This runner's world

Pans 2 NB 2 - kinda long

2012-01-27T22:05:00.000Z

I'd promised myself I'd try to make better use of my Fridays, which consist of getting up earlier than I want to and then working for 4 hours and coming home. Despite it being a good early start to the weekend I usually feel a bit crap by the time I'm home because I'm tired and tend to waste the day. This Friday I hatched a plan to have a plan and then come home from work and execute it before getting too comfy shuffling around in pyjamas. We're both needing to do more long running so we thought we might take the train to Prestonpans and then run the coast to North Berwick and get the train back...but the timings weren't working out great.

Last night we couldn't agree on the best course of action so we just left it. Today dawned very cold but nice and still with a lovely pink sunrise going on as I cycled up the Bridges. As luck would have it my nice charge nurse remembered that I'd worked 2 extra half hours recently and set me free an hour early. I got down the road and the train timings still weren't working out great so we drove to Prestonpans station and ditched the car and set off. It was very cold and it took courage to wear shorts but I was remembering how yesterday 5 minutes into the run I was too hot. I feel like tights just slow me down and I don't want slowed down so...shorts it was. Not 5, but maybe 15 minutes into the run I was nice and warm and had to ditch my gloves and buff. It had been a bit grey when we set off but the sun came out and stayed out.

What more to say...it really was nice out in the sunshine. Peter did a bit of tree climbing in the magic glade just before Aberlady. As the sun lowered the colours just got more and more spectacular. The tide was against us - just coming up tight to the shore as we got to Gullane so we had to come inland. When we got to Dirleton I had had enough and just wanted to take the road to NB but Peter wanted to go round the shore so we parted company. It was just starting to get dark and I wasn't really sure if I'd see him again. I thought he may have to do some swimming in the dark. But what to do? The Co-op was calling me with its bakery goods and I was starving...

Just after I arrived at the station and just before I forgetfully bought tickets for Edinburgh in the ticket machine, instead of remembering the car was at Prestonpans, Peter appeared. All was well. We went home.
I ran a little over 16 miles and he ran a bit more. Nice start to the weekend.

6 days a week is fine.

2012-01-26T18:07:00.000Z

When Tuesday came around I knew I wasn't going to run so my schedule is now running 6 days a week with a Tuesday off. I discover I am in good company as Ryan Hall has recently adopted the same approach. I've mentioned it before but I think Ryan Hall is great. He has let his old coach go so that God can coach him direct. Other people would call it intuition but to him its God talking to him. It seems to be working for him as he's got his best marathon time down to 2.04.58...

God didn't have much to say about whether I went a run or not this morning and I was kind of reluctant to go. I have the choice on a Thursday of going out in the morning or going later in the evening and its tempting sometimes just to put it off, but 5 minutes into the run I was glad I'd gone. It was nice and still and although it was cold I was very soon perfectly warm. A wee trot round Arthur's Seat proved to be enjoyable. Now I have my evening free for...hmmm....studying and doing the dishes. Bonzer.

Marcothon...what still? What really?

2012-01-23T20:31:00.000Z

Have never really lost that Marcothon thing...I've missed the last 2 Tuesday's running and those have been my only days off since November the 27th. Its not that I have run every day but I now think I should run everyday. A pattern is emerging. Usually by Monday I really don't want to go out but I can't let myself off the hook so I go anyway...then Tuesday, that's it...I crumble. Tonight I dilly-dallied for ages until for some reason I thought of the William Tell Overture, googled it, found it on You Tube and this rallied the troops and I found the wherewithal to get up and get out there. But what will it take to get me out again tomorrow night? We'll worry about that tomorrow.

Shortish Sunday Run!

2012-01-22T20:24:00.000Z

Ambition outstripped ability/motivation/effort by some way today. The team were at 6s and 7s. I was pointlessly awake in the middle of the night and then slept in. Peter was somewhat hungover. I suggested we torture ourselves with an extended version of Water of Leith - Canal - Meadows - Arthur's Seat but P recoiled in horror and said he wanted to run on the nice beach. So by 3pm or so we started running towards the nice beach.

The wind was cold and harsh but the sun was bright. There were birdwatchers aplenty at the nature reserve at Aberlady, a pack of them rather comically looking with enormous binoculars at a tiny bush some 3 feet away from them, one of them announcing "I think its a Great Tit!" just as we ran past. We tittered. Ahead were a boy and his mother. A dog coming in the other direction barked at the boy and he started to cry. When we appeared behind him he worked himself into a frenzy running blindly this way and that and bawling and shrieking while his mother tried to calm him down. It was all a bit frenetic so in order to give the public a wide berth I suggested we try a path out through the grasslands that avoided the narrow tunnel through the trees ahead. At first this seemed promising but then we got trapped on all sides by marshland. We surprised three or so grazing deer who took off across what looked for all the world like the Savannah. It took us a mile of tracking and back-tracking to extricate ourselves from the marsh. (A 15 minute mile on the flat!) The day was not looking auspicious for long running. We had maybe another hour of light by this time. Down on the coast everything was looking spectacular. The low winter light was turning everything gold and the wind was now firmly behind us. We ran along to the beach at Gullane and then I led and misled us on some paths down the shore and then up through the woods. My legs were kind of tired from yesterday. We arrived back at the van with 8.01 miles on the clock.

That didn't stop us stopping in at Falko's for 1 x cheese tongue, 1 x yoghurt scone (I wasn't so sure about this, Peter's choice) and 1 x almond and sultana brioche. Eaten out of brown bags in the car while watching the sun set over the golf course.

Need to work on that running to cake ratio. The weekend is nearly over and a full week awaits me and I am avoiding the things I should be doing and blogging instead...

Carnethy Recce

2012-01-21T15:09:00.002Z

Enthusiasm for putting a Portobello Ladies' team in the Devil's Burden waned and died this year so I ended up having a free Saturday. Peter was off with the men to Fife. Amanda wanted to go a run. I suggested something hilly so I could be "awesome" for the Carnethy 5 in a couple of weeks. Amanda suggested we run the Carnethy route. That might be taking the law of specificity in training a little too literally but its been long enough since I ran the route that I'd forgotten how harsh it is.

There was a fierce cold wind blowing today but this was off-set by it being nice and bright. We set off across the bog slightly to the right of the race route and found ourselves hurdling tussocks in a bog for 100 yards. Quite an intense start to it all. The wind was trying to shear our faces off. I'd forgotten how much snot its possible to produce in a short amount of time in the hills...

Then we tried to chat in the relative shelter on the stomp through thigh-length heather up to Scald Law. Having been running in the hills recently with runners who prefer roads I had formed too good an opinion of myself as a hill-runner and Amanda broke my heart and tore me limb from limb whilst chatting on this steep ascent. I sobbed and stumbled and tripped my way behind.

At the top of Scald Law it was only just possible to stay on our feet and the sky had turned black. On the run down to South Black Hill the wind was playfully tripping up my left leg with my right leg. Aaaaahhhh! Stop it!!! Then on the next stretch demons sent sleet to blind us and slice at our faces. Again we could barely stand up at the top of South Black Hill. We had to run the next bit blind as the sleet was coming straight for us...but then, when we lost some height, we were back in a relatively sheltered and relaxed world. Some walkers looked at us like we were mad. I am afraid I may have played up to this.

The run down from West Kip to the Howe was the pleasant bit and we managed a bit of chat. Then I saw to my horror Amanda running up the path to Carnethy Hill. Can't we walk this bit? The wind was now at our backs so it was better. I made us go the wrong way. Despite having done the race about 8 or possibly more times I only today realised that the route you go up in the Carnethy is not the standard walker's route.

Summiting Carnethy, again, vertical wasn't an option. Amanda cowered in the lee of the pile of stones up there while I caught up. I would have liked to have taken more photos but also felt I was fighting for my life...AGH flew off down the hill while I made a meal of it. The ground was kind of taxing and my legs were kind of numb! We used the scree which usually isn't an option in the race, but what's the point of practising the odd jumping you have to do through heather on race day? Anyway, I'd stopped to take a picture and Amanda was now about 1000 miles ahead so I had to catch up. Then there was just the short run across extremely wet bog to the end. Huzzah! A stimulating day out. We took off in our separate cars and because the wind had blown my brains straight out my ears at the top of the hill I ended up driving to Penicuik and driving back to Edinburgh in a traffic jam. I didn't mind. There was some musty old program on Bach on the radio which I was enjoying while watching the rain chasing the sun across the sky with the heater blasting on full.

I think tomorrow I am doomed to a "longer run". It needs to happen if we're going to do the Fling, and also I miss eating cake.

The Richard Dennis Birthday Handicap Run

2012-01-15T18:18:00.002Z

Photos; Peter, except Kathy took the one with Peter in

What a stunning day it was today. Hard getting up early at the weekend and hard venturing out in the cold. I made the mistake of "scooshing" my dirty windscreen and the water froze instantly. Need to get more chemicals in my screenwash before the winter proceeds much further...

Anyway, arriving at Flotterstone the carpark was very nearly full and there was a good sized group of Porties milling about and flapping their arms to keep warm. A large group of mixed ability went off first, just to get warm I think. I held back a bit, wanting to place myself about the middle so I might catch anyone going wrong from the first group but not be too late finishing. Paul Eunson came with me and pushed me - or I pushed myself, to hit the road a little harder than yesterday's stiff legs might have liked. I "let him go" on the way up the hill to the Maiden's Cleugh and settled in with myself. The first flour arrows on the road were all but obscured but the arrows on mud were still clear and fine, thank goodness. To my surprise however there were more arrows than there were when we left last night. It looked like Harmeny Running Club were also having some kind of organised Pentlands run. The potential was there for much confusion but nobody went wrong at all.

The day was absolutely still and absolutely crisp and sunny, and it was great to be out.

The first Porty to pass me was Richard at about 5 miles in. He was cheeky about my running so I nearly had to throw him in the ditch. He was followed closely by Ricky and Roly. Then I had another stretch alone until catching up to Jenni at the top of the steep tree-lined road. She rewarded me for this with a big soft sweety (Peppa the Pig?). We were soon but briefly joined by Kathy Henly who came tanking through and barely paused. I could see her disappearing into the distance for some time with a plume of dust behind her like the roadrunner. Towards the Howe another Porty (Porty I've not met yet) came by and chatted for a minute or two before moving through. Then, lastly, I could here the train-like breathing of Peter Buchanan and a shout of "I'm coming to get you Mary Hunter!". Peter and Graham whooshed by shouting stuff.

For a good while I had been following the debonair back of the aptly named Douglas Young and I had some notions of catching and overtaking him. On coffin lane this looked quite doable at times but since I hadn't caught him by the Howe I knew he would get into his downhill stride and there was little chance I would get him. Anyway, it was still a stunning day, and too good to hurry. And my legs were a little bit sore on the hard downhill in trail shoes.

Arriving at Flotterstone there was a large group of Porties all over again. There was fruit cake in a tin (quite low down so you got an automatic hamstring stretch) and Paul Eunson furnished me with an enamel mug of coffee. Then a batch of us went to the Flotterstone Inn some for lunch, some for soup, some for coffee, all for Emily's cupcakes and some for quite a lot of beer so there was singing in the car park when we emerged a couple of hours later. Great day out. Great club. Vive Ecosse ya Bass. Happy Birthday Richard.

Flouring the Pentlands

2012-01-14T21:48:00.001Z

Richard D. from our club is having a birthday on Monday so in order to celebrate it he's organising a handicap race over the low level route in the Pentlands for tomorrow. Well, more of a handicap run I guess. No timings unless you time yourself and you get to choose your own handicap. Because we are trying to entice people from the club to join in who don't usually run in the Pentlands we sought the blessing of the Pentland Rangers to put some flour arrows down to mark the route.

We wanted a hillier run today so combined the major junctions of the route we were marking with a run of our own that took in some of the high tops. As we were cresting West Kip we saw an old man with one eye who was taking his time coming down a steep bit. We stopped and chatted for a while just to make sure he was alright. It was only 3pm but it was a gloomy day and quite dark and the sun was setting as a low band of orange over on the western horizon. He said he was fine so we moved on. It was a slow, atmospheric sunset. Very subtle colours and light.

We watched the film Troll Hunter last night which showed a lot of shots of wild Norwegian landscape in grey and dank weather, not unlike today, and the landscape today was reminiscent...right down to the evidence of trolls which consisted of fallen trees and scattered stones...It was a pretty diverting film and got better as it went on. If you watch it use the subtitles not the dubbing.

Anyway, it ended up an 11+ mile run in the hills and we got our last arrow down just as full darkness was upon us. I'm a bit apprehensive about having another 11+ mile run tomorrow but I guess its a way to "ease" into ultra training again. I'm away to refuel on wine and pizza.

Today's take home lesson is if you're going running with bags of flour in a rucksack, put them in a plastic bag too...

Paxton XC 2012

2012-01-08T17:36:00.002Z

I woke up at 7.30am this morning and somehow convinced myself that I had another hour in bed so I wasn't best pleased when the Chinese alarm clock went off at 7.45am. I got the Chinese alarm clock on line for £7.00. £7.00 buys you an inaccurate thermometer and clock combined. It plays 12 "charming" tunes with bum notes and changes colour while it does so. In the evening it is funny. In the morning its really annoying, but it does the job, it wakes you right up.

We had a full van-load of folk coming with us to Paxton so there could be no toying with the idea of not going. All too soon, Ally Robertson arrived at the house, full of youthful chatter and hilariously had insulted Peter within 10 seconds of having entered the flat, saying that he thought Peter's feet were too wide to wear spikes and that someone 12 or 13 stone probably shouldn't wear them. I don't really know how this conversation started but I was in the bedroom holding in sobs of laughter as Peter indignantly told him that he was 11 stone not 12 or 13....

Anyway - we were soon on our way to pick up the noble Tony Stapley from Portobello. The weather was milder and the wind had dropped which was a pleasant surprise. Shery was going to be meeting us there as well but had had a bit of a night last night so texted to say she wasn't coming. Amanda also texted to say she'd been up over night with Horatio the dog and had slept in so would not be coming. I was hoping Kathy H. would put in an appearance but it was not to be - so not a good show of Porty ladies. Just us chaps.

The A1 takes you all the way down into England before the road to Paxton takes you back into Scotland. I felt I wanted to mark the crossing of the border in some way and found myself randomly singing the Star-Spangled banner. Everyone else joined in. This set a precedent for each border crossing.

At Paxton house I couldn't make head nor tail of the course map - only getting that it was 2 different laps, unlike last year, so we went for a general run around. This proved productive as we found a fallen tree, two tiny but quite dangerous little ponies and then some marshals who told us where the course went. As last year's course had been restricted by the snow and ice we got a really nice surprise following the course down through the woods to the side of the Tweed and then along and back up on really good clay paths through the woods. It was scenic and it was surprisingly mild. Getting back to the start we had completed the 1st lap - a full 2 miles, and were willing to wait and see what the 2nd lap was like.

There was the usual minimal preamble and we were off. Wilma Kerr, who I know to be in my category, seemed to be racing me and I thought she'd decided that since I was looking particularly fat after Christmas she'd be beating me today. She made a real effort to go past me and get ahead a little on the downhill swoop through the woods. I was alarmed as I figure she might be able to beat me on the flat and the next bit was really quite flat - but in the past I've been able to catch her on the hills. I resolved to stay with her on the flat along the riverside and then try to get her on the hill. This went according to plan but by the time I'd got to the top of the hill and was on the undulating way to the start of lap 2 I realised I'd overcooked it and had to ease up a bit just to regain some breath and some composure. I hung in grimly for the next mile, feeling pretty done in, but then started to recover as we headed down a steep bank, through a river and up the other side. There were another couple of ladies beside me. One faded backwards as we got to the lumpy field and the other went ahead. There was a short up, a short down and another short but brutal up and we were on the home straight over very soft grass. Digby Maas was just ahead and I was ready to settle but then Peter and Graham were cheering me on and Graham roared at me "Go ON! Its only 100 METRES! USAIN BOLT DOES IT IN LESS THAN 10 SECONDS. I'LL GIVE YOU 18!"
At this I pulled something out of somewhere and surged past Digby, holding that position to the line. After quite a while bent over with my hands on my knees I was ready to stand up and face the world again.

So as soon as its over the world is an easy place. We spent ages drifting around. Had a warm down jog to the river to wash our filthy shoes. Peter had beaten Ally and so was now contentedly teasing him about being beaten by a fat old man. Back at the car we hooked up with Graham (who had cycled there and was now cycling back) and Tony, and then we went in to the cafe in Paxton House for soup and talked races, races, races. Its been about my ideal day really. On the way back there was lots of chatter in the car. The skies darkened and it began to rain a bit but we'd had the best of the day earlier so we didn't care. My legs are ridiculously stiff now, - presumably yesterday's 15 miler on top of today's racing, but I felt okay when I was racing.

The results were up by the time we got home. Maybe Susan Ridley was out partying with Shery, Amanda and Horatio last night because she wasn't there today, shifting me up to 2nd in my category. Maybe its tiredness, racing excitement or senility but I can't work out what this means in terms of final placings, - whether I'm safe in 3rd place in my category or still need to defend it. When Ally got into the car I wanted Peter to check he had his seatbelt on in the back and the most I could muster was "Does the boy have his lifebelt on?" so there aren't a lot of lights on in the yak brain. I hope its only temporary. Great day though. Well done Borders XC people, once again, for a top race at a low, low price.

Longish Run

2012-01-07T18:55:00.001Z

Bad Santa

Photos - what Peter saw. I didn't see anything. Apparently some of the birds are goosanders.

The Marcothon continues and we keep churning out small and frequent mileage. By yesterday night, despite having run everyday we had only made 23 miles for the week. Both of us are a bit rounder after Christmas despite avoiding most of the stuff that goes with it.The hardest thing to resist or what we're least managing to resist is drinking a wee bit every night. I'd had 3 "dry" days by yesterday although Peter was making inroads into my winning beers from the Greenmantle Dash. We managed to squeeze in a 3 miler round Arthur's Seat last night in between picking up a package that the postie couldn't be arsed delivering from the Royal Mail depot and going to Tesco's for a late Friday shop. In Tesco's we picked up a nice bottle of red, finally settled down to eat at about 10.30 at night and watched Bad Santa whilst getting mildly toasted. We were ready for Bad Santa to be truly bad but it was very funny and I have still been chuckling about it today.

Anyway, today we never got up until 11am and were needing to do something about the week's mileage and our general lack of long mileage so we hatched a scheme, given the harsh westerly wind, to run up the Water of Leith, back down the canal, along the meadows and round the back of Arthur's Seat. We had heard there were some trees down on the Water of Leith but weren't prepared for the scale of what we found! Big old trees right across the path and climbing involved. It made the route much more interesting and cheered us.

As is the usual pattern of our longer runs together, Peter got caught up taking photos and I kept plugging away, so he got his workout from interval sprints to catch me up. I lost him for long periods today.

By the time we were back on the Meadows my legs were hurting in lots of different kinds of ways and I had had about enough. It took an effort of will to go round the back of Arthur's Seat and not just run for home. I washed the trainers I was wearing today a few days ago and while doing so I took their insoles out and found the legend "July '09" inscribed inside, so maybe they're getting a bit old.

In the last mile our thoughts turned to what we wanted to eat when we got home. I had an uncanny hankering for the kind of meat paste my mum would put on ritz crackers and call it party food in the 70s. I told this to Peter and he got it right away. I doubted that kind of meat paste still existed in the world but when we got to Scotmid (if you want food from the past, Scotmid is perhaps the right place to go) we not only found Prince's paste - but it was on offer! 2 for a pound. I had the sardine and tomato and Peter went for the beef and ham. Bonzer. Salty delight.

Good to get the first longish (it was 15 and a bit miles) run in a while done. It hurt like hell despite my slow pace. I am comforting myself, telling myself its always like that when you start to run long again. I think it really is. Tomorrow's delight is the Paxton XC and we have a full Berlingo of Porties and one Carnethy cuckoo along with us.

