World enough and time

 Pretentious title - but the thing was this phrase was running through my mind, along with a whole load of other stuff on Tuesday. The day was beautiful. There was a light easterly wind - so a bit of a headwind, but nothing disastrous. I wanted to do a long run on the roads because the E2NB race looms as does Edinburgh Marathon. I have been doing longer runs on trails, stopping for sandwiches, but sooner or later I had to get more specific; running on tarmac, eating gels. Peter has no interest in this so it would be a solo trip.

And in the meantime last week my left knee had mysteriously swollen up over night. I never noticed until I tried to do a quad stretch and the leg wasn't for bending. My best guess would be I'd been overdoing the squats. I refurbed an old barbell we had kicking around the house last week and did me some deep squats with the barbell on  my shoulders.

Why on earth would you do that?

Sigh, because us older ladies need to stay strong. And it all seemed to be going well.

Anyway, that's only a guess, that might not even be it.

I took my leg with swollen knee out for a run on Sunday and it didn't feel like running was much of a problem, so I thought, what the heck, I'll do the long run on Tuesday if I can.

Tuesday dawned bright and cold and delicious. My legs were a bit achy. I'd done quite a lot of exercises the day before. (Why did you do that?) (Och, you know.)

I didn't feel great, but I didn't feel terrible, and backing down from a challenge always puts another dent in my dented confidence.  I stopped at Porty just to record how lovely it looked and then put the camera away until the other end.

The future is bright. The future if fuzzy.

My first stop was at Prestonpans. I thought that if my knee was having a problem with running I'd find out for sure when I stopped at the Coop to get some water. If it was bad I'd go up the road and get the train home. To my surprise, when I started walking, my knee didn't seem any worse than it did when I set off. It was just general aches I was dealing with. (What kind of army does General Aches command?)

My next stop was at Aberlady. The 3 or 4 miles on the sandy trails through the thorny bushes round Longniddry Bents had felt very hard going, and my legs were tired and stiff. I got some more water and some paracetamol too this time. The paracetamols had caffeine in them, and it kicked in pretty quickly. I soon felt a lot better and I was running much better again too. The point of the title is that you never really know if you're damaging yourself or not. For all I knew this was helping my knee. And there isn't time to test these things out in a scientific way. You just have to take your best guess and then live with whatever the consequences are.

I was tired for the last few miles but elated too. I was going to make it. My leg had held out. The sun was shining.

I had intended going into North Berwick to eat something when I arrived, but as I drew near the train station I realised I could probably catch the next train if I hurried. It was that or hang around for a whole hour for the next one. I picked up the pace and made it onto the platform and the train just in time.

When I got on the train I was going to text Peter to let him know I was still alive. I was distracted though because people were shouting my name. Who should come laughing up the train but Roly McCraw and David Alwood - my old clubmates and fellow runners. They had run round the coast and had something to eat in North Berwick. Had been sitting about sun-bathing on the platform when they saw me fire onto the train at full tilt.

It was lovely to see them and I'm afraid I spoke a lot, the combination of caffeine and 3 or 4 hours in my own head causing a torrent of thoughts to come tumbling out.

It was a magical day and I was delighted with it. My leg didn't seem any worse than it was  before so I chalked it up as a win and hoped that the swelling would go down.

But it did not.

The next day me and Peter had an appointment up the Southside. We have taken advantage of Free Wills Month and got our wills drawn up, and we had to sign them. Since we were in the area we went to Arthur's Seat and had a snoop around for butterflies and birds. There was a bit of a cold wind but it was sunny again and we found enough creatures to keep us busy for a few hours.

This slow walking around seemed to annoy my leg more than running and it felt fat and stiff by the end of the day.

Yesterday I was working so I did very little - I walked to Lidl to get some vegetables and made some soup. Top work-out. At the end of the day my knee was still swollen.

Today was forecast to be sunny and bright and Peter wanted to go to Postman's Walk at Aberlady to look for orange tips and holly blue butterflies. He was going to cycle and I said I'd tag along - maybe that would be better for my leg. Sadly, the sun didn't turn up. So we cycled to Aberlady into a freezing headwind and when we got there we availed ourselves of the nearest cafe.

Actually not a cafe but a plush golf hotel. It was jolly nice to have a sit down out of the wind though. 

Obviously I wasn't listening to other peoples' conversations because that would be rude but the guy at the table behind Peter spoke non-stop about celebrities and people on tv for the whole time we were there to his silent companion.

We took our time with our big milky coffees and creamy jammy scones and then braved it back out again after Peter had emptied his bank account up at the till.

Then back out into the wind, but this time it was behind us! A very different experience. We arrived home cheery.

So my knee felt really pretty good after the cycling.

I notice that several years of getting injured a lot has altered my attitude, because I hope I can get back to proper running training, but I'm also not overly concerned - especially if I can cycle. I'll have fun either way. 

Also I picked up a thorn in my tyre somewhere out on the ride - but my tyre never went flat until after I got home. That's a bit of luck.

Weekendo Running

Irrelevant picture, but I didn't want to waste a nice sunrise.

