlier last week I was doing what is now usual for me. Despite being fairly careful over the weekend I seemed to have pulled a new injury out of the sky. I'd done something to my hip in bed. I was lying funny so as not to hurt my knee on the other side. Jesus, old age came on rapidly.
On Tuesday I was hurpling with a sore hip. On Wednesday there was that super-duper short-lived storm so I couldn't even go for a cycle. I went for a swim at Leith Victoria. The water was nice and warm and it was relaxing. There wasn't much room for swimming though. I think I timed it exactly wrong. When I got there I discovered ex-fellow Porty and speed walker Andrew Fraser behind the counter. I hadn't seen him in a few years and he'd been having a few of those kind of years - the ones where everything goes wrong - so we were chatting a wee bit. I turned around to discover that since I'd arrived a long queue of resentful but quiet older men had formed behind me. I said goodbye to Andrew and got in the pool. I had it largely to myself for about 5 minutes and then everyone else arrived. It didn't matter anyway. My swimming isn't that great. I hadn't been since February. I did 30 lengths with generous rests in between and called it a day.
On Thursday I was a bit better and I went out for three cautious running miles.
So on Saturday the plan was still on. Drive down to Dumfries and spend the night - push the boat out - have an Indian meal - even have a pint of lager! I soon remembered why I don't try to please Peter very often. It's impossible. I thought of driving down and staying over night because he was moaning so much about catching the early coach for the race on the Sunday. But then when I told him about the hotel and all I could tell he wasn't that pleased. Oh well. On the road on the way down he was saying wistfully that he was missing some drinking run in the Pentlands with the Carnethies. (And I thought HBT were the piss-heads of Edinburgh Running World).
We made reasonable time down the road and only drove round Dumfries 2 or 3 times before finding Glenlossie Guest House, our lodgings for the night. I can't be bothered going into it but our room wasn't the best, despite its generous 8 points on hotel.com. Why have a large window if half the view is underground? I'm only asking. I hated the smell of the room. Someone had left one of those lemon plug-in things in and on. What is that smell better than? Maybe there was a corpse in room 8 across the way. There was a loud buzzing sound issuing from it anyway. I could swear I booked a room with an en suite toilet but lo and behold we had a shared toilet and we were sharing with room 8, which seemed to be housing the Lord of the Flies.
Undeterred, or not too much, we put on our party clothes, (Peter put on his book-group tank top and I didn't get changed at all) and hit the town.
Woo-hoo
I don't think we took the most direct route to the centre of town, but it was good to stretch our legs. Dumfries had the feel of a town that has seen better days. Quite a lot of the young people seemed to be spending Saturday night driving about in a car with loud music on.
The Royal India was busy and we were a long time waiting. This was Peter's first smile though. Or it might have been just wind. When the food came it was good and we ate more than our fill. Then we waddled home, full as eggs, under the nearly full moon.
Robbie looked down askance at some very drunk and shouty ladies in high-heels.
We were in bed by 10 and might have had a good night's sleep if there hadn't been something wrong with the heating system. But there was. So pipes in the wall and ceiling knocked loudly all night. The building was unstaffed so there was nobody to complain to except each other, and there was no point in doing that because we already knew.
So the next day we were tired. But it was a beautiful Sunday.
Look this is the course. My Strava friends have suggested it looks like a man's parts and now I can't see it any other way. Check out the course profile though. Terrible. Lots of downhill in the 1st half and then uphill and into the wind in the 2nd half. I've got to be honest. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't expect to. I hoped maybe I could get under 2 hrs but it turned out I couldn't. I strolled in in 2hrs and 2 minutes. I think that's a PW equal with the last Haddington Half Marathon I did where I had to take a toilet stop in a field. But it was fun being out the house and seeing people, and I was glad I managed to enter a race and then actually run it.
The race was very well organised. Hats off to the organisers. Maybe I'll risk doing the Dunbar 10 miler. Would that be pushing my luck too far?
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