Calton Hill (clogged with contraceptives)

2012-01-04T19:14:00.000Z

It was a pretty vile day but we've still got the Marcothon mentality. If you don't want to go out then just go out for a wee bit. I had to go to the bank to put money in and P had to go to the bank to take money out and the bank's half a mile up the road and just near to the steps up to Calton Hill, so it seemed to make sense to go for a run in the wind and the rain up there.

Somehow or other we got into a discussion of street names and both of us thought that there are more street names now than there used to be. We thought it was likely that Visit Scotland had a hand in this. What used to be nondescript little lanes suddenly have grand names referring to historic personages. I've remembered what set all this off. The steps on the right up Calton Hill are now suddenly called "The Hume Walk".
We went up the right steps ( yeah yeah - the Hume Walk) and up to the top and then dropped down onto Waterloo Place, stopping only momentarily to spy in the windows of the civil servants to see if we could see our friend Richard, and then ran back round, via Royal Terrace to the bottom of the steps again. This time we took the steps on the left. As usual I was watching my feet and Peter was gazing around - so he never saw the three used Johnnies and the shot-gun cartridge on the steps. That must have been some night. Calton Hill has the reputation of being a pick up place for stranger sex, so I shouldn't have really been surprised. Good to see they're being sensible about it. Maybe the council could provide a special bin.

Anyway this led to a discussion of what the steps on the left should be called. Condom corridor? Or, for Orcadians only, Pillskin place. Rubber row? Feel free to comment.

So we knocked out 3 and a bit miles and then went and got our shopping in Scotmid. I'm not dwelling on the shotgun cartridge.

Museum Film

2012-01-04T14:25:00.001Z

Here's the film Peter made from the shots he took at the museum way back in December.

Greenmantle Dash 2012

2012-01-02T17:20:00.001Z

2nd race of the year and it wasn't so easy to get up this morning. We had actually thought we would go through and do the excellent Tortoise and Hare race organised by Fife AC as we have for the last 2 years but a critical mass of Porties going to the Greenmantle Dash - Tony, Michael G. and then Ruth - swung it and we felt we had to head south to Broughton. It was not without trepidation. I was injured and spectated last year and I had noted the wall jump, the step jump, the fence jump, the river crossing....Not my forte, jumping walls...and I think maybe the memory of being injured and only able to hobble as I took pictures last year made me associate this race with injury and made me worry that I was going to sprain an ankle or something like that...

And then it was bitterly cold as we stepped out the door and along to the van. The wind had a real edge to it.

We arrived in Broughton in plenty of time (noting the deep puddles of water on the road on the way there). Ruth, Michael and Tony were already there and we tried to gird ourselves up for a good recce. I wanted a close look at the wall, the fence, the river etc. before I charged at it with a big bunch of people. Up close it was all doable. There would be no vaulting for me but I could get over quick enough. The bog beyond the river looked like it would present more of a challenge and so it did.

Ruth was a sport coming along today, hills being what she doesn't like and the race consisting of 2 short flattish bits with an exceedingly steep hill, up and down, in the middle. The red line in the elevation chart above shows that my heart had actually stopped beating until something shocked it into action about half a mile into the 2 mile race. It might have been catching sight of the hill we had to go up although truth be told I've come down it twice in the 2 Breweries and kind of knew what to expect. Despite evidence that I was clinically dead for the first wee while I did alright and was enjoying it quite early on. No real problems with the wall or the fence, just a bit slower than you might wish for. Slightly too far left in the river meant I was suddenly in up to my thighs. Oh My! A big step up onto the bank got me out of that. Then there was the amusing bog run - reeds and bogs and deep brown puddles. Fellow racers became comrades rather than competitors (in my head anyway) as we faced this madness together. Then it was over the road and into a gentle-ish uphill field which led onto the hill proper. I was glad I hadn't harassed myself too much up until now as I began to move steadily up through the field and so it was also on the steep uphill. The hill was steep enough so I was never once tempted to try to run. The wind was so icy I was slowly freezing (I was about the only person wearing a vest) and the incentive to get to the top so I could turn around and get back down out of the wind became stronger and stronger.

The downhill was by no means easy and there is a fair scattering of small but brutish boulders scattered about half-hidden in the grass. A fall could be very sore so I teetered down as fast as I dared though not as fast as many around me. A good shout from one of the marshals wearing a scotland hat gave me the impetus to get moving again once in the easier angled field and I had a fair run home. Job done! Peter and Michael were already in (of course), Michael declaring it the best short race ever. It does have a little bit of everything so I can see what he means. You get a little taste of everything a hill race could throw at you, except maybe navigating. There was never any need to navigate.

Ruth came in shortly after, looking strong and only mildly declaring that hill-running is stupid and pointless. I know what she means and I think that might be what has drawn me to it.

Then we had a long toasty time in the hall. There was pasta and sauce to get heat back into you, tea and biscuits for the drivers (me) and a big barrel of beer for the non-drivers. We were quite a while as there were some technical hitches with the results. A man came out on the stage and insisted that we sing a song - the left half of the hall singing about...I really don't know now - was it Sally the seamstress? and we had to sing about Tommy the Tailor. They were carefully crafted verses designed to make you inadvertently curse with vigour and I collapsed in laughter at the sound of Tony turning the air blue beside me.

At last it was time for the prize-giving and there were copious prizes for the kid's race - a delight to see how buoyant they were except for one little boy who developed a horror of Dick Wall and ran away when Dick tried to talk to him. After that came the adults. A few people had left so their prizes were re-distributed amongst the people there. 1st lady over 50 had gone home so her prize "trickled" down to the 1st V40 - which was me! Hurray! I shared my winning beers with my friends so as to continue the trickle down effect. Peter might have been 3rd vet or so, for which he also received a beer. Tony got one for being Tony.

Murray Strain won, I think Mike Reid of Moorfoots placed somewhere, Charlotte Morgan was 1st lady, that's all the detail I have retained.

A special mention needs to go to Fraser aka Happy Tom who chose this as his first hill race. Fraser I hope you survived and have not been put off, its fairly full on and packs a lot into its diminutive size!

To me it was great and it was good to have the extra time to catch up with friends. Now I really need to go and have a shower. Tomorrow might be a long run or something although the weather looks pretty hectic.

Promathon and Dook.

2012-01-01T16:51:00.000Z

The first of the Portobello Championship races for 2012 kicked off in style. Now in a new category, the Super Ladies, it was all new and fresh and shiny to me. My chief fears were about Shelagh McLeish, but I was not not worried about Aileen Ross who beat me at my last Park Run and Gillian McKelvie who can be swift and get by me too... There was no sign of Shelagh, although Yana said she thought she'd seen her, but Yana's quite new to the club so I thought maybe she was thinking of someone else. My first clue that I may have a problem was when Graham Henry, on marshaling duties, shouted "Watch your back!" and then "Well done Portobello!" 1.5 miles into a 4 mile race its too early to be watching your back!

The first mile seemed easy and then it all started to settle in. I was a lot slower at mile 2 and never bothered to look at my watch again after that. I still seemed to be moving through the field but was hearing the unmistakable "slap, slap, slap" tread of Shelagh just behind me. Now Shelagh has some kind of power that I just don't have - if she has you in her sights she can stick with you! I know this chiefly from watching her do it to others because she has beaten me on many occasions and I've often felt that part of the reason for her beating me was that she was able to be more determined and suffer more for longer. Oh crikey. I hadn't given this race much thought and I hadn't anticipated it turning into a suffer-fest. Still, the cosmic waiter ran up alongside me and said "Your suffer-fest madame?" and I grimly accepted it.

Mile 3 was all about my mind coming unstuck, trying to keep the self-pity at bay, denying what I knew about the distances involved and the distance still to do. Hang in there, hang in there, hang in there. At about the mile 3 mark I think Shelagh drew about even and went ahead for a bit - but not very far ahead. And slowly my brain was working out, "if you went past the 3 mile marker...quite a while ago...then there can't be that far to go." Graham shouted on me again and I felt ashamed to just give up, which is what I wanted to do. I don't know what prompted me to pick up the pace and go past Shelagh again - "too soon" my lungs screamed, "too soon" my heart sank, the self-pity was winning - and then, suddenly, Melanie Sinclair came alongside and I felt strangely comforted and I knew I was going to get to the finish ahead of Shelagh. YeY! 10 points thanks!

Shelagh hadn't realised I had jumped up into her category until I told her. She had run herself into that place where "the dry boak" takes hold. I had felt warning rumbles further down. Lucky to cross the finish line without the spillage of any body fluids.

Our times weren't that fast. I have run it faster, in fact I think it was a PW. And I'm sure Shelagh has run it much, much faster. But I have never pushed myself further into the red, and I think that's what makes a really good race.

Now, we somehow hadn't managed to let go of the idea that we were going to go into the sea afterwards, an idea that I think came from Joanne Thom of Edinburgh AC - that the runners should have a Loony Dook of their own but without the cost or the crowd control. Somehow or other Michael, Richard, Yana, Peter and I talked ourselves into thinking it was a good idea and before we knew it we were beside the Portobello Baths and the first wave of bathers were already running into the sea. I had a nice surprise meeting old friends Caroline and Johnny who I haven't seen for years and we tried to catch up in 3 minutes flat before I had to run off to catch my swimming crew. And then we went in. The hard bit is getting out of wet running kit afterwards in a cold breeze on an exposed prom with nowhere to hide. Next year we need a Porty Bathing Tent.
Tomorrow we were going to go to Fife to do the tortoise and hare race again but a number of excellent Porties are away down to Broughton to do the Greenmantle Dash and we can't bear to be left out...so its 3.3kms of wall-jumping, river crossing, steep ups and downs.

Hogmanay

2011-12-31T20:28:00.000Z

Its the end of the year and the end of the Marcothon. Ran every day in December (and the last few days of November too) partly so as not to feel left out like I did last year and partly because Peter's running took a sudden upturn following his Marcothon last December. Has a similar upturn happened to my running? Hmmm. Not discernibly. The Promathon tomorrow, which is a Portobello championship race, might tell me something. Or not. Or the Tortoise and Hare race through in Fife the day after...

Tomorrow I have kind of a boasting wager on with Jimbo Ramsay that if he jumps in the sea after the Promathon I will too. I'm about 50/50 whether to do it or not. Surely if you go in the sea on New Year's Day that means you'll definitely be lucky all year?

Pains are chasing each other around my body. I have had a sore calf, sore tendons, a sore shoulder, a very sore hand and I've now got a sore hip. That's not anything new though. I've been trying to stay on top of the pains with my new foam roller. Sometimes I think it helps and sometimes I don't. I hurt my shoulder using it. In order to get myself out for the Marcothon in the dark and rain I've worn loads of layers plus hat and gloves. All those layers make it difficult to run at all fast so I've been doing a lot of plodding and I think that that probably exacerbates sloppy form and causes aches and pains. I think some of its psychosomatic. What I need is a good race with a good burst of adrenaline and suddenly all that stuff melts into the background.

I have been thinking long(ish) and hard(ish) about what, if anything, to adopt as a New Year's Resolution. I used to have New Year's Resolutions back in the days when shops actually closed at the New Year. I remember one Hogmanay resolving to stop smoking when my cigarettes ran out and then having to turn the small town of Stromness upside down to find a fresh pack. The cigarette machine in the Ferry Inn turned out to be the answer. Of course, what I learned as the years drew by was that the ideal time for stopping smoking is not during a national drinking holiday and I succeeded in stopping many year's later, not at the New Year but on an ordinary day in September. I did so by having a plan - nicotine chewing gum and knitting - not by fervent wishing or through the magical properties of bells.

But anyway, I thought for next year that I might adopt the practice of standing on my head everyday. I have long thought that it would be a good idea to do yoga but can never find the time. There's just too many things to fit in. I signed up for some classes years ago but never completed a whole set. Then I found a book in the library which I subsequently bought called "Yoga self-taught" by Andre Van Lysebeth. The book is a ripping good read and very convincing. I did try really quite hard to learn all the poses and to do them regularly but it slipped by the way-side. It is very hard to learn yoga poses from a book as you have to keep stopping and consulting the book again - and losing the page - and all that...

I want to give you a taster of the writing in this book. This is him on the benefits of the Head-Stand or Shirsasana;

We consider that if only one asana could be practised it would have to be Shirsasana.

Why stand on the head when we have so much trouble in learning to balance on our feet, so that our first steps marked one of the greatest days in our lives?

Man is the only being to hold himself upright: an attribute unique to him, and a fatal one at that, because man became a human being when he acquired it. We rose up from the earth and our forelegs turned into hands, which are really extensions of the brain. Set free and able to grasp objects the hand of man has become a creative tool, the only one by which he can crystallise his thoughts...

...In the quadruped (the horse or dog for example) the bulk of the body remains parallel to the ground, and gravity acts evenly on it, so that the circulation, working horizontally, is not much influenced by it. In man, on the other hand, the circulation operates in the vertical plane, and gravity exerts an overwhelming influence upon it. …

...This is the logical reason why yogis recommend the head-stand, to eliminate, instantly and infallibly, the disadvantages that stem from standing upright. (pp187-188)

He goes on to say that standing on your head is good for your posture, your circulation, your eye-sight, your prolapse (no I haven't got a prolapse). He also asserts that we age from the top of the head downwards because of the gravity thing. Grey hair and a wrinkly face... well you know he's got a point! I haven't got wrinkly legs! Not yet! So I may stand on my head everyday.

As the year is fizzling out, so am I, so I'm away to put the dinner on.

Happy New Year to everyone out there in Blogland.

Streamlining

2011-12-27T18:15:00.000Z

In a post-Christmas, pre-New Year lull I decided today that I would do some tidying and sorting things out while I had time to. Me and Peter are both pilers. We build piles of things to do something about later. Before you know it you haven't seen the surface of a table for quite some time. And then if there are piles of things everywhere you can't hoover - well not properly. Anyway today I got in about some of the piles of things and I've been quite enjoying it. I get lots of nursing stuff though the post that I'm not interested in but always feel I should look at before throwing out. Peter gets Crown Decorating magazine - a ripping good read. (Its free - he's not subscribed to it!). Then there's a bunch of other pointless stuff. Napier University's "Red Triangle" magazine, my Runner's World magazines, The Edinburgh Bicycle catalogue, The Yellow Pages, The Ikea catalogue....important information about changes to my bank account, old receipts, notes, letters...

I got into a box I keep under the coffee table where I fling important things that I don't want to lose but I can't be bothered (that's "haven't got time") to deal with and found about 3 years worth of Motor Insurance renewals and Buildings Insurance documents and a few other semi-important things and realised to my surprise that this year I've changed nearly all my insurance policies and what not so that they are cheaper and more closely reflect what I actually want. I knew I'd been concentrating harder than usual on not wasting money but when I saw just how much I'd changed I was impressed. I thought I would go for the burn and finally cancel my subscription to Runner's World which I've been thinking about doing for the longest time. After all if I was going to drop 5 lbs and run faster with less effort I probably would have by now. So its done. So I should continue to get magazines up to April but after that I'll have to make it up myself. Which I am confident I can. We'll still be getting Trail Runner shipped over from the States so we can ogle kit.

Anyway - hopefully I'll be moving streamlined and more efficiently into 2012. And they say virtue is its own reward but when I lifted the hoover out from where it stands in the hall I found £3 under it. Yay!

Boxing Day Challenge

2011-12-26T20:59:00.000Z

This was part 2 of the Graham Henry Christmas time challenge and to be honest I was intimidated. Yesterday, on Christmas Day, we went a smallish run up Arthur's Seat in the stormy wind before going round to Peter's brother and sister in law's for Xmas Lunch etc. (Superb by the way) and I felt rubbish. How was I going to cope with some hellish gallop through the Pentlands? By last night I had convinced myself that I had a bit of a fever and this morning when I got up I had a sore throat. I'm not usually keen on reaching for the drugs in order to be able to run but this morning I had 2 echinacea tablets (I know, I am a fiend) and 2 paracetamol and a jug of coffee - and that was all I really could do in preparation.

So when we set off I found that I was feeling okay and things really weren't so bad. The howling wind "cleared" my nose beautifully. Despite the wild wind it was really pretty warm and I soon had to strip down to a t-shirt. If I'd had shorts with me I'd have been wearing those too. I approve of this new climate. The global warming's working at last.

I'm too tired to say much more about it except that it was a good day, lots of fun and I was pleased with how I felt on the hills. Running every day does seem to be doing something for me.

Soup and bread and many cups of tea apres run were also great fun in good company. More plans getting laid for the year to come. My cold seems to have gone away on its own. Vive Ecosse Ya bass.

Christmas Eve Challenge

2011-12-24T18:55:00.000Z

On top of his usual Boxing Day run Graham Henry had thrown down the gauntlet challenging the Facebook contingent of Portobello Runners to a Christmas Eve run. What would it consist of? Nobody knew. We were up and about and were going to go out anyway so a trip along the coast to Gullane seemed a good idea. We intended to arrive early and get a run in along the coast but weren't that early so only managed 2 miles until we had to be back at Gullane Car park for "registration". Registration consisted of my chatting to Kathy in the car while Graham and Peter chatted outside. Then we were ushered along the beach by Graham and introduced to the challenge.

We had kind of thought it might involve running up the big steep sandy bit. We knew this bit of the beach from climbing days when we went along there to boulder with the idea that the sand would be nice and soft to land in. The bouldering isn't that easy though so we never made a habit of it.

Graham had us running reps up the sand, 1st up to the grassy bit and then all the way. Some of the sand wasn't too bad - where there were already footprints in it and it was stamped down, but right at the top it was deep and sinky and steep and impossible. We all just did as many as we felt like, with Graham and Peter doing a good few and Kathy and I choosing to do less. I was already thinking ahead to Boxing Day in the Pentlands and its already going to be trauma enough without a case of killer DOMs on top.

It would make a very good club training session. One summer evening...

After that we went a run along the beach and dunes and then back up through the forest and along the little twisty trails behind the dunes. Its great fun running there. As Peter and Graham were out front we weren't even having to think about where we were going. Kathy filled me in on recent events.

Great day. Loving this "warm" spell. The wind was pretty harsh but this time last year it was a hassle getting out anywhere to run. As Graham would say Vive Ecosse ya Bass. Oh the R. Mackintosh turned out to be Rowntree not Rennie. The 3 piece suite turned out to be 3 sweets. I got a Snickers Bar, Peter got a can of Pilsner (that's a man's sweet) and Kathy got a box of Jelly-babies.

Solstice

2011-12-21T17:34:00.000Z

There's an ancient monument up in Orkney called Maeshowe that is aligned so that at sunset at the winter solstice the sun comes in the window and lights it up. They've got a webcam in there now so I think I've captured the exact moment for you. Exciting isn't it? (More information.)

I have been off today and had a super-duper run around Arthur's Seat. Worried that I've not run any distance at all recently I set out to do around 12 miles. The temperature has leapt up about 10 degrees so it was nice to run in shorts again. Because I was going out alone I thought I'd take some music along for a change. This meant putting a few tracks together in iTunes.

Peter complains vehemently that I have ruined the music library in iTunes with my predilection for tunes from the 80s. As its already ruined I couldn't see any harm in downloading a few tracks from The Cult which were rattling around in my head. Genius put together a collection of 50 of my most intimate musical friends and away we went together.

Outside was blowy but warm. I was overdressed with a Helly Hansen under another long-sleeved top and gloves on but its been so harsh recently I really couldn't get out the door without them. I thought vaguely about hiding a layer in a tree and picking it up late in the run but I couldn't really be bothered with stopping and starting so decided to just be hot and run.

As its that time of year when review comes automatically I thought I should have my own review of the year and thoughts for the future.

HIGHLAND FLING
I think I have to have another stab at the Fling. I can't let it go quite yet. Current thinking for training is train more, like I did last year, but maybe don't eat so much this time! (We'll see though - this can be revised.) One thing I didn't like about the training is my muscles just get awfully stiff but I've been taking fish oil capsules and I (tentatively) think they have helped. When I get into the 30 and 40 mile runs I'll really be able to say.

