I'm struggling for a title for all this - it's been a weekend packed with delights and disappointments. Maybe I'll know it by the time I've written it.
We had planned to do the Hunter's Bog trot on Saturday - one of the few club championship races where I might have a shout at 10 points, and wonderfully local. I even quite like it. But on Friday evening I came home from work in a gloom. It had been a busy day and a busy week and I was dreading the thought of the pressure of racing - especially as I really had to do a long run on Sunday and wasn't loving the idea. Instead I wished I could escape into the hills somewhere. But I thought Peter would be dead-set on racing. But then he mentioned he wished that he could go after some Green Hair-streaks, which were in this special place in the Pentlands - and would be out for a limited time only....
Well it didn't take long for us to set our championship ambitions aside, and pretty soon I felt cheered up about my weekend. We had a happy Friday evening, watching another episode of "Line of Duty" on BBCi Player, with Peter talking through it and me telling him to shut up. To be fair, we're both losing it with Line of Duty. It's the usual thing - the writers, in an effort to make up a new episode, start to slightly mess with the characters' characters - and get them to do things that they just wouldn't do - and we're supposed to go "ooh, ahhh, maybe it was this all along" - but it isn't cleverly enough done so it just breaks your trust and distances you from the plot. Peter was going on about his butterfly ambitions, how they will progress through the next couple of months. Very soon he'll be after the small coppers. He adopts a northern irish accent and parodies Superintendent Hastings - "I'm interested in one thing and one thing only. Small Coppers!" Hohoho.
The next day we are up and out sharpish for us. Part of the deal is that I get coffee and cake from the Pentlands Cafe before we even start. Then we set off up the road and paths for about a mile until we get to the special blaeberry field which has been fenced off to keep the sheep out the blaeberries. For some reason this is where the Green Hair-Streaks are likely to be - but it's more cold and grey than we'd hoped and Peter says in a dismal voice that he doesn't think he'll see any today. We go into the blaeberry field anyway. In a little while there are shrieks of delight. Peter is finding not one, but many green hair-streaks. I haven't seen any at all yet but don't much care. I am busy photographing a bee when I look a couple of inches left and Bob's Your Uncle. The cold is making them slow and sluggish. This one doesn't mind being handled - in fact it likes the body-warmth, so I get all the time in the world to focus. When it is time to put it down it won't let go so I have to blow it off my fingers.
We are in the field for a good while and then are heading back down to the gorse to see if there is any action there when I look to my right and cannot believe my eyes. There is this big, massive, lovely moth, which I happen to know is an emperor moth. I had seen a picture of one and thought that I'd like to see one. That it was better than any of the butterflies I have seen. So there is one suddenly right in front of me! I was scared it would fly straight off and not give me a chance to focus, but like the butterflies, it was sluggish from the cold and was quite willing to be handled and then put back.
Then the sun came out and suddenly the little green fellas came to life! It was back to being a battle to focus on them.
I had to kind of persuade Peter away, but I wanted to get a run in too. He managed to tear himself away. A little further on a fellow runner drew even - and it turned out to be Karl Zeiner. I knew who he was but not what he looked like, but he and Peter knew each other. We chummed each other for a while - then we turned left and Karl went right. The sun kept coming and going and everything looked very fresh - probably because it had been raining all night the night before.
We had a very nice run and arrived back at the van in good form. There was a strange smell of diesel back at the van, but we thought maybe someone had one of these barbeque kits - they smell a bit like that - and headed to Tescos to get some shopping.
When we got back to the van in the car park at Tescos we could again smell a diesely smell. I had a look in the boot in case a bottle of oil had spilled but there was nothing in there. Then I had a wee look under the car. Oh dear. Diesel drips! We tried a drive by our local Citroen garage but they finish early on a Saturday and were gone. There really wasn't anything to be done.
Things going wrong with the car give me the doom. And this was particularly giving me the doom. I was worried the tank would empty completely and then how would we get it to the garage? I was worried it would go on fire. I also don't want to take it to the garage tomorrow morning - it means getting up super early so I'm not late for work. Bloody buggar.
By this morning I had got to a bargaining stage and so I made a deal with God that I wouldn't complain about having to take it to the garage if it would just have a. not blown up over night and killed a small family and if it would b. start and still have some diesel in it so I could actually take it to the garage on Monday.
I also had a long run to do, which I wasn't really happy about. Last Sunday's long run was a singular failure and I guess I was afraid of having another one. Aspects of this marathon training have gone surprisingly well but if I can't turn out the long runs I don't see how it can work out well on the day.
One thing I'd learned from last Sunday was not to wait until 1pm to start, so despite still having elements of doom in my stomach I set off, taking the car-key with me, just to see how things were...
Things were okay. It was still there - there was still some diesel in the tank - it hadn't gone down much - and it still started. Result. Some of the doom lifted.
It was a mixture of sun and cloud and very little wind. What wind there was was easterly, so in my face - but actually I was finding the conditions were just right for running. By mile 3 or so I was happying up. Maybe I liked running! Maybe I was going to enjoy my long run!
At mile 4 I was joined by a guy called Roddy who is from Galashiels and is doing an ironman in June in the borders. We talked about how you can get tired of structured training. It was good to have company. He was just going along steadily and so it was comfortable chatting. At mile 5 I went to the garage to get a drink and he headed onwards. I was standing next to the bin in Musselburgh eating a gel and drinking a drink when I saw Aileen, so I got her to stop and speak to me for a little while.
"Some long run" you're saying. I know, I know. Anyway, after a while I got going again and only stopped to take a photograph of a rat at the side of the road. Anyone else would have done the same. Pretty soon I was pulling in to the now familiar and welcome Prestonpans Co-op car park for my mid-way refreshments. Part of my running remit for the day was to do "5 miles at marathon pace" in the middle of my run. I figured I'd do that after I'd had another drink - and a coffee and a Mars Bar. Well you know I was hungry - and the first gel hardly touched the sides.
Marathon pace didn't turn out to be very good. It started at 8.53 and then got slower - still it was warm so I figured maybe it was a case of just keeping up the effort - which I did - even if the pace wasn't what I would have hoped for. I went round the lagoons so was finished this 5 mile effort just before Porty Prom. Just as well. The people were there - you know who they are - I've complained about them often enough. What that Prom needs is some rules and some discipline. Single file only. Children should be quiet and walk in a straight line. Dogs should only walk in a straight line. Nobody should be on wheels at all - especially if a grumpy runner with crampy legs and heat-stroke is trying to get through. Nobody should look at me. Are you looking at me????
Then back up through Leith where there has been "a game" on. The game is to pretend you're interested in sport while wearing a nasty green and white nylon jersey and drinking beer. Bigoted old worthies eyed me as they smoked outside the pub and I ran by. I gave them the hate. No words were spoken but they got and returned it.
And then I went to Sainsbury's to get a salad. The end. I hope the car gets fixed tomorrow.
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