The Bandit 5K, some autumnal runs, and Lance.

I've got all these friends that I've never met these days. (Are they not strangers?) Well...possibly. Anyway, one of them is Alan Jeffrey from club, who earlier in the year staged a virtual 3 mile race. My time for it was appalling but I liked the challenge. You need a reason to push up into the red, and I have not truly been able to convince myself that 'The Gerries' are after me since I was a 6 or 7 year old playing catch at school with the boys. (Apparently if you catch a boy you have to let him go afterwards.) 

So when it was announced there was to be another club challenge, I was immediately delighted.

This time it was to be more constricting and more complicated, however. We had to run against a predicted time and we had to run a Parkrun. We could run it whenever we wanted but it had to be run at the actual course of either Portobello or Cramond Parkrun.

Then there was a further complication. We had to give our predicted time but then this was to be adjusted by Mark Fry at club - and he was not going to tell us what our adjusted time was. This was getting a bit odd, frankly. Apparently Mark had declared that the times people had submitted were ridiculously slow and that we were a shower of bandits. Thus it was named the Mark Fry Bandit 5K.

I prefer a virtual race where you get to choose the location yourself. As Lazarus Lake in the recent GVRAT so wisely said, an Old Wolf needs to hunt with the teeth they have...I like a downward slope and a following wind. But it was not to be...

How to choose? Cramond - where a headwind perpetually blows in every direction? Where the unobstructed view of how far you still have to go crushes your spirit?

Or Portobello? 3 times round a little rat run. THREE TIMES ROUND!!!! It had to be Cramond. Me and Peter kept putting it off. It's never the right time for that kind of thing.

Then a wind grew out of the West. A perpetual 15-20mph. It wasn't forecast to abate before the challenge was over, so one Wednesday I suggested we just go and get it over with. We cycled there and the wind was nearly stopping our bikes as we neared the start/finish area.

But what's to be done? A wee warm up round the mast and then READY, STEADY, GO! That's what! Buchanan galloped off with the wind behind him. I kidded myself on that I was saving myself for the return journey, but I wasn't, I was running flat out. I was puffing. I was too hot. At least when you do an actual parkrun all the people around you are a distraction and provide some cover. The pace felt glacial. People stared in disbelief. I tried to forget about them, and the distance, and the time.

Turning round into the wind was as bad as anticipated. Pushing into an invisible wall. I wondered how Peter was doing and kept on keeping on. I didn't look at my watch at all because it wasn't likely to be saying anything good.

Eventually I got to the home strait - the wee path that takes the left side of the trees. Peter was there taking photos and I kept on pushing.

Holy Moly that was nasty.

Maybe a minute after you stop it's fine. I was only 6 or 7 seconds over the time I had predicted and I was surprised and pleased by that. It was still a parkrun worst, but I knew it would be,

We went for a wander to see the gulls and cool off.

Peter had also done a PW but it's hard not to just be glad it's over when it's over. We both knew the conditions were pretty dire.

Isobel Pollard appeared on her bike and we had a chat.

Then on our way home we were rewarded with our own personal rainbow.

So neither of us ran a great time but it was a good hard workout, something I avoid these days. Maybe I'd get better if I did more?

There is a very definite change in season going on and I've had a few nice weekday runs on subdued autumnal days. I've got very mixed feelings about it. I like autumn. I like the softness and cooler air, but it means winter is coming, which isn't great. I'm not sure the combination of Covid and winter is going to be good. If there are to be more restrictions, let them not restrict me to Edinburgh again. That was horrid.

Is Wall's ice-cream called that because it's the colour of a wall?

You could set quite a convincing Scandi noir series in Edinburgh.

We've just finished watching a two-part Storyville documentary about Lance Armstrong called 'Lance'.

(Photo pinched from the New York Times)

I was really hoping it would have a bit of depth and avoid portraying him too simplistically, and it did. It's a fascinating watch - nothing new in there really. It is constructed of interview after interview with the people who were involved both with Lance and with the cycling scene at the time - and with Lance himself, who promises to tell the truth, and I think pretty much does. He has done some reflection on how he was in his pro-cycling days, and is no longer in that place - but also doesn't embarrass himself with lip-service apologies, as seems to be the fashion now-a-days! 

One particular phrase he used that I liked was that he talked about 'getting his hate on' in a race. Who amongst us has not got their hate on?

I got my hate on yesterday when two - what had to be Edinburgh University students - boyfriend and girlfriend, came past me, far too close, on the top road at Arthur's Seat. I was slacking, as usual. I had been for an off-road run and was now starving so I was just cruising home, thinking about lunch.

I heard them coming up behind me, puffing away. I could tell from the sounds they were making that they were way close to me. The guy spoke with a plummy accent and spat on the ground and then said 'Good Morning' to me as he passed inches from my right shoulder, as his girlfriend, who was breathing out of her posh arse, came round inches from my left shoulder. I said 'Good Morning' to them in a clear voice that was not fogged by plummy panting, and then I got my hate on. It was a bold move from which there could be no retreat but I upped my pace considerably and pulled away. I could feel their surprise and I could hear them trying to keep up. 'There is no way in hell, if you're breathing like that, that you're going to catch me' I thought to myself. What was I thinking? They were in their early 20s, if that. Anyway, I just wanted clear of them, so I fired off forwards. I actually got a Strava PR for that half mile of top road, which is quite something, as I've been on Strava for 6 years and run that route in the region of 200 times. 

Today I went for a nice cycle instead of running. God cycling is easy. Well a wee bit of it is.