MARATHON
I've a hankering to do a spring marathon and try and run a bit quicker than I've managed in the last couple of years. Lochaber looks likely. Can I do quicker marathon training alongside slower, longer training? Time will tell.

THE 80s.
Now that the 80s are essentially back I think its quite legitimate for me to listen to music from that era. There are a few differences. I'm a bit older. David Cameron's voice is not as horrible as Margaret Thatcher's was. I thought there was value in living through that era where nothing was handed to you on a plate. I was one of many graduates entering the "real world" at a time when there was high unemployment and there weren't that many people looking for graduates in English. What happens when there's no chance of getting a job that you're suited for is you get to take a tour of other jobs. See the world. See hotel kitchens. Push a wheelbarrow for an archaeologist. Work in the gift department of John Lewis' as a Christmas Temp. Its interesting just to see how things work. One thing that has been of lasting value in my life has been cycling to work. Cycle to work and if things aren't the way you want them to be, don't waste your time blaming the government.

JELLYFISH
One more piece of advice. I've got a wee widget on my blog that can tell you what searches people did to come to your blog. The search that most people have used that has brought them to my blog has been the search for an image of a jellyfish. Not that they stayed once they got here - but if for some reason you want a lot of hits on your blog put up an image of a jellyfish.

I think that's it. That's my review of the year and my advice for generations to come. Don't waste it.

Fife AC Christmas Cracker Trail Race

2011-12-18T18:27:00.001Z

Another great day out. The Berlingo was full with Ally Robertson, Gareth Green and Richard (who ran 40 miles in the snow yesterday!) coming along with us to Falkland for the Christmas Cracker Trail Race. Ice was forming in the car park at a rather alarming rate as we arrived, so it was cold but it was very still - had been sunny earlier in the day but was now overcast.

Today's race was 3 laps of a bit more than a mile over varied terrain which included a river crossing with a steep bank upwards straight afterwards. The 2nd lap was the hardest, mentally, and I was starting to drift off on the road section and think about other things when Innes Bracegirdle caught up to me and I remembered I was in a race. It was by no means certain that I could get ahead and stay ahead of her but I think I might just have it in the river-crossing and bank-climbing stakes. Very important skills to have.

The round trip of 80+ miles is not all that green and may seem excessive for 3.64 miles of running but the racing chat in the car is one of the things its all about. By the time we were back in Edinburgh we had talked ourselves into a whole stack more races to do in 2012.

Crooky (Brian Cruickshank) and Fife AC, as ever, put on a great fun event. The cakes and coffee afterwards were absolutely delicious. Nice to see many familiar faces from hill running and from the Tour of Fife.

Modern Day Triumph

2011-12-17T16:01:00.000Z

I don't expect for a moment that you will follow this story, dear reader, as it is as banal as it is complex. My Norton antivirus on our main PC was up for renewal and at a cost which , while not extortionate, was not minimal either. Since trying and failing to remove all traces of Norton antivirus from my PC about a year ago I have felt vaguely bullied by Norton. "Give us our money or we'll give your computer AIDS!!!", they seem to shriek. From Googling it is easy to see I am not alone in finding that once you have installed Norton antivirus on your computer its not easy to get rid of it completely and other antivirus programs then don't install well and won't work properly. About a week ago Norton started flagging up that my subscription was about up and I'd need to renew. I thought about going into battle again, to cleanse my hard drive and registry of all things Norton but my experience is that as soon as you start to monkey with the guts of your computer you may learn a lot but you better have a lot of time on your hands because these things get messy and they get complex. Since the best projected saving I would make would be about £15 I thought it best to just let it pass and renew.

So this morning I renewed and in doing so waved goodbye to the last of the money in my bank til next Thursday - things being particularly tight at the moment. It was while I was idly looking at my subscription details that I spotted that the antivirus I have on my laptop is licensed for 3 machines and is not due for renewal until April next year. "You Bastard" I nearly shouted at myself and if I had the capacity to kick myself in the head I might have. I had just wasted the last of my money completely needlessly. I was starting to remember vaguely that last April I had got a new subscription of Norton on my laptop thinking I would download it to the PC come December. This is the kind of thing that I would have remembered in the past and where the hell you're meant to write all these things down I don't know. Anyway, I'd completely forgotten until it was too late. Except it wasn't too late was it? Was it possible that I could speak to Norton and get a refund? It was by no means obvious how to communicate with the great Norton. "Contact" took me to FAQs along the lines of "I love my Norton subscriptions so much I was just wondering how I could get some more?"...but finally I found that I could CHAT to someone on a helpline.

"How do I know they're not charging me £10 a second?" I wondered paranoidly to myself so the first thing I asked the Indian sounding chap or chappess was "Am I being charged for this service?", but they responded fairly quickly that the service was free. To cut a long, pointless story short, it wasn't that hard to secure a promise of a full refund and then I just had 10 tension filled minutes of waiting to see if my antivirus from the laptop would REALLY download onto the PC or if Norton would come striding in at the last moment and go I TOLD YOU IF YOU DIDN'T RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION I WAS GOING TO GIVE YOUR COMPUTER AIDS YOU LITTLE BASTARD AND THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!!!"

Ah but all was well and I now have 111 days of subscription still to go. And I have a little money in my bank again - or I will do after it has gone out and come back in again. I celebrated by buying a 2nd hand book off of Amazon for 46p.

Now I'm finding it hard to contemplate going for my Marcothon run as yesterday we ran 10 miles quite hard and having been mucking about on the computer all day it is now nearly dark and I am still in my pyjamas. Shameful. Get out there.

A flap up the seat

2011-12-14T18:35:00.000Z

Today's Marcothon fun was a saunter up Arthur's Seat in the icy wind. Its a very good way to get warm. The rest of the day has been pretty much freezing. Now that we've hit austere times I'm not allowed to leave all the heaters on anymore.

Today's morality tale is that in a bid to get warm I went and tidied up my running kit which was a horrible tangled mess in a wire basket. As a result of this wholesome activity I found a completely new pair of woollen Hilly socks, bought, doubtless, during a wealthier era in our lives and tossed thoughtlessly aside. I also found a knitted Peruvian bowler hat my dad's old girlfriend Vigdis gave me some years ago. Me thinks it might be quite good for the cross-country.

Tonight we are off to prize-giving at club where I believe I am in line for a 3rd place trophy.

Marcothon goes to the museum

2011-12-13T19:14:00.000Z

We are getting into increasingly complex levels of combining running with other sports in our attempt to keep running everyday. Today's melange de sportif consisted of cycling our bikes up to the bike fixing shop - leaving them there. (Boohoo). Then running across the Meadows to the Museum. Peter's got some project where you can blur things in the foreground and background of photos and then the things in the middle of the field look tiny. Search me. Why doesn't he just go a long way away from them or else just photograph tiny things? Anyway - he wanted to go to the museum and take pictures of the people on the ground floor from the 2nd floor balcony so I pottered around looking at busts of dead people and also Hanuman, the monkey god, a little god of wealth whose name I have forgotten (and I fear he has also forgotten mine) and a bewildering variety of other objects which seemed to bear no relation one to the other.

One particularly poignant bust was of a Hugh Miller, who, according to the plaque, was torn between his interest in fossils and geology on the one hand and his christian faith on the other and so committed suicide. Sad, I thought, but couldn't he just be creative about bridging the gaps, be a bit less literal about the bible, that kind of thing? As it turns out I've been googling him and Wikipedia has a quite different take on the same story, saying that Miller suffered from persecutory delusions and killed himself as he feared he might harm his family. Does whoever put the collection together in the museum have an axe to grind with Christianity? Perplexing.

I had an odd distrust of the public today, and we were a long way up with only a slim, 3 foot high barrier between us and the short flight down to the stone floor below. I kept a wary eye out to see who was sneaking up behind me. I was troubled, as I am at cliff-tops, by the feeling that I don't want to jump but I might jump thus doing the wrong thing irreversibly. It was a relief then when Peter stopped fannying around and we retreated down into the very bowels of the building where we spent too much money on coffee and cake.

Then it was out into the lowering darkness, the driving rain and the battering wind, a mile up the road and 2 miles back to make up another day's running.

Since the bikes are away getting fixed I am determined to grasp this opportunity to tidy up the hall which is a morass of filthy running shoes and cycling paraphernalia and not just sit around blogging and getting cold.

Bonaly Loop

2011-12-11T19:33:00.000Z

Too many photos again. I know. Today we got out to the Pentlands 2 whole hours before sunset. We started at Bonaly and did a mile loop round a reservoir (don't know what its called) and then headed off up into the hills. Well, Harbour Hill and Bell's Hill and half of the side of Black Hill but aware that sunset was now just an hour away we headed down off the hill and then up the path to between Harbour Hill and Bell's Hill. This is a fairly long, monotonous and uniformly uphill path so we broke it up with 4 minute efforts of "hard running" and 4 minutes of easier running. Pulled some faces at some innocent walkers just out for a nice walk.

Back over Harbour Hill, and then the steep mile downhill on the hard gravelly path back to Bonaly. It was nice to be back out in the hills despite some very wet bits.

We've got the 2nd hour of The Killing 2 taped from last night to watch tonight. We both reckon they're pushing their luck with the plot line. The trouble is if it gets too preposterous Buchanan will start protesting so audibly I won't even be able to follow the plot. Its bad enough that its Danish and sub-titled. If I forget, as I occasionally do, that I don't understand Danish, I can miss great swatches of what's happening.

Challenge no.2 tonight will be to not drink anything. Last night I thought I would lay off drinking and ended up drinking the end of the bottle of whisky we had left over from the Glenogle 33 and then compare and contrasted it with the end of the bottle of Dalwhinnie we also had in the cupboard. Its a mug's game. I could taste oily whisky and heartburn as I was plodding up the hills today and our already frayed winter tempers get even more thin and fragile.

Anyway, another 8.5 Marcothon miles to put in my pipe and smoke. Huzzah.

Dalmeny in the snow

2011-12-10T23:19:00.000Z

Oops, too many photos but I don't want to leave any out. The plan today was to run in the daylight and we made it - just. There was a lot of shilly-shallying until we finally got ourselves out there. Drove down to Silverknowes and then ran along the promenade, up the Almond to the Cramond Brig Inn and then into the Dalmeny estate a ways. After all the hurly-burly on Thursday and still a bit of wind yesterday it was very calm and peaceful. Plus it was just getting to be dusk which is often kind of quiet. Blackbirds were peeping as the light faded in the trees and whoever was shooting whatever they were shooting on the Dalmeny Estate, stopped and went home.

We made it back while we could still just about make out what was in front of us. A relatively long run of 8 miles and we were as nice and warm once we'd finished as we'd been frozen rigid before we started. Tomorrow - we'll try for earlier again and see how that works out. I feel like I've worn out a lot of routes again. Can't face the John Muir Way for now. I need to think up some new runs.

Marcothon Nights

2011-12-09T20:54:00.000Z

Still in the throes of the Marcothon (running every day in December, 3 miles or 25 minutes minimum) - and just because of the way other things are, I've been running at night. I've been finding the running everyday strangely restful as the mileage isn't remotely demanding. Its the first time in years that I've regularly done 3 and 4 mile runs and I'm kind of liking it. Its a change not to feel stiff as a post at least a few days a week.

Wednesday night a few of us met up for a torchlight run around Corstorphine Hill led by Rob Flett, potential Portobello member. He seemed like a nice guy but don't ask me what he looked like! We ran up to Clermiston tower and round the perimeter of the zoo - and who knows where else - in the mud and the dark - some ice. Pretty nice.

Yesterday evening we went out to catch the tail-end of Hurricane "Bawbag". I'd walked to and from work when Bawbag was at his wildest and it was ...stimulating! I liked the relative scarcity of people in the streets, traffic on the road and people in the shops too. Maybe I shouldn't live in a big city or maybe I should move back to the 50s. Anyway by 7ish bawbag was on the wane and Peter was mightily disappointed. He could have gone out earlier but he waited for me. By then the winds were only devilishly cold and about 40mph.

Tonight the moon was full and it was cold but fairly still so we thought we could head up to the top of Arthur's Seat with the gorilla pod tripod and try to take pictures of the moon etc. Its good to have a project. The moon was a bit high and small and cloudy but there was a good view of the city below. At first I thought there weren't any students up there for once and then I realised that I was the student at the top of Arthur's Seat tonight! Should've had a bottle of cider to celebrate.

Anyway it was bloody cold and much scarier than usual at night in the cold and the moonlight and the odd little glaze of ice. It was quite a relief to get down a bit lower again. We went over the radical road from the tame side to get further views of the lights etc. and almost took out a man who had had the same idea of taking photos of the moon but with his black camera on a black tripod which he was standing next to in a black coat and hat. If there hadn't have been a wee red light flashing on his camera I definitely would have charged right into him.

I've got a week off work - well my regular work - if bank work comes up I might need to work, but potentially I have a week's holiday, so I'm going to drink a bit of wine to celebrate that tonight and maybe even go for a run in the daylight tomorrow.

Borders XC - Peebles leg

2011-12-04T16:09:00.000Z

Oh I was sleepy this morning. It was very hard to get up and you could tell from the feel of the air that it had probably snowed over night. The "boys" were pretty raucous in the car and you really couldn't have slipped a little conversational coin in sideways. For some reason there was an absolute battle on for "air-time". Just adrenaline I guess, and the yellow drink (I think it was called Neurotoxin) that Ally Robertson was drinking, that boasted "500% of your daily rda for Vitamin D". Really? Why? Peter was drinking Red Rooster caffeine drink. I don't know what Andrew was on! Feeling left out I had some of the left over blue powerade I happened to have jammed in the side pocket in the door of the car. We wouldn't have seemed out of place in Springfield.

Today we had plenty of time and so the main struggle on arriving in Peebles - for me at least, was to get out of the cosy car and contemplate losing a layer or two before kick off. A warm up with lots of clothes on did the trick and I started to feel a bit more positive. Much as I love the Borders XC I was secretly a little pleased that this was going to be the last one for a few weeks.

I missed Lauder but talking to Ed Balfour before the race he told me it was pretty muddy and he thought when he was there that that might have been the pinnacle of xc muddiness. Galashiels, however, had again raised the bar. We recced the finishing strait, the last quarter of a mile being through relentless thick and sinky mud. My shoes were already shapeless dods at the end of my legs and we wondered if this was going to be the big one; the Mudder-load. (boom boom).

Anyway it wasn't. That was just the finish. It was a relatively quick start round the field at Haylodge Park, and then out along the riverbank. There was a little up and a little down on slightly tricky rooty and rocky narrow paths with some drop-offs into the river that would give you pause for thought. Then back onto sploshy but manageable track, into the wind. I was pleased at how much I seemed to be keeping pace with the people around me rather than getting passed on the flat bits right away. It was a relief to turn around onto an old railway track? although I couldn't quite get my breathing under control and didn't want to slow down anyway if I could help it. Then up through the forest where I felt more confident and then out into an open field! There was some mud at the gates but nothing too bad or prolonged.

I was determined to run every bit of the hill, especially as as we turned around the wind was behind us. Most people around me were walking but I kept on pushing - up to the point where I caught up to Kathy (this is now becoming a routine, she caught me again shortly after we'd topped out and were coming back down) and she came with me all the way to the top of the hill. Coming down the other side of the hill I'd given myself a stitch and so backed off a bit to try and relax my insides enough for it to fade. As we got to the bottom of the field and then turned up again for a little while I fell pray to sentamentalism - there were two well wrapped up and smiling children wearing huge gloves, clapping and saying "Well Done" to everyone. The snow was blowing softly over the field and the woods we were about to re-enter looked warm and inviting. "Merry Christmas and Goodwill to All Men" I thought. Shortly after that, on a thin, slippy descent I heard the cry "Geronimo" and soon guessed that Stavert was hot upon my heels. I had passed him on a relatively flat bit and I must say had written him off at that point thinking - well if he can't keep up with me on the flat, he's not going to catch me on the hills. A man just behind me said "coming through" but he didn't specify left or right so I shouted "which side?" and he shouted "F*ck" as he tripped over some rocks and fell over. The next person I became aware of was the Stavert who said "How far?" and I told him "I have no idea Andrew" - which was true at the time. But then I recognised where we were. This was the home strait which Ally Robertson had got me to measure so I knew it was in fact 0.37 of a mile to go. I didn't tell Stavert this though. He rushed off like a steam-train into the ever sinkier mud and I sensed him start to falter as he realised he had further to go than he had reckoned with. As we turned the corner and got onto firmer ground I raised my pace as much as I could - maybe I could just get him! - but he just managed to hold out. Still a good game though.

I was so impressed with Brian Davidson going into the river at Gala to clean off the mud last Sunday that I had promised myself that if there was a river nearby at Peebles I would wash my legs and my shoes in it after the race. There was indeed a river - a big, greasy looking river on which you wouldn't have been that surprised to see ice floes. Getting nearer to the river I saw that brother and sister team Johnny and Shery were already in and declaring it lovely...so I went in as long as I could stand it. It was getting a bit busy though so I climbed out again pretty quickly.

Shery had made ginger-bread biscuits which were delicious. Amanda was there too - and looking thoroughly recovered by the time I crossed the line with my lungs bursting so I assume it went well for her! We were all too cold to hang about for long so hied back to the van as quickly as our legs would take us. The car was again filled with chatter for the journey home. It was great fun.

That was race 44 of the year. I don't know if we've got a race lined up for next week but the Christmas Cracker Trail race in Fife on the 18th looks like a distinct possibility - if we're not snowed in by then...

The Land that Time Forgot

2011-12-03T18:43:00.001Z

It was a bit of a fierce day weather-wise but we decided it would be fine for a shortish saunter in the Pentlands. I had to pick up a parcel at Telferton so we just got on the bypass after that and roared round to the other side of town, overtaking hay-loaded trailers swaying precariously in the buffeting winds.

We set off along the side of Threipmuir with the wind behind us so it seemed deceptively calm and hospitable at first. Only when we turned into the wind on the path up the side of Black Hill did we get a taste of how harsh it was going to be further up. The wild winds and occasional spits of rain in our faces were strangely pleasing and we were soon singing and shouting nonsense at each other. I was having what seemed to me to be quite big thoughts. I was remembering how at work yesterday there was a strange coincidence in which 2 of the people I went to see independently told me stories of being told that they could never have children and then finding themselves pregnant - and their medical teams needing some convincing of what they already knew. I mentioned this when I got back to the office and Callum who I was working with pointed out "That's quite a Christmas Story". This hadn't occurred to me but of course it was...someone who shouldn't be getting pregnant suddenly being pregnant and the normal rules of play not operating for some reason. This led me on to think about THE Christmas story and (assuming its not literally true) that it would make sense that we'd tell ourselves this kind of story at Christmas when everything seems at its most bleak. The essence of the story is that something that we thought couldn't happen did happen and therefore there is reason to hope. Which led me on to think about what the charm of these mad challenges we set ourselves is - we set out to do what seems impossible and make it possible. For instance - as soon as I'd managed to do a half marathon at 1.45 I started to think about the possibility of doing a whole marathon in 3hrs 30mins - and it took me years to crack it...but what a great challenge. It kept me going through several winters trying to get my training right....

By this time we were cresting the hill this path is on and I had finished thinking, which was probably just as well because I wasn't far from thinking "Just live the dream man".

There is a good little downhill run after this and we were protected from the wind again so we had a nice stretch of running. As there were walkers watching we put on a good show of finding it all easy peasy. Why would you need a big jacket with a big hood just because of a bit of horizontal storm-water? I then had a thought that if we took a short cut up through some bracken - on what appeared to be a reasonable little path, we might cut the next corner and hook up with the Carnethy route. Unfortunately my best thinking had already been done for the day and I had got this wrong so pretty soon we found ourselves wading through thigh deep "virgin" heather into a little valley which was like the land that time forgot. I didn't see any dinosaurs but they may have been there. Or they may have been hibernating. There was little sign that anyone had been here - perhaps since the beginning of time. Apart from the farmer who'd put the fence up. The next half a mile consisted of quite a bit of wading, stepping in deep bogs, bank climbing and fence jumping. Eventually we strayed on to the path that the Carnethy 5 race runs down and we set off right on the path that was now straight into the wind and driving sleet. More singing ensued. I wasn't keen on going up West Kip (Peter called me a "pussy".) so we skirted round the side of it and set off down the Drove road.

I'd been looking forwards to this because its reasonable path and all downhill for 3 miles or so but I hadn't bargained for the biting wind and the stinging rain. My face was already numb enough for dental work and now my upper arms, hands and toes all numbed out too. It was an ungraceful, stiff-legged, bent over stumble back to the car. A half-hour shower and then soup and toast in my pyjamas has helped warm me up. Tomorrow is the Peebles leg of the Borders XC series.

Weird Triathlon

2011-12-03T00:45:00.001Z

I'd offered to do a bank shift with the home intensive treatment team from 1-9pm on the 2nd December before I remembered about the Marcothon....and I already had regular work up at the IUD clinic from 8.30 - 12.30 lined up. When, earlier in the week, I took a long look at today I realised that it just wasn't sensible - would I take a day off the Marcothon and make it up later? When the hell was I going to fit a run in? Early risers might have thought they'd fit it in before the day started but I'm no early riser and since I work with people this just didn't seem fair. I'd be knackered all day. So I decided since it was just this once what I'd do when I got home at around 9.30pm was have a quick turn around - be out the door in running gear before I had time to think and knock out my three Marcothon miles.

I ruined my short night's sleep by dreaming about it - I kept thinking I'd done the first job and was onto the 2nd and had only the last bit to do - then wake up to find it wasn't true.
When the alarm went off it seemed like a cruel joke. I was impressed to see Amanda who was in Barcelona had already done her run and posted a photo on facebook - and it was already light down there! - unlike here.

I've got in the habit of leaving late for work and then trying to make up time en route, which isn't good. It means swearing at people unnecessarily. And there's something up with my gears so I can't put too much pressure on the pedals when I'm setting off from a standstill which makes for a slow tentative take off. Yeah I know I should DO something about this....The last bit of my short commute is complicated by all the Chelsea Tractors dropping off kids to a posh school. Is it the chip on my shoulder or does their sense of entitlement allow them to park anywhere, drive anytime they feel like it, use cycle lanes, clog up the roads?

It means time is of the essence as I arrive at work and take the stairs in twos to throw on my uniform and be out on the floor by 8.30am. There are some snags...some people turn up late, then there are complications, there is no receptionist...for a while it gets a bit hectic - then a couple of people don't turn up and we catch right back up with ourselves. I'm all ready to go well on time. Its a quick change back out of the uniform - onto my bike and across town to where I'm going to be - a community psychiatric nurse for the day - wearing civilian dress - with a different ID badge, working at a different grade. Its very, very busy and there's a lot to get my head around so we kind of hit the ground running. We have to drive all over town, (in a Corsa) in the Friday rush-hour and beyond, to addresses unknown...trying to read the map on the go in the dark without getting car sick. There really is too much to do and we only start handing over to the night shift just before 9pm. So by 9.30pm I'm phoning Peter to say I'm still alive and just cycling home now, through the drunken Friday night city.

So by about 10.20pm we're heading out for our run. Its quite windy and there's a half moon out. People are drunk but the mood is friendly. Nobody gives us any hassle as we run through Friday night Leith and catch up on the day. I haven't seen Peter since yesterday after all although I think I heard him snoring through the night...

It takes a bit of thought to even think of a 3 mile route as we never run so little - but then an old route pops into my head. One I used to do back around c.1998 when our main thing was climbing and I ran just enough to stay fit. It starts to rain quite hard while we're out. A hard, cold rain - but we're not bothered. It is surreal to be out really anyway - so what's a bit of rain - and we will soon be home. So day 2 of the Marcothon is completed, - and I don't really expect any of the other days to be any harder or require more determination. And it was actually quite good fun in the end. My transitions were pretty good, which is one of the main things in triathlon....

Looking forwards to not having to get up tomorrow (this) morning.

Borders XC - Galashiels leg

2011-11-27T18:11:00.001Z

Phew! Helping with the WOL half marathon duties are over and I was back out to race again today. I spent hours yesterday evening tussling with the spreadsheet on Open Office. I know there must be a way to get a whole column to carry a function but I couldn't figure out how. In the end I did all sums in my head for the results.

Today was the Galashiels leg of the Border XC.
I think fate wanted us not to make it there today but we did get there. First of all we were going to be picking up Ally Robertson but then he phoned to say his train from Livingston had been cancelled so that was his race over there and then. Because we didn't have to be up the road to meet him we relaxed and before we knew it we were leaving kind of late.

At Sherriffhall we took the wrong turn off the roundabout and were heading off to Dalkeith. A bit of guesswork on B roads took us back where we needed to be but it added a little time on the journey. Likewise, just after Newtongrange, there was a traffic light stuck on red. Eventually the cars ahead of us went through anyway. Still the clock was ticking.
As we went into Galashiels we weren't allowed to go the way we'd planned to go so we did a bit of headless chicken up and down streets looking for the swimming pool. When we got there, there really wasn't very much time to get stripped off and get going - which was maybe a good thing. The wind was very sharp.

Graham Henry (en bicyclette) got us in the mood by telling us how it was likely to be the longest and hardest of the cross-country season. There was just time for a trot up and down the road to warm up before the off.
At the back we couldn't hear a word of the race preamble so we went into it blind.

There was an East District XC at Galashiels years ago - which was notable for being very hilly. Some of the faster runners weren't best pleased and I did a bit better than usual. I had in mind it might be a bit like that. I think ultimately we were in the same hilly field - but I'm not sure. The course started off kind of flat on good paths, which would normally be a bit of a nightmare for me as all the swift people pulled off but for some reason everyone seemed to go off quite slowly. I discovered it was an easy matter just to run up the left hand side a bit quicker and I must have passed hordes of people this way. The track took us here and there and was quite interesting. After a while we started climbing and before long found ourselves entering a field. The ground was wet but not too bad. There was no indication of how very muddy it was going to get.

There was a longish hill and a few people started walking. This gave me heart and I kept going steadily at it. I kind of thought a woman was just behind me but I wasn't sure. As we topped out we went through the deepest smelliest mud you could hope for. "Lovely" I said. "Beauty treatment" said Anne Hay from right beside me. Yikes!!! another FV45!!! I tried to keep moving.

Ahead of me was the forlorn looking form of Kathy Henley. She'd usually be miles ahead but she was not relishing the "surface" (tussocky grass and muddy puddles) and after a while I eased past her. For a little while it seemed like she was going to wear this as an option. I got away down the hill ahead of her but then made rather a pig's ear of going through a woody bit - seeming to pick the deepest mud troughs available and having to jump over the enormous roots of a giant tree. We then went over a wall and onto a hideous path of mud and boulders and I knew she was right behind me...then over the carpeted stile and down a hill - she was still there. We went down a nicer but narrow path where we were stuck behind triathlon guy and another guy who were CHATTING!!!! I tried to get round them but started slipping around and remembered last week's twisted ankles and opted for biding my time.

As soon as we hit a more reasonable kind of path Kathy went by me. I hoped she would make the triathlete and the other guy try a bit harder and be quiet and that was what happened. She pulled surely and steadily ahead. Pretty soon Peter was shouting at me "Go! Go Now!" I knew he meant "Go now and you can catch Kathy", but the thing is I had already gone. This was me after having gone! I didn't have the breath to say so though.

Quite pleased all in all. There were rumours at the end that the course was shorter than intended - but I thought it was fine!
Scott, who had been out on the course spectating said a lot of people lost their shoes there. I had to scrunch up my toes to keep mine on in some of the deeper, suckier bits.

Peter, Amanda, Horatio and I went for a "cool down" or a warm up...whatever you care to call it afterwards. It really was very nice running in the woods.

We stopped in Stow at a cafe for some cake and post-race reflection, thus passing the indefatigable Graham Henry, cycling into the wind, not once but twice on our way back to Edinburgh.

Well its evening and the results are up already on the excellent Borders XC site . I'm a bit further down the field than I'd hoped but I think there was a top turn out today and I refuse to be discouraged. Looking forwards to next week at Peebles already.

Peter and I are both feeling we need to get out and do something longer during the week, if only to burn some calories. We're both chubbing up.

Borders XC - Dunbar Leg

2011-11-20T16:45:00.000Z

I was busy dreaming when the alarm went off this morning and I did briefly think that maybe this was a race too far. Two early starts at the weekend seems an awful lot and I have to be up at 6 tomorrow to go out and do me some community nursing. It was a shame for me and I wanted to stay in bed. However...

I got up and slowly some of the confusion cleared out of my brain. I'd been at a party. Well I didn't know if it was a party,. It might have been living in some kind of a village - but up a hill at the same time. I had to do acrobatics to get from one part of my house to the other....phew! Better off up!

And it was a nice morning. One thing followed another and soon we were setting off for Dunbar, picking up young Ally Robertson of Lothian RC en route. I was still feeling quite sleepy so didn't contribute much to the conversation, but had I wanted to I don't think I could have slid a word in sideways as post-race analysis of the whole year and particularly Tinto proceeded between Peter and Ally. My only contribution was that I was nice and fat for this race. Peter said that was good, I'd be able to glide over the beach like a Pugsley bike.

There was a good Portobello turn out; Amanda Henderson coming along and running at last despite being a bit anaemic, also Graham Henry and Kathy Henley cycled there, new father James Harrison was there and Andrew Stavert and Tess. Sadly, Michael G. had to pull out with a dicky knee having done the Tour of Pendle yesterday and made it worse. It was a damn shame not to see Michael but it was nice not to be rushing off to Livingston to do the XC there straight after Dunbar. The weather was pretty balmy and it was lovely standing around talking after the race. But I am getting ahead of myself...

We set off, as last year, along the beach but seemed to go a bit further than last year, if memory serves. I swear I thought I heard the evil laughter of Baron Von Stuart Hay as we ran onto bizarre pitted rock formations covered with green slime, separated by rock-pools. The terrain was causing some consternation in those around me so I counselled myself to "keep the heed", which was good advice. It was a truly unique running surface. Then we turned around onto a boulder path with an option of sea-weed on the side. (Keep your mouth shut if you can - lots of flies) and then back onto the beach. Along the beach was fine and then up and onto some more hilly terrain where I felt more at home. I got a bit stuck behind some others who were feeling a bit less keen round the lime-kilns and had to decide whether to chill and take a breather or to launch myself into the thick clumpy stuff at the side of the path, overtake and nail my colours to the mast. I did the latter. After making such a fuss the pressure was on!

The course opened out after this onto some very nice running on grassy paths with just the odd brick to be avoided - out to the lighthouse and beyond. Then back down onto the beach and trying to take the best line possible. I think I caught up to a few people here. I was wheezing away terribly but I was enjoying myself. I'm not at all used to trying to push so hard and I'm enjoying it. Pretty soon we were back up off the beach and then fairly soon turned around.

I found the 2nd half of the course much more interesting this year. For last year's race I remember watching the lighthouse desperately to see if I was getting any nearer to it and feeling it was retreating into the distance as I ran towards it. This time there was no gazing into the distance. The course was filled with interesting little twists and turns, hummocky grassy stuff, a couple of sharp hills. There were a few people ahead of me who I was slowly but surely gaining on and I felt I had it in me to take them. One Carnethy-vested back, I realised, was that of Jonathon Whitehead, with whom I have previous from the Tour of Fife. I nearly came a cropper trying to overtake on the right, turning over my ankle and ending up on my knees just before the water-jump, letting out a loud sweary word and then apologising and then doing almost exactly the same thing moments later, this time trying to overtake on the left, turning the other ankle, swearing, apologising...Jonathon just let me past after that. Both ankles recovered quickly and I still felt I could gain a couple of places so I flung as much effort as I could into the last wee bit. And I did. It was an exciting way to run.

I was, of course, last Porty - the rest of them were all standing around bored, smoking cigars and chatting as I crossed the line. But in my head I'd run a good race.

Standing around talking to runners after a race is dangerous and I think we may have signed up for a few extra days running over the Xmas season - products of the unlimited mind of ultra-man Graham Henry. God Help us.

We are now also the proud owners of Dunbar Running Club buffs which may well help us navigate ourselves out of a tight spot some day as they have maps of Dunbar and the surrounding area on them.

Thanks Dunbar Running Club for a great day out!

Park Run

2011-11-19T15:42:00.000Z

Forced myself to re-engage with the Park Run Process! Got up uber early on a beautiful Saturday morning with hardly a breath of wind. Peter got up considerably later. I couldn't face the thought of running in a vest as I left the house but I think I was over-dressed wearing a t-shirt.

Arriving on the Prom we met lots of Porties. Nice to come out of seclusion for a while. I felt not too bad on my warm up and gave myself a pre-race chat about not getting too negative about the whole thing, whatever the outcome. We had not been back to do a Park Run since they lengthened the route and the last few times (way back in 2010) that I had come along I'd been getting slower and slower.

In the first mile I briefly overtook Andrew Stavert who came back for me at almost exactly a mile. My Garmin beeped and Andrew said good morning and some other things. I gave him a thumbs up. I've given him the chat about not being able to speak and run before. He punished my by pulling away into the distance. My first mile would be the first time I've run sub-7 in quite some time, so I "let him go". Being a generous person I let quite a few other people go too; Sandy MacDonald, Ian Duckworth and Aileen Ross to name just a few. However my next mile was the 1st sub 7.15 mile I'd run in quite some time, if you don't count the mile immediately preceding so I wasn't too down-hearted. The last mile is a bloody thrash and I managed to not even see the tea-hut which is at approximately the 4K mark. A good bit of editing because I hate the sight of it and it makes me sick. Quite soon we were on the last 0.1 something of the run, being careful not to slide on the slippy leaves and simultaneously finding just a little more pace now I could see the finish banners.
We brought it home in 22.39 which although far from world class was okay. Not my slowest even though the course is now longer and I was worried about today. I'm hopeful I can go back and do some quicker ones although I don't think there will ever be better conditions.

Peter was in 2nd place for a lot of the race but got "girled" just right at the end. Hey 3rd place isn't too bad and since she's in the 20-24 age-group she must be, literally, less than half his age.

Don't do as I do, do as I say. Get along to the Park Run even though I've just avoided it for 14 months because that last mile is the furthest you'll ever get from home. Sheer hell. Until you stop.

In need of a plan

2011-11-18T19:50:00.000Z

Its been a busy week and running has been crammed in around the edges. I'm definitely feeling reluctant to go out in the dark. The last 2 winters have just put me off the whole thing. I need a plan or a goal or something. A something that trumps reluctance.

On Monday night it just looked so dark and cold outside the only bargain I could strike with myself was that we'd take the car to Tesco and en route park at Arthur's Seat and run around the thing. The 1st mile is all uphill and then the next 2.4 miles are flat and downhill and by that time I was warm so it was quite a nice way to do things. Then I bundled on lots of extra clothes because in Tesco's beside the fridges is one of the coldest places on the planet.

Tuesday afternoon we were at Peter's dad's funeral in the beautiful Binning woods. Couldn't help assessing the woods for running potential even though I was at a funeral. I've been reluctant to write about this because I don't want to step on anyone else's emotional toes and fear that my acceptance of his death might seem like callous indifference to someone who had a stronger attachment and has a bigger adjustment to make. Peter's dad was a nice man who was well into his 80s and he hadn't been very well in the past year. I felt glad it was relatively quick and he didn't have to spend much time in hospital.

It was a green burial in a bio-degradable coffin and there was a humanist minister to give a service. No one mentioned the G word, which would have suited Peter's dad. The setting was absolutely lovely - if a bit cold, and the high trees above seemed to dwarf us all and emphasise that we are just a part of nature. I don't know what it would have been like earlier in the year if the midges had come out though - pretty unbearable I would imagine, and I don't know how well it would work further into winter. I was concentrating on fielding Peter's mum who I was afraid was going to trip on a stick and take a header into the leaf litter - or worse yet, the coffin hole. (I think that's called a grave - ed.) Peter's mum was Mrs Buchanan no.1 and they separated and divorced in the early 70s I think. Elizabeth was Peter's dad's 2nd wife and it was her and Caitlin, Peter's half-sister who had organised the day. Both families get along fine and there were no rumbling grave-side tensions. They are a nice bunch. It was interesting to hear Alistair's (Peter's dad's) story and hear how he never threw anything out and always had a camera handy. There seems to be something genetic going on there. A good number of the Buchanans are variously involved in taking photos and filming.

I had a presentation to prepare for Wednesday but not til the afternoon so I had my best run of the week, a 10ish mile route around Arthur's seat and taking in the innocent railway path and Duddingston. At last the November fog blanket had lifted and it was sunny and bright. The autumn colours were lovely and the sun had warmed things up enough so you could smell the trees and the gorse. My presentation was not very good but it was good enough so I've passed another bit of my course.

Yesterday I could not persuade myself out after work. Enough was enough. Today I forced myself out. It was okay but I wouldn't want to be doing too many forced runs. That's what people who join the gym after Christmas do. See it as a chore. Regard it as being "good". Force themselves to go a few times and then give up because its all stick and no carrot.

I've got a couple of thoughts in my head about what I should be doing. One is doing lower mileage and running more frequently. Some people say its better training and I'm willing to give it a go. Just I'll have to find ways to get myself out there. Even better would be finding something that I really want to train for - and then I'll know how I should be training because I'll know what I'm training for. But there's no point in trying to force that, I need to let the thing come to me.

In the meantime there's maybe a Park Run tomorrow and definitely the Dunbar leg of the Borders XC series on Sunday. Peter and Michael G. have a bit of a mad notion that they'd like to do Dunbar and then get to Livingston in time to partake of the East District XC there. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to make the ladies' race at Livingston.

Vive le weekend.

Tinto Hill Race

2011-11-12T19:26:00.001Z

Not my best race ever. I've been wanting to do this race for years and through the whimsies of fate have been unable to so I think that added to my desire to do it. I had also built up a picture in my head of what it was going to be like.

For some reason I thought it would be very steep and mostly on peaty bog and grass. In reality it was pretty much all on very rough track, and it was very, very busy. Its pretty much 2 miles uphill and then 2 miles down. Where I was in the field we seemed to be jammed shoulder to shoulder a lot of the time on the way up. I found myself walking when I didn't think I should be walking and it takes stubbornness to start running when everyone around you is walking. I had to make my way round people to move up the hill and I felt like I was irritating them. I tried running 50 steps and walking 50 steps but I'd get stuck and have to stop.

I've had a cold for the last few days so my breathing was a bit off although I don't think it had that much impact, my legs felt perfectly strong. Mentally I was a bit adrift. Joan Wilson coming shoulder to shoulder with me towards the top gave me the spirit to try and stay ahead of her to the top knowing she would destroy me on the rough-looking downhill.

On the downhill I'd pretty much given up. I just didn't want to hurt myself and I hated the rough stony ground. At first a trickle of people were coming past me but this built up to a good size river of people over-taking me. A guy just ahead of me in the latter stages was making more of a meal of it than I was so I joked to him "Its just a bit too rough isn't it?" but he took this kind of wrong and barked "that's why its called hill-running!". No doubt it made sense to him. I thought I would try and beat him to the end for being grumpy but I actually don't know if I did or not.

And then phew, phew Barney McGrew it was all over. I was very thirsty and appreciated the juice and biscuits the Carnethies had put out for us.
As Billy Bragg says you have to take the crunchy with the smooth.

Positives

that was race number 40! (of the year)
I did negative splits!
I didn't hurt myself.
Coffee and a cheese sandwich on the way home
Nice sunset over the Pentlands

Glen Ogle 33

2011-11-06T16:22:00.004Z

race prep with whisky

looking like I feel - like hell! before the start - photo Roly McCraw

I thought this was early on but it turns out its just before the finish

Some photos robbed from the Glen Ogle 33 facebook page

table service post-race

check out the elevation

There are too many stories to tell about doing the inaugural Glen Ogle 33 mile ultramarathon. I might be too tired for the job! Despite about 12 hours in bed over night I'm still feeling like going for a nap and I keep wanting more to eat.

I might try a more formal system of organisation than usual in order to tackle the interweaving themes of the weekend.

DREADNOUGHT

we thought we'd try doing this a bit differently and so booked a (cheap) room in the Dreadnought Hotel in Callander for the night before and after the race.
unfortunately the "people" in the room next to us had been out and got themselves so drunk that there was shouting, crying, running away, arguments, banging, drama and police from about 1.30am to 4.30am. Given we've just short ago got rid of an asbo neighbour we're a bit sensitised to this kind of thing and rather than sleeping restfully to feel restored for the big day ahead had to resist the urge to get out in that corridor and BREAK SOME HEADS.
the room smelt like gin under perfume, it smelled of alcoholics
because we were staying away from home we went out for a meal to the Taj restaurant where the bored waiter rather over-waited us, insisting on pouring our beer out of its bottles into our glasses as we drank. You can imagine, out-of-season Callander on a Friday night must get a bit dull.
the food was good, no complaints, but being cheapskates and also skint we skipped dessert and went and somehow convinced ourselves that it would be nice to have a wee whisky. The pub prices would be ridiculous so we decided we should get a quarter bottle - but Peter was too snobby to drink the kinds of whisky that you can get in a quarter bottle so we ended up purchasing a half bottle of Isle of Jura. (???This isn't really our behaviour so I can only assume the ghost of the person who died of drinking gin in our room, who I could smell, had got into our auras and was forcing us to drink in order to get some kind of secondary hit in the spirit world - you read about this kind of thing happening.)
So we drank a bit more than half a half bottle of Isle of Jura and went to bed fairly early in hopes of a good night's rest until...see 2. above

SHORTS

While unpacking and getting ready for the race (pre Taj restaurant etc.) I discovered that I had committed one of the cardinal sins of preparation and forgotten a bit of essential racing kit a.k.a my shorts! I had been fussing around with more esoteric and less necessary bits of kit (sleeves - I had a set of sleeves I got in a goody bag from the Edinburgh Bicycle triathlon years ago) I thought I could wear them til the early morning chill wore off and stuff them in my bumbag. As it turned out this was quite a good plan - but in the meantime I never packed any shorts.
A quick call to the ever-helpful Richard Dennis who was driving up the following morning saved the day - and seemed to provide him with plenty of amusement. Despite him always pretending that I am thinner and faster than I am he produced a pair of shorts that were just the ticket. Thank you Richard.

THE RACE

day dawned as my alarm let us know it was 6am. Both of us were tired and bad-tempered having snatched perhaps 1 and a half - 2 hours sleep after the night-time fiasco. Probably we were a little hungover from Cobra Beer and Isle of Jura whisky. "Hell mend you then" I hear you say and I can only agree.
We could have arrived earlier to the start in all honesty and I had little time to stand in my pants on one leg in the wooded registration area and try on the shorts which Richard had brought for me. Thankfully they were fine because by this time I had sent my running tights away with Peter to the car which was some distance away. There was a fair buzz of excitement and quite a few Portobello runners and well known other runners. I was still feeling pretty crap though and never got round to putting any drink in the bottle I was carrying or carrying any gels. I had drink and gels in my drop bags so it was fine, but meant I had to stop at the first stop - only about 4 miles in.
The start was away up on the other side of the road and up a hill. There was the usual low key race preamble and we were off. The first 3 or 4 miles were mostly on quite hilly off-road track which I really liked. I thought I'd keep going on the uphills as there's quite a bit of hilliness in my legs at the minute. Quite a few people where I was were doing the ultra thing of walking uphills and running flats and downhills but rightly or wrongly I didn't want to.
I lost a few places stopping at checkpoint 1 but went past a few people quite quickly after getting going again and then I think there was very little change of position throughout the race. The sun was coming up and the views really were spectacular. There were thousands of little cobswebs glistening in the trees in the low light. There was also fog lying in dips, misty mountains, silver and goldy light. Lots of autumnal beauties.
I chatted for a while to a guy (haven't figured out who he was yet) who remembered running with me in the early part of the Pentland Skyline in 2010. He had camped the night before and been caught out by how cold it was - sub-zero temperatures over night - so had only got a couple of hours sleep. He still looked cold 7 or so miles into the race. He was telling me he's training for some ice-bound 135 mile race in Minnesota in January. We ran together and chatted for a while, then I pulled away towards the 2nd checkpoint but unbeknownst to him he passed me about a mile later as I was having a pee in some woods! I passed him again a couple of miles further on on the steeper uphills and I didn't see him again.
I had a long period running on my own up quite steep paths. There had been an arrow pointing left with Go 33 written on it, but the "Go 33" was upside-down and I developed the worry that some brand of woodland ned had turned the arrow the wrong way. I tried to apply tracker skills as learned from Ray Mears and a recent program with James May trying to escape from a prison (Broadmoor?) while a tracker tracked him. I could only see the odd footprint in the mud, which seemed odd given there were a good number of runners ahead of me. But wouldn't they be running up the less muddy stuff in the middle of the path as I was? I thought if I was a tracker I would probably be able to see that the grass was broken and trampled but not being a tracker I couldn't. What to do anyway? Go back and go the opposite way on the ASSUMPTION that the arrow had been tampered with? It was just the paranoias kicking in. And as so often happens, as my anxious paranoia reached its peak I saw figures ahead in the light. Ahah!
I made some ground on the people ahead but never caught them. The ground flattened off and a new arrow pointed right saying helpfully "To the pub." It was very nearly all downhill from here. Some people pulled steadily away from me. Perhaps I steadily pulled away from other people but I've no way of monitoring that. After CP3 I ran together with a woman who I think, looking at the results, must be Lorna Maclean, for a good 2 miles or so. I was starting to feel pretty tired. We were about 20 miles in. I thought wistfully about the marathon distance and wished I only had 6 miles to go. In reality it was going to be somewhere between 10 and 13 miles. The organisers had decided to re-route the first few miles off road for safety and had warned that it was now a little short - somewhere in the region of 1.4 miles off the original 33 mile distance. I hoped, as I so often do in a race, that it would be even shorter. At the same time I tried to protect myself from devastating disappointment late in the day by cautioning myself that it might be longer than I was expecting. We were going over ground we had already covered and I was no longer susceptible to the charms of sunlit mountains and misty moors...it was getting hard. At about mile 24 it was a relief to be off the long downhill section and onto some more undulating ground just simply because the challenge of going uphill took my mind off the feeling that I wanted to be finished. I wondered if this insight could be applied more generally to my life as a whole. Was this what all the signing up for races was about? Some uphills to take my mind off waiting for the inevitable and longed for end? I thought not. Good metaphor though. Ah my poor legs.
At CP 4 we went right instead of left and onto the roads that were to take us to the finish. This was somewhere in the 25th mile. Rumour had had it that this stretch of road was mostly flat. Haha! It was not. It was very undulating. I was almost relieved it was undulating for the reasons discussed above in THE RACE section 7.
At this point my right hip was hurting and so was my left knee, so I spent most of the rest of the race paying attention to them. I was cracking out some 10.30 and 11 minute miles and could do nothing about it. It was not going to be a heroic race race finish like Kielder Marathon. I dawdled along the winding, undulating country lanes trying not to speak to myself out loud.
Eventually, and I mean very eventually, I was turned off the now foresty path and it was a mere 1 or 2 hundred yards to the end. Very glad to stop. Better average pace than Speyside by about 1 minute per mile so a better performance I guess. I forgot to tell you I gave up ultra marathoning in those last few miles of the race. Again. I've given it up again.
The Garmin says the race was 30.51 miles, for which I was profoundly grateful.

APRES RACE

After getting a goody bag and what-not and finding out from Peter how he and others had done we went a walk to the Inn to get something to eat and then Peter told me his brother had called just after he'd finished his race and told him his dad had died that morning. That was very sad. Peter's dad's not been well so its not a bolt from the blue but still it was a shock. Its a big transition.
So we were both a bit shell-shocked when we got over to the Inn in Strathyre to claim our free soup and drink. In fact we never got round to having any soup. Peter had a "cider shandy" if there is such a thing - and I unthinkingly had a coffee despite having had enough caffeine to keep a battallion awake for a week over the course of the race in the form of gels and red-bull etc.
The Porty crew had gone well mostly. Johnny Lawson had a tough race. Kathy did brilliantly in her first venture into ultramarathon territory and came 3rd lady. Peter was what he liked to call "1st Porty" which is 9th to most of the world. Graham Henry was not far behind. Richard ran consistently and well as usual. Gareth Mayze - honorary Porty as he came with the Porties in the Porty bus to Tour of Fife 2010 ran an absolute stormer and came 2nd over all. Lucy was 1st lady, running well despite her recent 100 miler in Spain. Roly ran well and enjoyed his first foray into ultra-land.
I was "Last Porty" - that's 74th to the likes of you. I'm sure its quite good really!
I should mention the goody bag was great. Sweatshop voucher, specially labelled beer, a tunnocks wafer (ya beauty!), some High 5 sports drink and another sports bar.
I should mention the organisation was smooth and lovely, the marshals were great and stood for a long time on a cold day and still managed to be cheerful. I would highly recommend this race and if I hadn't given up running ultramarathons I would think about doing it again myself!

BIKES ETC.

We'd had a kind of plan. The kind of plan that you make when you're fresh...that we'd take the bikes and then after we'd raced, we'd drive back to Callandar - get changed etc. and then cycle the 9 miles on the cycle path back to Strathyre and the Inn to have some beers with anyone from the race that was still about and then cycle back later, in the atmospheric dark, to Callandar. The bikes were locked together in the back of the van.
As it worked out they were doomed to remain there. We got back to Callander and smuggled pizzas and a bottle of wine into our room. Much cheaper than eating out. Then we went to bed at about 7pm. I got up at 1am to have another couple of slices of pizza finding myself starving hungry, but apart from that slept through til this morning. And today I am still tired...and hungry.

ART MIMICS LIFE

So, as with my race, this post will just peter out rather lamely...

Back to the Pentlands

2011-10-30T18:21:00.000Z

It took discipline to get out there today. Still just a bit knackered. Need to get aff the wine!

We did the Pentlands "road run" in reverse today for a bit of novelty. Road shoes. The trails were dry. Difficult to believe after the deluge we witnessed in the West.

The car park at Flotterstone was full to over-flowing. The roads were filled with dogs and walkers. There were quite a lot of mountain bikers but pushing your bike seems to be the new making an effort. Tsk.

Subdued autumnal stuff going on.

My last two weeks mileage has struggled to make it into the early 20s but there's no point pushing the boat out now as we've got the Glenogle 33 miler on Saturday. I'm just thinking Kielder on the 9th of Oct will have to do as our last long run. Tried to push the last 3 miles down the road from the Howe but given it was all downhill with the wind at our backs it seemed a bit of an effort. I think our blood sugar was getting low as we bickered our way out of the car park and home. Soup and rolls helped a lot.

Just under 12 hilly miles.

H&H Cashel "Trail" (Hill) Run

2011-10-29T19:54:00.005+01:00

Julia's dog-bite. Get your dogs under control!

This photo of after the race - stolen from HAAC website.

Today's racing fun was the H & H Cashel Trail Run - a handicap race set up by Julia Henderson and Gordon Howat of Helensburgh AAC for fun and to raise some money for a cancer research charity.
We drove through to Helensburgh the night before and stayed at Julia's and drank maybe a little too much wine with Julia and her parents who entertained us tremendously.

7am this morning therefore seemed very dark and a bit surreal. We had heard the rain battering down sporadically over night and the roar of the wind in the chimneys. As it slowly and reluctantly got light it seemed pretty clear that it was not going to be a dry day.

At 8.20 we went and picked up the eponymous Gordon, and also Kevin, president of HAAC and made our way on flooded roads to Cashel Forest.

It was wet but it was very lovely - nice Autumn colours, the air temperature was pretty mild and it was too late in the season for midgies - which is always a bonus. Gordon sorted out some last touches to the course marking, runners started arriving, Kevin went to the top of the hill, and Julia's parents manned the timing. Pretty soon we were being set off up the hill.

We'd had time for a recce so we knew that at least the 1st 1K was steadily uphill. I was happy with this as going uphill has been suiting me well. Jan Fellowes was setting off 1 second after me - so I knew I had to capitalise on this as best I could! I hadn't run since Wednesday so felt pretty fresh and eager to get going so I went off fairly hard. I could sense that I'd pulled away from Jan quite quickly and started to sight others up ahead. I followed Alistair Wiley for a while but then when we turned off the stony path onto soft muddy trail I caught up to him. Likewise I went past a few others. Road runners who had been tricked into running a hill race! I wasn't sorry to see the top and Kevin was standing on a bench up there shouting encouragement. We ran round him and then headed off down. My only real issue was 2 out of the 3 knots on my right shoe had come undone and I was praying that the last one would not give way and make me have to stop. It held on though and the stony track gave way again to off-road trail. It was a great fun down hill. Near the end I passed the 2 guys who had set off first and I started to think that maybe I was going to win this thing! But then I heard the unmistakable sound of someone gaining effortlessly on me - in the form of Damien Theaker, closely followed by Helensburgh's Julia Henderson. When I made it to the finish line, three were already in so I was 4th but Julia disqualified herself as she was an organiser so I was honorary 3rd - for which I got a generous £20 token for Achilles Heel running shop in Glasgow. There were lots of prizes - I didn't know all the people so I haven't got the detail.

Julia's empire biscuits were absolutely delicious and some people had brought flasks with hot water so there was coffee and tea. If you were going to have a flash race, like a flash riot, it would be like this. Then we were going on for lunch near Balmaha so we tidied up and were away in minutes.

Its a great route and deserves to be run again before long. We've promised if its happening again we'll bring more Porties along with us.

On the way home on the motorway the heavens opened over Glasgow but the sun came out too so there were rainbows everywhere - getting thrown up off the surface water on the road and double-arching across the sky. I had to harangue the Buchanan to get out his darn camera and get snapping. The driving was a bit tentative and the visibility was hellish but it was beautiful. Unfortunately we never got the shot I wanted which was all the cars appearing to drive down a mirrored road, with the low golden sunlight and rainbows over Easterhouse. Oh well. Great wee adventure West.

A measly little run up the Braids and Blackford Hill

2011-10-26T12:04:00.000+01:00

I had a most inconvenient appointment for occupational health this morning to get my MMR2 - yes, mostly babies get this, but I agreed to have it for the good of the nation, as measles is back on the rise. I've been on about this before.

I put off the last one so reluctantly thought I better go this time. The problem is Wednesday morning is a running morning as I have university all afternoon and evening. I thought maybe I should drive up to the Astley Ainslie and then use the fact I was in that part of town to go a nice run up the hills up there. I had some sprints to start with which was to do with not getting parked and then being late rather than any new radical warm up. I was late so I was delighted that the nurse came and got me about 2 minutes after I arrived, ahead of all the other people in the waiting room. (They loved that.) I guess the schedule was running late and they were all early.

So anyway, that all went fine and I got up to the Braids for a run as planned. What a lovely morning! It was strange being in that civilised part of the world where dogs don't come and noise you up and everyone says good morning. My legs were a little stiff from double-racing at the weekend but not too bad. The path round there is absolutely filthy. When I got round to the path down to the Hermitage I went down there and up the other side and up the hill to the top of Blackford Hill and then back down and back up to the Braids again. Got scratched to pieces by thorn bushes, stung by something I never saw and covered in mud. Lovely.

So I'm told that the evidence that seemed to point to a link between autism and the MMR jabs was discredited. But I'm still going to keep an eye on myself. I'm suddenly feeling it might be good to read the phone book. Where did I put it?

Run of the Mill Hill Race (with a particular focus on the Porty Female Vets).

2011-10-23T19:13:00.002+01:00

2nd picture by Allan Harley featuring me with Susan coming to get me!

3rd picture by Westie John G. Donnelly

It was the 2nd running of the Run of the Mill Hill Race today. Myself, Peter and Andrew Stavert set off at 10 am for Alva. There was some squabbling about route choice and some aspersions were cast about my driving! Honestly, its lucky I'm a patient person. Some woman in a BMW who undertook me got flashed by the speed camera - Yes, justice at last. Andrew thought I was being a bit of a fascist. Maybe I was.

We arrived at Alva without any major incidents or anymore getting lost. I had to protest about my passengers who were suggesting I might be going the wrong way without having done any concrete research themselves. As it happened I found a very neat little way to Alva. It wasn't rocket-science, it was sign-posted Alva. People think this weekend adventuring is light-hearted fun but it takes a firm resolve and a steady hand sometimes.

Anyway, there was an impressive array of Porties collecting in the glen. As a championship race there were points up for grabs. The senior male, vet male and female vet positions were to be hotly contested. Lets focus on the female vets as I am still (but only just) one of them. (Soon I'm going to be super). In it to win it were Ruth Johnstone - not mad about the hills but always tough. Emily Ramsay - will beat my ass at any distance on the road - also beat my ass at the 7 hills and at Crieff 10K....could she get me on those uphills? Probably more at home off-road, the limber and fast Shery Johnston...but I beat her at Carnethy...just. Could I do the same again and get far enough away on the uphills so's she couldn't catch back up to me? Only time would tell...

I remembered from last year the nasty stony road which I thought was a bit of an ankle twister. I tried to keep it steady here, ready to put in a real fight on the uphills. The weather forecast hadn't been very promising so I was wearing 2 vests, but I was already heating up uncomfortably. Shery was away out in front. Emily put in a determined move up the hill and I stuck behind and we went past Ruth. Then further up, and onto the hill, I went past Emily and (I'll never get to say this again so I'll "drop" it in here) her friend Nathalie Christie-Cooper.

Now I had to keep ploughing on if I meant it so tried to run up the hill to the next clump of folk, have a bit of a walking breather and then run past to the next clump. I repeated this over and over, sweat pouring out my pony tail and dripping down the backs of my legs. I had to do something about the heat I was generating so when I got stuck in a queue of people walking at a narrow bit took off both vests, got the under one out and put the top one with the number back on. That was better. A little further up the way I passed Shery who was in a bunch with a few good runners - I think Alayne Findlay, Susan Harley from Fife, a Carnethy runner I didn't recognise and Susan Johnston of Corstorphine.

I felt surprisingly good so I kept pressing on - into a part of the field where I didn't really belong - but you can't think like that. Eventually the steep climbing was over and we were on the more undulating stuff at the top. There's not much to say about the next few miles. It was a repeat over and over again of the same thing. At first it was good not to be going uphill but then I'd find the going tricky and I'd be fighting to keep a rhythm and not slow down but all the while feeling people closing in on me. Then I'd hear them, then they'd go past me, then we'd come to a hill and I'd make up some ground again. Repeat times 3.

Eventually we were topping out on the last hill and I turned around and tried to have a good look and see if I could see where Shery was. I saw someone a bit away that I thought might be her as they were wearing a white vest over a flouro yellow top. That was enough information for me! I wished I hadn't looked. I hared off as quickly as I was able.

Down the hill people went by in dribs and drabs. I wasn't doing terribly but I was losing ground and the only approach I could think of was to not let it get to me, keep going as fast as I could and not give up. So that's what I did. Down the grass, down the road, - someone went past in a vest and flouro top and it wasn't Shery - down the steep grass and rocks (on my arse for safety) and then down the gravel path, all the time running from the spectre of Shery. Did I dare hope I could finally capture 10 points in a championship race? I was DELIGHTED to cross the line first Porty lady. The people at the end must have wondered just what I thought I had to celebrate, but that didn't matter.

Shortly after Shery appeared, and shortly after that Emily. I was glad I hadn't dawdled! Not long after that came Ruth.

Derek Jablonski had snuck past in the latter stages again - this time not giving me as much warning as usual.

After a bit of post-race analysis (Gareth Greene came in 1st Porty, Michael Geggs came in 2nd...after that I'm not sure) we squeezed into the no.5 Inn for salty soup and prize-giving.

And then home. Better have a shower. Great day out.

What's it called?

2011-10-22T21:46:00.000+01:00

Whose idea was it to do this? I couldn't remember. We headed west into the deep unknown to do the National XC relays. WTF are they? None of us knew. Some people thought I would know, but I didn't. Where is Cumbernauld? We thought it was in Glasgow, turned out to be in Lanark or somewhere. I had been there some 25 years ago for a couple of hours while my friend Graham picked up something from his mum's house. He told me he grew up just down the road from Lloyd Cole. The centre of town was built like a ship or something.

So off we set, a convoy of 2 cars of Porties from Leith and Willie and Jenni were coming from Musselburgh. Amanda came wth Horatio who tried to bite my gear changing hand and eat a hanky box. Amanda thinks he might be exceptionally bright and that's why he acts like this....

We had a little detour before Cumbernauld. We found ourselves driving over the Clackmannanshire bridge. Hmmmm.....doesn't seem quite right... and had to do an about turn. Not that M876 you idiot. The other M876. There was shouting concealed as talking in the car. We got there in plenty of time though. Jenni had picked up our numbers and we figured out who should go when. Not that it makes much difference. I was glad to go first and get it over with.

4K, pretty much 2.5 miles. I think its the shortest distance I've ever raced. The course was a good course, all of it runnable but some good hills for a cross-country, for which I was grateful - and I didn't do as badly as I thought I might, so that was a bonus. 3 times I thought I was raising my game for the finishing straits only to find a twist in the route and a new uphill into the wind and I'd have to try to pull myself together again and keep on keeping on. There was a generous amount of Porty support which was much appreciated and Robert shouting "there's a Fifer on your tail" helped me make one last effort for the line to pip Innes Bracegirdle. Afterwards I had to spend some time doubled over to calm the desire to be sick.

Then Peter and I took Horatio out onto the field to take photos while Jenni ran and Amanda got ready for her third leg. H was trying to eat my laces and kept weaving in front of me because he is exceptionally bright. Still it was a great course to spectate, as it was easy to run from one part of the course to another without having to run as fast as the people who were racing.

Pretty soon it was the men's turn so Willie led out for the Porty team. We were slow getting organised to get back out and take photos, apologies Willie, but when we saw him he was looking strong and still moving up through the field right to the end. Andrew did some tremendous show-boating when we shouted him on, producing the best photographs of the day. Robert ran a solid 3rd leg but I only got one photo because by now I was out on the course on my own and wandering around with my oxygen starved brain, frozen and starving I lost my bearings and forgot where the course went. Older age doesn't come alone.

Finally Buchanan was set free from his cage and hurtled round at an impressive rate. Chastened by my recent experience of getting lost up the top of the hill I stayed near the end where I knew I could probably get a decent picture of him coming flying down the hill. By the time that happened the other Porties had caught up with me and we decided to get to the end and get the maximum out of him so shouted him on furiously for the last 200ms or so. Then we all realised it was a while since we'd seen Amanda or Horatio, but they turned up soon having got lost in the woods nearby and having had to ask the locals how to get back to the course. Horatio was probably lucky not to have been turned into a hat.

On the way home we got lost again and so came "via" Stirling. Sigh...not a day for navigation.
I should say the Fife Ladies vet team got silver medals today. Not sure what else happened yet.

Tomorrow - Run of The Mill Hill Race! We'll find out if the wine therapy works.

Wet

2011-10-17T18:49:00.000+01:00

The Meadows at Lunchtime

...didn't look exactly like this, but nearly. Day off today and as I ached so much yesterday I went out on my bike instead of a run I thought that today I should try to have a bit of a speed session and get my act together. You know the type of thoughts...

Nothing was getting Buchanan out in the rain. I think he's afraid his glue will melt or something. So I went solo to the meadows via Arthur's seat with a view to doing something like 5 mile repeats at joke marathon pace with half mile recovery jogs.

At the foot of the radical road some of the big boys of hill racing were starting to gather for the Monday "7 hills of Arthur's Seat" run I have never yet had the courage to sign up for. It was teeming down. There was water standing on the grass despite it being on a good slope. Undeterred I made my way up the hill aux meadows.

Since there wasn't really any wind (despite the picture above) I decided to do it in reverse and run up the car side of the meadows - up and round the corner until Mr. Garmin beeped and then jog from wherever that was. It all started off well enough and I marvelled at how I could somehow manage to squeeze out a bit more speed when I set my mind to it. Rounding the corner the Garmin lost the plot (it always does at this bit) and was telling me I was going insultingly slowly. I was squeezed into the narrow and puddly cycle lane but looking nervously around for bikes as the path was choc-a-block with blind people with umbrellas. A ned did a fake move in front of me which made me have to dodge, hurt my dodgy hip and step in a puddle. I could have floored him. I realised that maybe my patience was stretched a bit thin as I thought "Honestly can the government not just eradicate these f*ck*rs." A rather final solution. I think neds are neds because they're angry inside, and they can sense it in you. I don't even see them when I'm in a better frame of mind.

It all kind of lost its charm after that. The people side of the meadows was annoying and the car side of the Meadows was - well - I might as well have been running up the motorway - and increasingly I wasn't generating any speed at all. Plus my legs didn't want to move anymore. The 2nd mile was slower than the 1st and the 3rd was the slowest yet so I decided to call it a day and run home.

Back at Arthur's Seat it was pleasantly empty. There was one of the good HBTs - I think it was Ray Ward, bounding along running at some crazy pace. Otherwise no-one. Why did I even go near the Meadows?
It was time to get home anyway. I was freezing.

I stopped off at the Scotmid to buy a can of soup to heat me up and could hardly handle my money or speak.

So anyway, its only a week after the marathon and I guess I'm still recovering. I thought I would go faster than that today. Boo.

Walsh you were here (nostalgia run)

2011-10-15T19:02:00.001+01:00

Walshes 2008 South Lakes

I had a notion to wear my old Walshes out to the Pentlands today to see how they compared with the Mudclaws I'm so used to now. The last time I can definitely remember wearing them was in the south lakes at Nic Davies' birthday weekend.

I was sore as I set off uphill today as we went for a short run yesterday which turned into a speed session. My right hip is bugging me and I don't really know what's setting it off. It happened a month ago and then got a lot better - and then the marathon didn't seem to make it any worse but last night it was back to being sore to the touch and I couldn't lie on it in bed. So - I think some of the excitement of last weekend and a busy week has worn off and so today I was full of aches and pains. So it wasn't really a fair test for the Walshes.

They are definitely nice and light and neat. We ran past a herd of walkers with sticks on the Drove Rd who seemed like their average age was 70 - so that was very cheering and made us feel like we were just young things. There was a lot of mud - probably a combination of all the recent rain and all the feet of the Skyliners churning the ground up. As we had an audience we continued to run all the way up to the top of West Kip. The wind was pretty much in our faces so it was a relief to top out and start down the other side. Peter was raving on about the skies and taking photos but I was watching my feet closely as usual and monitoring my dicky hip on the right hand side and a wobbly knee on the left. I also found out why I'd moved on from wearing these particular Walshes as the grips on the bottom were pretty worn and I did a couple of dramatic one footed slides.

The Pentlands were looking splendid in a misty, muted autumnal kind of way. There was a purple haze over Black Hill which forced my to try to sing like Jimi Hendrix as we were now on a good downhill and I had the breath. Unfortunately I don't know any of the words apart from "Purple Haze, Nah nah nah, Nahnanah nahnahah" and then the guitar solo "wang wang wang, wang wang wang". I sensed by now some distancing behaviours from Peter. (He'd run off into the distance.) My Walshes were a slipping and a sliding and I wished I had my Inov8s on.

Down the side of Black Hill seemed more bouldery than the last time I was there and was also very wet and boggy. I kicked a stone and only very narrowly avoided doing a face plant on a bed of boulders. After that I started to realise that my legs were just plain knackered. A sad slow little trot along the hard road confirmed my thoughts that things had changed for the better since Walshes were de rigeur. There's something very nostalgic about them though. They have a pared down 50s look to them. A reminder of simpler days. I might put them through the washing machine and incorporate them into the rest of my life.

When I started to write this blog I thought I might try and write it from the Walshes point of view. Something like (with a Northern English accent of course), "We've been stuck in 't dusty bloody hall for 3 years and never seen owt and then suddenly there we are out in 't blinding light of day. No bloody Citroen ax anymore we noted. No, now they've got a Berlingo! Bloody twats. And I can tell you the missus hasn't got any lighter in the last 3 years! Crushed we were! And she hasn't got any faster either! We were designed for light-limbed young lads who ran out in 't fell herding sheep all day not great hairy bloody slow twats!"

I sympathised with some of their views but in the end they were just too abusive.

Mileage up to 45 miles for the week. I'd like to hold at around 40 but I guess I better be guided by my niggles and aches. I'm hoping I might feel fresher tomorrow and we might go and do something longer in the hills. Next things are xc on Saturday, Run of the Mill Hill race on Sunday, a trail handicap race through in the west the following weekend and then the GlenOgle 33 miler the weekend after that.

Kielder (Britain's Most Beautiful Marathon)

2011-10-09T20:53:00.002+01:00

I blame Marc Grierson really. He was going down to do the Liverpool marathon and hoping for rain. The rain that was due to pour all over Edinburgh had tried to oblige by shifting South but had got stuck over Northumberland. As it got light and Richard, Peter and I were driving down to the Kielder Forest I tried to convince everyone that it was going to dry up later. Suddenly the opinion in the car seemed to be that it was my fault that we were doing "this stupid marathon".

Anyway, fast forward, it stayed wet.
The race start was a bit delayed for the final runners to get off the shuttle buses. (Not having read our event information packs, neither Peter nor I had realised that there were shuttle buses, its quite lucky Richard had paid more attention!) It was a bit of a long wait in a cooling drizzle and quite a fresh breeze but we reckoned once we got going we'd be happiest if we were just wearing vests. (Vests and shorts and trainers of course.)

I thought I'd pushed far enough forwards towards the front but had deceived myself once again and had the devil of a job skirting round fairies and, well, runners who were slower than me but better at pushing right up to the front and then jogging 3 abreast on the narrow trail and chatting.

I ran too fast to start with just blindly trying to get a bit of space. It quite quickly became apparent that the quiet warnings we had read about "short, steep hills" were absolutely right and that this course was going to be tough. The trail itself was very well-groomed and road shoes were fine for it. A lot of people were wearing trail shoes but I think my feet would have been trashed by the end without much cushioning or support.

I ran the first 3rd optimistically and then started to fade. A lot of people went past me up to 17 miles. This was very dispiriting. Then round about the 17 mile mark I had got caught with a group of guys who were running along and chatting and kept overtaking me and then slowing down and taking ages to let me past. They meant no harm but they were really pissing me off because I kept having to slow down and speed up for them so I decided to get moving a bit and just leave them behind. I found I was able to handle the increase in intensity and keep running harder, which felt absolutely great after I'd felt so defeated.

The most effective bit of pre-race prep I'd done was watching videos of marathoners on you-tube yesterday and in particular Ryan Hall who is a screaming maniac for Jesus. He was describing how he chants ole, ole, ole, ole - when he's running, as used by bull-fighters, which he reckons is the same as Allah, helping him to run and transcend himself. This was now playing loudly in my head and continued much of the time to the end. It still seemed a long way, but I was feeling so much better and moving back forwards through the field as many people were struggling with cramp. I was glad we'd done plenty of hills and particularly the two breweries recently. I was feeling okay on the hills.

One particularly pleasing set of events was that at mile 9 a runner had bounced up to me and said "Are you alright? Feeling alright? Its a hilly course isn't it? I really love it. My name's Mark" and bounced off into the distance. At about mile 23 I thought the t-shirt and shorts looked familiar and I was delighted to see the now serious face of Mark. "I'm feeling much better now." I said as I passed him. "I feel terrible now" he was man enough to say. haha OleOleOle Ole....

Okay my time was not what I'd hoped for but I adjusted my expectations lickety split after embarking on the roller-coaster which is the Kielder Forest trail. I was pleased to run in in 3hrs 55mins (hopefully 3hrs 54 when adjusted for chip time).

Steve Cram was there in person at the end. I wish I'd been man enough to go and speak to him but I was too tired and too shy.

The goody bag was great. We got a towel - handy in the circumstances, I'd been out in the rain for nearly 4hrs - a good technical t-shirt, sweeties, maybe a gel, a banana, a nice big chunky medal.

I saw Izzy Knox shortly after finishing. She'd run a stormer in 3hrs 25mins. I think it was too short for her. She said her legs were still fresh. Shortly after picking up my bag I caught up with Peter and Richard. Peter had a lot to say about the inclement weather but had done well. Richard had done stupidly well on no training and having slipped in a park run yesterday too for good measure. Roly was there too. Grimaced ruefully about what a tough, tough race it was. We were all agreed on that. Not long after David Allwood came in. He's been having problems with a groin strain. It WAS a tough course.

So. 10th marathon ever. 35th race this year. Season's best time by 9 minutes. Yeah I know but Cape Wrath was hard too. I feel very jolly. Full of pizza and wine. If you do this marathon do some hills in training.

Not so much tapering as just not running...

2011-10-05T09:57:00.000+01:00

Enjoy Britten's "The Sick Rose"

I've been "tapering" for nearly 2 weeks now and seem to be just enjoying the rest. I need to squeeze out another wee run this morning, soon in fact, but I'm not feeling much urgency about it. The stormy wind doesn't help. I have very little anticipation about the marathon because my training for it was all over the place and I don't think I'll do particularly well. Oh and it looks like the weather's going to be pretty crap. Another race consigned to the "treat it as a training run" scrapheap. The marathon will be race 35 of the year.

I must look back and see if I had a plan for this year or if this is just what happens when you don't plan...In a very long, slack moment at work yesterday I was reflecting that it would be nice to have a goal, work towards it and achieve it. Maybe next year I'll train properly for something.

So what's with the picture by Blake and the link to Benjamin Britten? I don't know. The sick rose is a good Autumn poem. None of your season's of mellow fruitfulness. Autumn is a disaster. It means that winter's coming. Kiss the light and the heat goodbye baby.

Mum used to like a bit of Britten on the tape-player in the kitchen in the morning when we were growing up and I guess it reminds me of winter mornings with the dark at the window, eating toast and staring into space before the day got started. I guess I better get moving...

Pond Life

2011-10-02T19:51:00.000+01:00

It was very wet over night and very wet in the morning. We had half planned to go and spectate and cheer and take photos at the Edinburgh 10K, but a glance out the windows at the tipping rain and we cancelled that as a plan. Besides, we could see it on telly, I had it set up to tape (or whatever the modern equivalent of taping is). Or so I thought. Unbeknownst to me channel 5 had changed the schedule so as we settled down to watch (it was too wet to go out yet but promised to dry up in the afternoon) we found we had a half hour program on Chester Zoo, followed by the 10K. We watched it anyway, though with an awareness we might not be able to see the outcome of the men's race.

The commentators were particularly irritating about the women's race and didn't seem to grasp that the reason they were "slow" for the 1st K might have had something to do with the bloody great hill they were running up. The ladies race (front runners only) was pretty exciting to watch and little Charlotte Purdue put on an impressive fight to take 2nd. The men's race was also pretty exciting and closely run but with just one K to go we ran out of recording! Shame.

The rain had now eased off and so after some snacks we settled on a plan to go to Bonaly, run over to the road that goes up to The Howe - carry on on the paths to Red Moss, then along to the path which takes you up between Bell's Hill and Harbour Hill, go up and over Harbour Hill and then back down to Bonaly. I've been tapering a little too much, only managing 19 paltry miles in the whole week, so I was feeling a bit determined to go out and try to run hard. Running by pace in the hills and off-road is too arbitrary so I was pushing (after the first mile or 2 warm up) to keep my heart-rate in the mid to high 150s. I think I was a bit short of fuel and it was a real struggle to keep pushing. I had to ban Buchanan from chatting to me and pointing things out. It took 2 or 3 terse reminders until he got it. He just bounds along and it looks effortless. I felt all effort and no grace today. I had to stay bloody-minded to stay with it but was quite enjoying it - just not in the traditional sense - not so's you'd notice a smile.

There was water, water everywhere, loads of water on the ground, Guinness tumbling down off the hills. The rivers were all bursting. My feet were wet from early on and continued wet. I stopped even trying to avoid puddles. I did get very thirsty and did imagine having a drink of the peaty water running in sheets off the hill but never truly considered it.

We found Mr. Frog on a path in the middle of a big footprint. He was very inactive and I hope he hadn't been squashed. But he might have been. Or he might have been having a bit of a winter slow down. We picked him up and spoke to him. He was definitely still breathing and his little eyes looked very clear and alert but he never made any move to crawl away or hop. We put him down at the side of the path. He made me wonder what frogs do in the winter so I've had a bit of a google. Apparently they can go and sit at the bottom of a pond...they kind of hibernate....

So just a week to the marathon. I wish I could say I was excited but my training has been a bit odd - and rather than feeling fresh I am feeling stiff and achy - although I spent most of yesterday building IKEA furniture so that's probably part of it. I've got a visit to the dentist tomorrow so I'll have to try and make sure she doesn't do any wizardry.

Two Breweries Hill Race

2011-09-25T11:22:00.002+01:00

Does my bum-bag look big in this?

Lovely Photos on the Hill - Ian Nimmo

Scrappy ones of afterwards - me

Folks milling around before the race - Neil G. Campbell

It was 2 Breweries time again this Saturday. I think it was Michael Geoghegan's sheer love for this race that clinched the deal and made us sign up for it as a last long run before Kielder Water Marathon in 2 weeks time. (Actually Peter isn't really on board with the notion that we shouldn't do a long run next week too, but I'm not going to, not unless its something good...)

We've done some hilly runs and quite a lot of long but to try and get ourselves in shape for coping with all the ups and downs of the Breweries we went and did a mid-week Pentland Skyline 2 weeks ago. I didn't find this easy at all but was relieved to have done it.

We had an unusually large entry of females this year leading me to fantasies of team prizes til Michael G. tactfully told me he'd read the entry list and there were some...erm...quite good girls running. Oh well.

There's a bit too much hanging about before the start, which could only be reduced by having someone willing to spend their day ferrying you about. You have to get to Broughton in plenty of time to get the coach to Traquair as its a point to point. Having said that, its all quite good fun and very well organised. There was coffee, tea and hot-chocolate and scones available at Traquair to keep us going before the race start. This was Gillian, Rachel and Lynn Morrice's first attempts at this race so there was quite a lot of last minute kit decisions being made. I hadn't left myself with much choice. As it turned out I had it a bit (but not drastically) wrong. With hindsight I'd have taken less food and more to drink and I would have worn a layer less right from the start. The sun came out and apart from on the tops where there was quite a brisk wind it was really pretty warm. I took off the t-shirt under my vest after the 1st mile realising I was already uncomfortably hot.

Douglas and Jennie Young had driven down just to give us a send off, which was lovely of them. I don't know what they'll have made of it though. Pre-race runners brains flip about from thing to thing I think. Our chat was probably a bit odd.

Although I ran this race last year I pretty soon didn't know particularly where I was or what was likely to happen next. Peter had given me stern instructions to go round rather than over the 1st hill - which I did - though it seemed quite long. Quite soon we were on a descent that took us all the way down to the river which I could have sworn came after the next bit, which was a long slog up a heathery hill, over a fence and then a hard-going traverse onto a very peaty path. Around here I caught up briefly with Lynn Morrice, who's just coming back to racing after being injured. She had taken the path over the hill earlier and was bewailing the fact that Michael Nowicki had been behind her before that, had taken the low road and was now ahead. I told her not to worry as I thought Michael was going too fast for himself. He had been glancing anxiously behind when I was behind him on the hill and it was too early by far in the race for that. I think my going past Lynn helped revive her fighting spirit as about half a mile further on she went past me (and Michael N. who we both spotted just ahead simultaneously) and I never saw her again.

For the first few hills I overtook Paul Eunson (who cracked some ribs in the 7 hills race on the grassy death slide coming down from the castle and so has not had the best summer for training) on the ups and he came past me effortlessly on the downs. The ground on the Breweries race is pretty rough and I've not been out in the hills that much so my downhilling was dispiritingly bad. By the time I spoke to Lynn - about 7 miles in - I had gone past him on the last up and didn't see him again. After the peaty path there is another fairly short up and then a long descent marked by orange markers over surprisingly good ground this year as the heather was nice and short. This was quite enjoyable at first but went on too long - by the bottom part of it which gets quite steep and rocky and comes out onto a road to a farm I was feeling pretty whacked. I remembered it from last year though and had felt pretty bad at this point as well - its just about exactly half way - so felt sure I could recover on the next stretch of road and the next fairly gentle path up hill. I tried to relax, trotting along the road, and spied just ahead Michael N. walking along with his head down. As I drew even he was shaking his head saying "I am SICK, SICK! I am dropping out at next check-point. I am VERY SICK!" Not far up the road was water and juice and jelly-babies. I was pretty dry by now, having some lucozade in my bum-bag, but being sick of its filthy sugary taste. A couple of cups of water went down very well and I trundled on - although quite shortly afterwards I was feeling thirsty again. I had a chocolate protein bar but I quite literally bit off more than I could chew. It seemed to expand exponentially in my mouth and I couldn't get it beaten down. I had to use the last horrible drops of lucozade to get it under control. Phew. Then I decided to tighten up all my laces. After this bout of procrastinating I had let a couple of people who were already ahead get a bit aheader, and I was caught up to by a Carnegie man. He trotted past and I settled in behind him for a while. We were coming up to the bit where last year, enjoyably, a whole heap of people went wrong. (There's nothing quite like running with someone and then finding that they are a good 10 minutes behind you!) This year, I was sad to note, the organisers had left nothing to chance, and the path into the woods and up the firebreak was marked with a swathe of pink ribbons and a plethora of yellow arrows.

There is something absolutely magical about this next little bit. I wish I could show you. Suddenly you are right in amongst the trees. The air is scented and is cool and soothing. The forest floor is littered with fantastic toadstools. After this is a rather challenging and very steep forced march to the top of the fire-break and a couple of marshals sat in the grass. These marshals, like all the others, were cheery, had made themselves comfortable and were very encouraging...

After this is a long sweep downhill. This sounds nicer than I found it. My feet and legs were already protesting. The ground had been very wet so was very boggy in parts. A couple of people swept past at this point including Fabienne Thomson, which made me wonder where the hell she had been...perhaps pacing herself? My friend from Carnegie caught up to me again. He was fearful of getting tummy problems, finding eating hard to do on a long race. I had tried to cheer him up by saying we'd be getting pizza and soup at the end and he only just restrained himself from telling me what I could do with my soup and pizza. "A cup of tea would do me!" he said, and I felt like a bit of a fat bastard for going on about food. I wasn't hungry either, just feeling a bit cheapened and sickened with sugary rubbish. Anyway, me and Mr Carnegie had another bit of a chat further along the way. He hadn't done it before so was anxious to know the stats. How far was there to go? I did my best to explain what I knew of the next bit of the course. We introduced ourselves. He was called Steven.

Up the road after Stobo I came to a complete halt. Barring the way were 2 large and fully formed bulls. Peaceful enough looking but I wasn't reassured by that. I tried to revise everything I knew about bulls. That wasn't much use. "They're terrifying". I looked to see if there was a fence I could climb over but that didn't help - over the fence were some horses who probably wouldn't have liked me climbing into their field. I thought of the man-eating Mares of Diomedes (the benefits of having a classics teacher for a mum) and thought better of it. Plan B., wait, like a child, for Steven. "Right" he said, "Hold my hand." So I did, hiding behind him like a child as we walked past the enormous, black, slightly curious bulls. Jesus H. Christ.

After that I was ready to get trotting again, but Steven was tired. Whats the etiquette for that? If someone's just saved your life and your race, is it alright to beat them? I trotted on anyway.

Fairly soon Trahenna was rearing its rather handsome heathery head. A man in yellow (John) told me he'd had a tip off that left of the trees was a good way to go, so having wallowed through bog to get to Trahenna last year, I followed. The route seemed longish but the paths were better. I felt I could run again but John was only walking. Point of etiquette 2. If someone has just shown you a useful route - is it okay to beat them? I went on at my own pace and as it happened John swept past easily on the way back down from Trahenna, so I did the right thing. He was a downhill man, not an uphill man.

The march up Trahenna was dizzying. There were quite a lot of very unhappy people ranged out up the steep, steep heathery flanks. I made relatively good progress, but was not feeling great. None of your walk/run nonsense. It was walk/walk - and that was better than the walking and stopping I could see going on around me. At very long last I topped out to see the Nimmos and some others? Who let me have some water and some encouragement before the final stage downhill. Last year I was blissfully unaware that there was close to a mile of road at the end. This year it was preying on my mind. I'd glanced at the Garmin as I was descending from Trahenna and saw that it was already 4hrs 20mins - my finishing time for last year. This took a little more wind out of my now ragged sails. I tried to calculate when I might get done but just couldn't. A lot of concentration was needed to avoid tripping on the trods on the way down. They were narrower than I'd remembered from last year.

Just before the road Peter and Michael were already dressed and were taking photos and cheering. I felt down-hearted and like a bit of a failure. The road was nasty. A car was tailing me even though there was room to pass. I jumped up on the pavement although my legs were protesting just to get the thing to go away. There was a guy ahead of me who wasn't getting any futher ahead. I concentrated on him and thought if I could cruise in at this pace it would be enough. He crossed the road early so I followed suit and then I heard footsteps behind me. I took a look and it was Rachel. Bloody hell! I hadn't seen her all race and now here she was. I did my very best to raise the pace as we went down the track to the finish, but I couldn't do much about it. Rachel pipped me to the post. Oh well. It was good to stop.

Lynn was still at the finish and we were all kind of agonised. Lynn's back was really sore as was mine a bit. We tried sitting different ways or stretching. Walking back along the road things started to feel a bit better - it was just tired achy muscles making their feelings known! As Lynn unloaded a huge blueberry cake from the back of Rachel's car, Paul Eunson and then Gillian came past and finished. Good to know all the Porties were in. A while later, with the aid of pizza, soup, coffee and cake, back at the hall, everything was starting to look a bit better. (I know what you're thinking - you're thinking "I thought you said you weren't really interested in food?") Peter and Michael were in great form. Peter had run a pb. for the course so was fine and happy. Michael had run a stormer and come in 10th and looked bright and happy. His training after the Moray Marathon had consisted of going to India and not running at all as his hamstrings had been giving him bother. This strategy had appeared to have paid off. Both of them were guzzling the free beer on tap on offer in the corner of the hall. I should mention Graham Henry was also there and ran and I'm sure did well but I don't really know how it all went for him as we never had a chat. He was his usual relaxed and happy self afterwards anyway. He loves the two breweries. (Michael N. had recovered enough to be eating and drinking beer.)

Fast-forwards to prize-giving. HBT ladies and men's team prizes. Stewart Whitlie and Mark Harris in shock "crossing the line hand in hand" as winners. Our Gillian was 1st FV50. The prizes were generous so our Michael G. got a prize of beers for 6th senior male.

And then we all went home.

It was a wonderfully organised event - and the spread afterwards and the free beer is as generous as the course is hard and cruel! Lynn and Rachel were talking about what training they might do to come back and run a faster time, but I don't know. I was probably better trained this year but ran 16 minutes slower. Go figure, as the Americans say.

Stirling 10K

2011-09-18T15:10:00.001+01:00

Conditions probably couldn't have been much better for the Stirling 10K today; cool, just a wee smirr of rain on the wind and only the slightest of breezes. There were a handful of other Porties but no females with whom to compare myself which was actually quite restful mentally. I felt quite anonymous in the crowd.

There was a lot of chatting at the start (all those west coasters!) and I never did hear the gun. I just figured we were under way because the crowd was "surging" (walking slowly) for the start. I had 16 seconds on my Garmin by the time I went over the chip mat and from my final time it looks like the gun had gone off 8 seconds before I put my Garmin on.

A surprising amount of people had been between me and the purple start/finish arch. It hadn't looked like that from where I'd lined up. The first couple of K was all about passing people - not that I'm complaining because its a very encouraging feeling and there was generally space to pass.

I'd absolutely promised myself I'd go out reasonably and not make the race into a nightmare for myself - it was steady, steady, steady for the 1st 7K or so and then I started to take some chances. The whole thing passed suprisingly quickly. There were some very fast people out front heading for 30 minute races. I do like a race where you get to encounter the leaders coming back at you. It should be demoralising but its not - its exciting.

My goal was to get a season's best which I thought was about 46.20. My Garmin showed 46.19 as I finished so I thought I had it cracked - my chip time being about 46.03. So I was a bit saddened when I saw I had a gun time of 46.26...until I had a look at what my Haddington time was - which was 46.27...so its all good.

God these bloody road races and the agony you can give yourself over tiny increments of time.

There was a bevy of Helensburgh's there, including the super fast super vet Paul Thompson and Julia Henderson setting a new pb of 37.10. (2nd FV35-44 prize), and Willie Jarvie took 3rd MV50 prize. The Buchanan was forlorn having not only not set a new pb but being 30 seconds off his old one. He is shaking it off now but its taken some time and some bacon and cheese toasties...

Stirling is a pretty well organised and genuinely fast and flat 10K and being so far inland it doesn't seem to suffer so much from the strong Scottish Breezes (although nearby Alloa seems to get its fair share of wind on half marathon day, so maybe its a seasonal thing). We all got a t-shirt and goody bags with biscuits and lucozade and water and a banana. My only grumble would be not hearing the gun - although looking at my Garmin data I see we set off at 10.14 - so maybe there wasn't a gun? Maybe we all just started moving?

Peter says the K markers were off but I wasn't really paying any attention to them so never noticed.

Next up - the 2 Breweries on Saturday. Time to start puzzling over the route again.

Long Run

2011-09-16T16:05:00.000+01:00

I have just started back at university and have had a 4 day intensive start to it - which has been great - but its involved quite a lot of sitting on my arse and some cake-eating, some almond croissant eating and the drinking of gallons and gallons of strong coffee. My mileage tally for the week has been pretty poor - only 13 and a half measly miles up until today, so I thought, come what may, today I needed to get out a long run.

The Met Office were saying it was going to start chucking it down at 1pm while the BBC weather site was predicting a more modest light rain round about the same time. Both sites were in agreement the wind would be from the East. I put aside my desire to have a nice sleep-in this morning and got up early enough (it was quite early) to catch the 9.43 train for North Berwick so I could commence running at 10.16 and have about 3hrs of running with the wind behind me before it got too nasty. The plan was to do all the longer alternatives around the coast early on so if I needed to bail out of the run I would already have got 20 miles in, and then if I wanted to go longer and things weren't so bad, I could.

This all worked out kind of smoothly. It was dark and overcast but it wasn't too cold and it was nice to be outside again at last. I'd taken my ipod and enjoyed trotting along the beach with the wind behind me and the grey sea to my right. After about 10 miles I was getting a bit sore and sleepy also. At 11 miles I was at Aberlady so had a Chocolate Crispie bar and a bottle of Lipton's tea, sitting on the stone wall in the light rain as a funeral party walked past.

By Seton Sands I was losing the will to live despite the going being relatively easy back on tarmac and with the wind behind. I tried being brave for a while but that wasn't working so when I got to Prestonpans I decided to hunt down the train station, which I've seen signs for but have never really known where it is. I found it up a sizeable hill as the Garmin turned over to 19 miles. Unfortunately the next train would be nearly an hour so I ran back down the hill and hopped on a bus.

There's a kind of low grade pleasure sitting on a warm and steamy bus on a dark rainy day in Scotland and watching people in the towns of Prestonpans, Musselburgh and Portobello all going about their business. By the time I got off the bus I was stiff as a board but I wanted to make my mileage up to at least 20 so I forced myself to run anyway. At Scotmid I was up to 19.96miles so I thought maybe I'd make up the difference when I came back out again. In the meantime I got some tomato soup and some other stuff for tea. When I got back out the shop I couldn't be bothered trying to make up 0.04 of a mile by running while all my shopping worked its way through the ultra thin sides of the plastic bags it was in. So I didn't bother.

This is not the most heroic blog I have ever written.

I was kind of planning to have a day off running tomorrow to be fresh for the Stirling 10K on Sunday but I think maybe I need to run after all.

Photo - Francesca Woodman

A return to form....

2011-09-11T20:06:00.000+01:00

By which I mean...we skipped the long run today because I'm going to do one on Friday anyway. My legs were stiff and achy and my mouth was a little dry from drinking wine last night.

We settled on driving to Gullane and going for a traily 8 miler in the windy weather. All the while I was having fantasies about food. I wanted bacon and melted brie. I wanted cake. I wanted haggis and turnips in a baked potato. It was impossible to get any kind of speed out of myself and I realised I was settling back into my old ways. No speed training at all and food as a reward wherever I go. However there was no way I was leaving Gullane without a visit to Falko's. No cheese and sausage tongues left so we had pretzels and Peter had a raspberry tart and I had some kind of extravagant danish pastry with glazed fruit on the top. It did the trick though and we stopped arguing and there was peace in the car.

A day off is in order tomorrow and then maybe shorter, faster stuff until Friday when my next long run is due. In a fit of enthusiasm we've signed up for the new Glen Ogle 33 mile race in November. There's something about this long run business that keeps calling you back. Maybe its the amount you can eat afterwards.

Next Sunday will probably be a horrible shock at the Stirling 10K but lets be positive. All I ask is a season's best, which is about 46.20ish. Possible? I dunno. Then the week after that is the 2 Breweries race. I'm afraid that my hill-running legs keep using up all the protein making my quads extra big and then there's nothing left for my speed running muscles. Wherever they are...I'm toying with the idea of going back to Tuesday night intervals, especially since I'm not going to be able to make club nights for quite some while. Can I put myself through that?

Reverse Red Moss Plus in the beautiful evening light....

2011-09-10T23:33:00.000+01:00

Not the most auspicious start to the weekend...apparently it was the Ned Revels last night, which took place next door to us. For us this consisted of 10.30pm to about 3.30pm boom-boom music, ugly voices and laughter, doors slamming, staffies barking. We slunk off to bed hoping if we ignored them they'd just go away. "Someone else phone the fucking police this time" was my thought. Really. What is wrong with our other neighbours? In the name of behavioural modification and consistency we should have phoned the police but neither of us wanted to get into the whole thing. I tried my ned noise combatting head-phones and even the white noise I'd down-loaded from the internet, which worked to a certain extent, but I felt sorry for Peter and got tired of the space-suit noises. Also I like to lie on my side.

So I woke up this morning about 11.30 in a pretty bleak mood. Rumour has it that our neighbour will be leaving soon but in the meantime every time there is a full moon and his disordered blood rushes to his tiny head the whole building has to throb to his imbecilic beat until the rage has passed...

As I surfed around on the internet while eating my breakfast I was pleased to discover that this is the Year of the Rabbit and as a Horse, I'm not really meant to be having a good time this year. Having to temporarily rein in my nature and put up with things I don't like. Lower earnings and loss of status in order to achieve long term goals. Lower than usual amounts of luck. Yep, yep it fits. As long as there's a reason for it I don't mind.

So then there was the question of where to go a run. The Buchanan has rather pushed the boat out in the last week. He ran 26 miles for my 20 on Sunday and then went out another run on Monday. (About 7 miles?) Then we both did the Pentland Skyline on Wednesday and yesterday he cycled to Musselburgh to meet up with Johnny Lawson and ran 21 miles with him, cycled back, and then came out for 5 and a half with me. So today he wasn't as keen as usual, which was quite nice for me. I suggested that we do the extended Red Moss route we've cooked up but vary it a bit and do it in reverse as I always struggle with the last flat mile at the end. Both of us were stiff to start with but the drizzle that had been around earlier in the day had cleared up and there were bursts of low evening sunlight. It was a bit dark and dismal to start with, but the wind was warm, and for once Peter wasn't pushing the pace which made me feel like I was moving quite well. As we got up onto the Kips the sun came out and the wind was blowing hard and everything looked golden in the low light. We had a superb 3 mile swoop downhill from the top of West Kip back to the car with a small diversion at the end round the board walk over the moss. We were both much lighter in mood by the end.

So then we only had some left over pasta for tea so bought a pizza to supplement it, and some wine to supplement that and then we watched a bizarre but enjoyable Mighty Boosh-esque film called Bunny and the Bull - which is approximately about taking risks and for the moment all is right with my world. Tomorrow is long run time again. Where will we go? I really don't know.

Midweek Skyline

2011-09-07T21:08:00.000+01:00

Photos PB

The trouble with running ultras is you buy all this food that when you're running you find disgusting. "Chocolate raisins? Gag. Fudge? Oh I'm so sick of this stuff. Chocolate Brownies? Oh no I couldn't." And then you bring it home and one fine night when you're sitting in the house watching The Killing on the telly and you haven't done anything even vaguely ultra...in fact you didn't even go out for a piddly wee run because you just couldn't be bothered, the goodies start calling to you from the cupboard.

And so it was that after a pretty lavish tea thank you we raided the ultra box last night and had half a big bag of chocolate raisins each. It was at about this moment that I had the brilliant idea that we should go and do a whole Skyline today rather than wait all day and go to club training at night. I was off work and Peter didn't HAVE TO be anywhere. And we do have the 2 Breweries race coming up in just over a couple of weeks, which is long and hilly, so it made sense...

It was a pretty nice day. Bright and blowy. My legs weren't keen on the idea. I hadn't run since Sunday's long run and I was stiff and sore - probably worse than I would have been if I had run. Half way round I had a real dip but was rescued by eating something and the fact that we'd turned around so the wind was now behind us. We ran a bit further than the Skyline as we'd parked in the bottom car park at Hillend. So about 18 miles and 5 hours later the deed was done. I'm so tired, but never mind, its tea-time and The Killing's on soon and the ultra goody box is now empty.

Porty Long Run

2011-09-04T17:39:00.000+01:00

Jenni organised another of her long runs - this time to mark the last run for the crew that are off to run Berlin in 3 weeks time. She cleverly organised a beautiful sunny day and a very light tail-wind.

I wasn't happy getting up at 7am and felt like an old tub on legs as I stumbled around the flat trying to get ready. The one saving grace for me was that it was "only" 20 miles and I didn't want any more than that. Peter was for running the 3 miles to the start of the run and then getting in some extra miles around the coast en route. Why? "For the Stirling 10K" he told me. Whatever. I drove to the start and let him run the 1st 3 miles tout seul.

My hope was that I would warm up and that 20 miles would genuinely not be too taxing after making myself run 36+ last weekend, and so it proved. I ran without a plan at the start - well with an impromptu plan to try and overtake some people and go for a pee as the early morning cool had hit my bladder. It took a fair effort to catch and overhaul folk. But who was this running along with Jenni, Ruth, Shery etc.? A bare-chested, bare-footed young man was running along side them. And not just for 100m as would be the usual behaviour of people in the street who interfere with runners. He was actually keeping up quite a good pace and not breathing hard at all. It was difficult to know what his game was. At times he ran out in front and faced us running backwards and shouted encouragement. It became quite clear that he was bonkers, either through drink and drugs or being manic or both. Still, I wanted to run ahead for a pee so that's what I continued to do, only he came with me, muttering encouragement, telling me he was really proud of me. I was trying to gauge just how mad he was but he didn't seem at all aggressive. I finally got to the toilets at the Musselburgh quayside and told him I didn't expect him to wait for me. He had run off by the time I came out and hooked onto Sandy and Caroline.

After that he went round the lagoons with Peter and Richard and we think his feet were heating up from running over stones so he eventually dropped off the back. Myself and Caroline had suggested that running in bare feet wasn't maybe the best idea but he dismissed this with a grandiose shrug of irritation.

In the meantime I had dropped behind everyone so had to work my way back up. I caught up with Sandy and Caroline and at Port Seton we had a quick stop as Jenni's mum and partner stopped to hand out water and jelly babies and Ricky and Willie who were chaperoning us on their bikes had stopped too. Peter and Richard also caught up with us here so we ran as a group to Aberlady.

At Aberlady Richard was turning around and heading back to Edinburgh and Peter was wanting to go the long way round to North Berwick so Sandy, Caroline and I continued on the road. I was finding that we were going at a nice pace and although I'm a bit stiff and sore from the race last weekend still it wasn't getting any worse so I was feeling much more relaxed than I had in the morning. It didn't seem long at all til we were in North Berwick. Its the 2nd fastest 20 miler I've done this year so I was pleased, particularly because I still felt quite fresh in the latter stages.

Then we all went to the Buttercup cafe where Jenni had booked us some tables and had Spaghetti Carbonara and apple-pie and ice-cream. Top day out and very nice to catch up with people and have a more social long run.

Recovery & speed - in just one session!

2011-08-31T16:23:00.000+01:00

Confused as usual about what I should really be doing. On the one hand I probably need to recover from the Speyside Way race and on the other hand, the reason that we did it in the first place was as a piece of experimental training for the Kielder Water Marathon to see how an extra long run affects the whole. And also we did it so we could combine a visit to my mum with a running adventure. In this sub-elite world of running, motives are rarely pure and goals are not singular. And we're fond of racing.

Anyway - we tested the water on Monday to see how we were with a run round Arthur's Seat and quite honestly I've felt worse after manys a long run. We took it easy and warmed up slowly and I was a bit stiff but really not too bad.

I don't have work today and although its club tonight, really just wanted to go and test myself alone and without pressure. Plus I hate waiting all day to run at night. So it was I went up to the Meadows for a combined recovery and speed session. I settled on 5 X 1 mile at what I wish my marathon pace was with half mile jogs in between. Usually I'd try to run a bit quicker in an interval session but I question the usefulness of that for improving my basic speed. I thought, "how's about practicing what I preach to others and doing something which is stretching but achievable?" So that's what I did. For the 1st mile interval the pace felt easy but I had quite a lot of stiffness in what I think were my left hamstrings and glutes. After the mile and during the recovery jog bit I stopped and had a really good hamstring stretch. This improved matters somewhat and so after the next mile interval I did the same thing and this loosened the whole thing off nicely. By interval 4 and 5 I was beginning to flail a bit, which is probably as it should be, so it took a bit more determination to make it at the pace I wanted. By this time both the right and left set of glutes were complaining, not in a "we're injured" kind of way, but in a "we're tired" kind of way, and I was glad to finally stop. Job done though! I did the session I set out to do.

An easy jog back home via Arthur's Seat rounded the session off nicely. On my way down Arthur's seat I saw the returning-to-form-after-a-long-absence John Blair galloping up the hill like a police horse or something. You wouldn't get in his way. It'll be interesting to see what he does at Berlin.

We have a couple of interesting races lined up in the run up to Kielder. The fast flat Stirling 10K, followed the next weekend by the long, hilly and arduous two breweries race.

Speyside Way Race; 36.5 miles

2011-08-28T19:59:00.003+01:00

We camped at my mum's the night before the race which meant driving some distance in the morning. I got up at 4am and Peter got up at a more relaxed 4.30 to get breakfast and get on the road to register at 7am and get the bus at 7.30 to the start of the race. We got to the start about 8.40am and stood around shivering and flapping our arms til kick off which was at 9.02am. The weather forecast had softened a bit since earlier in the week and in the event there was a little rain and some wind but nothing like what had been predicted.

The first 12 miles were along a narrow path and were flat and it was tempting to race. I promised myself to go no faster than 9 min/miles or 8.30 pace at the fastest and then immediately broke this rule. I was cold and needed a warm up anyway. I'm not a fan of the flat and I was relieved after 12 miles and the 1st drop bag stop (I didn't bother leaving one) when the course took us up a good hill. The field really spread out at this point, I'm not exactly sure why, and I only saw and exchanged places with a few men over all the next miles until the next bag drop at mile 24. At mile 15 I was feeling tired and thinking what a long, long way it was to go and was trying to lift my own spirits. It was about 15 minutes to noon and I think it was the sheer tiredness of having been up for so long already. I somehow got out of this complete doldrum but ever after that was aware of managing my mind in order to not get too down about the distance to go. Somewhere about mile 18 I saw a competitor coming back up the road towards me and as I wondered if he was dropping out or what the story was I saw a white peaked cap in the road and thought that was likely what he was coming back for, so I picked it up and took it to him. We ran along together for the next few miles and chatted a bit. It turned out he was from Haddington and knew a lot of the same runners I do and it was a relief just to chat about other people's running and races and running routes we both knew and it took my mind off the road. At about mile 21 he dropped back and I didn't see him again. There were a lot of ups and downs on roads and forestry tracks along this stretch.

At the 24 mile bag drop there were a few people who seemed to be quite settled in there. They were there as I arrived and they were adjusting kit and stretching and eating sandwiches. I couldn't have eaten a sandwich and wasn't that interested in my chocolate raisins and Powerade but had some none the less. As I beetled along the road before this stop I tried to imagine what I actually wished was in my drop bag rather than what I knew was in it and all I could come up with was a lemon-scented face wipe like you get on airplanes and some painkillers would have been good as well. I also would have quite liked an espresso coffee. It felt like synchronicity then when the lady eating the sandwich asked if anyone would like a wet-wipe. Not quite what I'd asked for but similar. It was really nice to clean my face and hands.

I wanted to get moving again before everything seized up so I took off, albeit at a shuffle, along the road. While I had been stopped a lady called Elaine who I'd been chatting to before the event went by, barely pausing to pick up the contents of her drop bag. She gave me someone to "chase" so I kept her in my sights.
She kept looking behind and I wondered why. The only reason I was looking behind me was to see if anyone was there to be affronted if I released some of the copious quantities of "air" I was making out of chocolate raisins and Powerade. Thankfully a lot of the time there was no-one. If there was someone, and it was you, I do apologise.

The path flattened out a bit and the sequence in my mind becomes hazy. We were back in more populated areas and so some people you met were friendly and encouraging and others were not so welcoming and friendly. I saw some kids on bikes weaving around the woman ahead in what looked like an annoying way, they were clearly asking her questions. I was glad it wasn't me and tried to look as forbidding as possible. Possibly it worked as they never came near me. At one point, as I ran into some woods, I suddenly got a sharp sting right at the top of the back of my right leg. I reached back and picked something furry off - but threw it away instinctively without looking. It must have been a bee or a wasp. So it was I was standing rather surprised holding the top of my leg when a couple rounded the bend behind me. "Are you alright?" the guy asked. "Yes but I've just been stung by something, a bee or a wasp." "I'll see if I can get the stinger out for you" he said and gave the sting a good squeeze which made me yelp. Its not on every occasion you would offer a perfect stranger your white bits, but it wasn't any old day. He said he couldn't see a stinger in there - so it was probably a wasp I guess. I think he got in trouble from the lady he was with, who turned out to be his wife, as I met her in the showers later on. She told me gravely that he was a pervert and he wasn't a bit interested if there was a stinger or not. I still think he was trying to help though.

The pain wasn't too bad and after I realised I wasn't going to go into anaphylactic shock and die (I've been stung just once before, years ago, by a bee that got trapped in my t-shirt when I was cycling in Ireland) I relaxed. The stingy pain was a change from the dull aches in my shuffling legs.

A while after this I got into a fruitless and interminable struggle with my Garmins. I knew the newer one (F405) would run out of battery power round about the 30 mile mark, its does it quite consistently now. In order to get a record (OCD - if its not on the training centre it never happened) of the entire route I'd charged up my old Garmin (the 305) and took it along so I could swap over when the time came. It had occurred to me a few times that I should power up the old Garmin before I needed it so that it could get a fix on the satellites, but I never got round to it, so when the newer Garmin started bleeping that it was dying I got out the old Garmin, strapped it on, put it on and stood still to try and get a signal as soon as possible - and then waited, and waited, and waited....finally (after 3 minutes and 2 people going by) I thought I can't stand this, I am off, maybe it will get a signal as I move. So I kept checking it sporadically for the next 2 or so miles, but it never got there. At 32 and a bit miles newer Garmin went completely dead and I started the timer on older Garmin in the hope that even though it was saying it couldn't see the satellites it might record something of value but it was recording time only. I then had to just kind of guess how far I had to go. My brain, such as it was, had packed up ages ago so I figured out how far roughly I had to go and how long it might take and then forgot what I'd thought and tried to work it out again. I started to see Elaine ahead of me again - she must have had some adventure of her own to come back to me after I'd spent so long arsing around with Garmins.

We came to a caravan site where 2 ladies were taking numbers and handing out water. Elaine was standing there and I ran up and arrived while she was there. "You're looking strong." said one of the ladies and I said to her "I'm feeling okay, but I've run out of things to think about, have you got any suggestions?"
"Oh yes" she said, "You've won £166 Million in the lottery. What are you going to spend it on?"
I gave an involuntary squeal of delight. "I'm looking forwards to this!" I told her. And I genuinely was.

During this exchange Elaine had taken off again, so I gave chase. She kept looking behind her and she would walk from time to time. It can't have been comfortable. I was running along very slowly, but steadily now I had stopped fannying around with Garmins and I felt sure that sooner or later I was going to catch her, it was just a matter of when. In the meantime there was money to spend.

The path went into some woods and very nice it was too. Very narrow single track in woods with pleasant ups and downs, twists and turns and big red fly agaric toadstools. Well first of all I was going to get a house to live in while I was deciding what to do. Maybe in Gullane - just out of town - and nice and big, with wood surrounds. Not much more detail needed there. It was just an interim step. I considered not returning for my course at uni in September but I discovered that I still wanted to do it. I would continue to do it. Work I would be giving up. Would I work the 4 weeks I was contracted to? Do you have to if you've won the lottery? Probably not. I could sort that out.

My neighbour has been annoying me so much I thought that, for mischief, I would either buy his flat out from under him and expel him back into the world or I would get someone even more annoying than him to live in our flat so he could have a little taste of his own medicine. Meanwhile I'd be living in my woody house in Gullane. What of cars? Well I found I didn't really care. Peter could choose because he's got stronger feelings about that than me. He'll point to cars and say "Oh look at that" or "That's a blah, blah, blah" whereas the only cars I recognise are other Berlingos and those little Fiat 500 cars because they're cute.

Then I thought of a good joke, and I wished I was at the end so that I could tell Peter. With my £166 million win I was going to buy him a new set of ladders for his painting and decorating business. Hahaha. "Hahaha" I laughed out loud in the woods. Like a loon. A woody loon.

And then it all got a bit tiresome. We spilled out onto the shore at some point and I realised I was running along beside the sea. I don't know when the river turned into the sea but there was a stiff breeze blowing in-shore. I was now reeling in Elaine and she must have just given in because I hadn't speeded up but all of a sudden I was upon her. "I knew you would catch me sooner or later" she said, "I'm aching all over".
"I know", I said, "Its horrible isn't it? Keep going though." and passed her. It was definitely more difficult once I was past her. Now nothing to focus on but the end the end where's the end. After an age, after a stone tunnel, a marshal told me there was 2 miles to go. Which seemed okay. And then after another age there was another marshal and she said "Keep going, just another couple of miles?" "???????" I thought, but smiled and said thank you. An eternity passed and I went past another marshal who said. "Just 2 miles to go". I don't think they were deliberately making fun, but it was cruel. That is what hell would be like. A series of marshals telling you you've only got 2 miles to go as you struggle on on your concrete legs with your aching back and your tired neck and your bored head on a grey day beside the North Sea.

At very long last I was set up a hill and I knew the finish would come soon and it did. I think the time-keeper said 6rs 41 mins, which is probably alright. It was a relief to walk now and not run. I got handed a sizeable goody bag, and had some of the water and saved the rest of the stuff for perusal on another occasion. I found my way through Saturday afternoon Buckie, up to the school to find Peter and Richard, relaxed and drinking tea. They gave me a nice, though embarrassing cheer as I came in the door, as everyone else turned round to look.

After a blistering shower my legs were working more normally and were fit for the drive back to mum's, where we got back and ate, drank some wine and crawled back into the tent for 9pm and slept for 11 hours.

Ho Ho Ho

2011-08-25T18:29:00.000+01:00

So Saturday is the Speyside Way Race. A modest 36 miles compared to the Highland Fling which I didn't do earlier this year. I felt I could hear God chuckling when I looked in my diary and saw that I had a dentist appointment booked in for this week. "Not this time God, you big prankster!" I thought and postponed the appointment. So it looks like he's playing the cards he played at the Cape Wrath Marathon. Heavy rain and a good strong wind. Pointless to ask why I suppose?

Anyway, I need to go and organise drop-bags and read the race instructions and all that stuff. I don't know why it always seems like such a chore. It would be nice if the forecast was to turn out to be wrong. I'd like a nice dry day, with sunny spells, maybe 16' C and a gentle Southerly wind, maybe 7 mph. I'm just saying.

White noise and snowy white drives

2011-08-24T16:09:00.004+01:00

White Noise 2 by =Falln-Stock

Feeling quite low energy and puttering about at home instead of being out running. Maybe I'll go to club later - maybe not. In the meantime I've been looking for techy solutions to long-standing problems.

Yesterday evening my twat neighbour was driving me crazy playing his music. Well I say "his" - but its not really his - its just music but I think the poor wee lad is making up for having no personality, no hobbies, no work and nothing of value to contribute by playing loud music and hoping that adds up to mattering in some way. I may be a little jaded on the subject. I'm not reacting to it in the best way either. All I have to do is hear a boom-box far in the distance now and my brain screams MURDER, MURDER, MURDER! Its stressfull.

Anyway - I think the noise levels were right on the margin of the environmental wardens being able to do anything about it and I wasn't in the mood for the pantomime of phoning the police and then waiting with baited breath to see if the sound will go on or if it will stop before they get here thus making it seem like a pointless call out and making me look like I'm wasting their time. Plus I think the boy's gambit is to garner attention to himself in some way and I feel that if I get so caught up in it that I'm waiting to see if it will go on or if it will stop then I have become a slave to his needs. So I tried to ignore it - but it was chipping away on the edge of my awareness making it hard to concentrate on anything else.

I had heard of noise cancelling technology so I thought I'd have a bit of a google to see what I could find out. I was hoping for a large ray gun which you could fire though walls but it turned out to be more about special headphones that keep the outside noise out by, em, cancelling it with a ray gun. I ordered the cheapest pair I could find, not because I believe that they will keep boom boy out of my awareness but because they also promised to be effective against snoring. Because SOMEONE in this house does snore, and its not me. Yet another sound that snags the edges of your awareness and can pull you back from the blessed relief of dreams into the boiling, gull-filled, dull world of irritation which is early morning.

Anyway, while I was stumbling about in google-world I was coming across references to white noise and its usefulness as a way of putting up a wall between yourself and irritating noises. First of all I came across a website generously selling the sound of your kettle boiling for $12 a download. "Surely to God you can get this stuff for free." I thought to myself and added the word "free" to my search and bish, bash, bosh I was at this guy's website. Or maybe its a lady, actually, I'm not sure. So I'm sitting here listening to whitenoise, with a heartbeat and some odd ambient sounds of the aliens leaving for space. I downloaded it onto my mp3 so I was armed against the all-pervasive bass beat of my neighbour but he had called it a day. So I have no idea of its effectiveness. I listened to it for a while anyway and imagine it was a similar experience to if you're in a light coma, flickering in and out of consciousness, with an oxygen mask on.

But what of snowy white drives? Well we have two old computers kicking around the house which in our inertia we're just sharing space with. They're too old to be much use to anyone and are (or have been) too full of passwords etc. to safely throw out. (Plus I think they need to be properly disposed of?) So I thought I'd try to address the first problem and have got a bit of software which is meant to "deep-clean" your hard drives. I'm kind of aware that this software is aimed at the security minded and at paedophiles, which is a bit off-putting. Anyway, today I switched on no.1 old computer and had the reaction I knew I would. I wanted to keep it - even though it has not been used since September 2009. It has a problem with (I think) its motherboard which means it started being very erratic about whether it came on or not. Apparently that's fixable but in the meantime its running Windows XP and its processor and storage capacity no longer seems as awesome as it once did. I'm in the process of cleaning it just now, which is taking an age. In the meantiime its memories are being chased and destroyed, presumably a bit like the plot of "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and I'm feeling a bit sorry for it.

Lomonds of Fife Hill Race

2011-08-21T19:46:00.001+01:00

Peter decided to take it easy for this one and document the journey.

So we did it! Haddington Half followed by Lomonds of Fife. I am very pleased at how well I seem to have coped with it. I guess the Cape Wrath Challenge earlier in the year and the recent Tour of Fife has done something in terms of helping us to handle multiple days racing.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead. Slept through my alarm but woke up 10 minutes later. Sleepy and tired. Did think about just going and taking photos but once I was up I didn't feel too bad. The main mood in the house, I would say, was good-natured sleepiness. Yesterday had certainly taken any nervous edge off us. We set off a bit late after fuzzily fussing around trying to get ready, but we didn't worry and we got a parking spot and were soon registered and on our way to the new race start.

There was a veritable flock of Porties this year; Paul, Peter and I (Peter, Paul and Mary) as it has been for a couple of years now, but also Michael Nowicki, Gillian McKelvie and Michael Geoghegan who had stealthily snuck up from Englandshire and surprised us. He surprised us even more by wearing his road trainers as he'd forgotten his off-roaders. Well we wouldn't want things getting too easy would we? Rumour has it he was slipping and sliding coming off East Lomond - Peter suggested that maybe next year he should do it in roller skates...He was well up there anyway.

It was good to have Paul E. back in our midst after cracking a rib and having to back off for a while after the 7 hills. Good to have Gillian along too. For a warm up we walked up the cycle path to the start talking about the Himalayas and I had kind of forgotten we were going to race soon, which was fine by me. I had no idea how my body was going to respond to this race but I was feeling cheerful which is usually a good sign that I'm okay.

For those that don't know the route was changed this year as the farmer who normally lets the runners park in a field had put his foot down and said no. Much of it was part of the old route but there were going to be a couple of different bits. One plus was that we didn't have to go to the top of West Lomond as many times. I guess a minus was that there was quite a lot of running in narrow trods and contouring, especially after the Maiden Castle - or whatever its called - which is actually just a shaggy hump of grass. This made my ankles hurt like billy-o. My right ankle's been sore since the Maddy Moss Hill Race's endless contouring downhill on little narrow trods that cause those of us with long feet and a Charlie Chaplin style no end of bother. My left ankle is now nearly as sore as after the spectacular vertiginous bum-slide we headed back up the hill and then did the same contour/descent as in the 3rd leg of the Devil's burden. I have never been able to make any sense of this and today wasn't any different. I stumbled along losing ground, muttering to myself and finding nowhere to run. I walked straight into a boulder which was sore and pointless.

I am all out of sequence which kind of fits with the mood of the day. Jablonski was out and despite his protest that Largo Law was his longest run in a long time he was looking stronger and although we exchanged places a few times I knew he was going to sort me out on the bumslide and then the nasty rough stuff back to the forest paths. Judith Dobson was out testing the route for the first time and I was surprised and pleased to keep her behind me...

After an age lost on that final contour we were back into the woods and it was shady, there was a good path and not too far to go. All the kind of things that make you feel a whole lot better. I was in a happy mood running down through the trees to the finish. Gillian and Paul arrived in shortly afterwards. We had cups of tea and went home! Oh yeah and there was a prize-giving. I haven't got all the mens' positions straight but I know Tom Bowie came a popular 1st V60 to much applause. I think Mark Harris won and Colin Donnelly was certainly in there - a name I hadn't heard in a while. Adrian Davies was 1st V40. Apologies anyone I got wrong or I've missed out. Again I'm hazy on the detail of the ladies' prizes except there were two unattached runners in the top three. Megan Mowbray was one of the top three but I'm not sure which one. What I am sure of is Hilary Ritchie came 1st V40 and Phyllis Mitchell was 1st V50.

A great day out, a great race and Gillian and I agreed that the roast chicken crisps we had at the end were the best we'd ever tasted.