On Saturday Nick W was coming with us to Gullane for the full experience...scones, coffee, chat'n'run. The boys were very considerate and I could just about keep up, but there wasn't any down-time, so just a handful of photos. 

Peter has been saying for a while that my panoramas had suddenly started looking kind of old fashioned. I finally sat down and had a look at my camera settings after I saw the photo above - and found it was set to retro. Well how did that happen?

Anyway, yesterday's run good. Then today it seemed I should be starting the long run thing for marathon training. Peter and Nick were going to do the PRC group long run. I dreamt up a route which I thought would be about 16 miles. There was to be a strongish SW wind and a bit of rain in the middle of the day. I thought I'd tough it out by setting out uphill and heading SW so that I'd have something to look forwards to for the 2nd half. It occurred to me to run out past the RIE and then up the road through Ferniehill and Gilmerton that turns, at some point, into Captain's Road. I've cycled down it and remembered that it was straight with wide pavements. The reality was a bit twistier, but it wasn't a bad route. 

Continuing west this turns into Frogston Road and it occurred to me that I could continue on down Colinton Road and come back along the WOL - that would likely make it up to 20. Maybe another day. As I was approaching Fairmilehead I was just shy of 9 miles and I tried to figure out how I would find another 7 miles to get back to Leith.

I took a detour through the Hermitage and it looked for a while like I had sufficient mileage. But as I was nearing home it was becoming more and more apparent that I was still going to be about half a mile short. I was out of patience and my legs were sore, so there was no way I was going to go and run round the block a couple of times to find another half mile.

I arrived, rather grumpily, home, feeling tired and not too optimistic about how much fun marathon training is going to be. Then my Garmin wouldn't sync and for a while I was in serious trouble. What if I had to put my pitiful, short run into Strava by hand? Then I wouldn't even have the elevation figures and there would be no excuse for my woefully slow pace?

Actually, I should know better than this. This kind of talk is very bad for morale. Upon mature reflection what I did today was an ambitious and well-conceived route on tired legs and it will stand me in good stead for my excellent marathon journey this year. Smiley face.

Extraordinarily long run.

On Sunday, Beast from the East or not, we needed to do a long run. Well Peter's fine really, but the Manchester Marathon keeps getting closer and I haven't done more than 19 miles. We kicked around ideas for finding 20 miles in town, but when I saw the Edinburgh to North Berwick train-line had opened up again after a few days of all the trains being cancelled, we were pretty much agreed a run from NB was our best bet. The steady, cold wind from the east was persisting and it was best to have it at our backs. After Friday's run home from work - which is pretty much all downhill - I had irritated the tendons at the sides of my legs again. I think it's from excessive braking. I was reluctant to do anything hilly as a result.

Looking at the pictures, we were remarkably cheerful and optimistic given how dark and grey it was.

Our plan was to head to the beach straight off the train from NB in the hopes that it would be snow-free and easy going. This was pretty much the case, at least at first. After a couple of miles we bumped into Neil Jones and Harry who were just turning around for their return journey, so had a catch up for the next section of beach. After Yellowcraigs we had to head up onto the snowy trails. We were still quite fresh and were enjoying the unusual mix of snow and sand. The bright reflected light from the snow gives an illusion  of it being brighter than it is.

   

 

 

Morale stayed fairly good, in fact, to Gullane and about 8 miles. I was starting to struggle a bit - some of the snow was quite deep and uneven. I hoped that the wildest and least inhabited stretch along Aberlady bay and over the nature reserve would be restorative, but instead the sand was quite sinky and my right leg started to hurt, just under the glute. Then back up on the nature reserve there was quite a lot of difficult snow. I think I had low blood sugar by this time. Peter had eaten a bar of something or other earlier, but I hadn't felt hungry at all and wanted to hold off until Aberlady. I realised I was quite grumpy when the fact that Peter seemed to be able just to skim quickly over the surface of the snow while I felt I was wallowing clumsily in it was making me quite angry. How come he could run so much better than me? It didn't make any sense. My legs were stiffening up like concrete - a familiar feeling, although I don't know why it happens - it didn't used to.

It was a bad low point. I didn't see how I was going to run 20 miles - I had just run about 10 - and yet I couldn't pull out of it. The thought of the places we still had to run to was making me sick - that whole stretch past Prestonpans and beyond. My leg felt really sore and I wondered if this was a new injury. We were turning out 14 and 15 minute miles but I couldn't go any faster. Aaaaaaaah!!!!!

 

When we got into Aberlady, Peter was cracking on about wanting pizza. I thought he was off his head. I suggested we go and have a banquet for two at the Grace of India and then see how our running was with a big curry and extra poppadums on board. The thought of getting something cold out the shop and then sitting on the cold, wet wall outside was just too grim though. We had a look in the window of the old Aberlady Inn. I don't know if this is newish but we didn't remember seeing it before. It looked fairly informal and had food so we headed in. I was at my wit's end anyway so went with the plan of having a half pint of lager and lime and thinking about what to eat, while Peter had a pint. Even sitting down the top of my hamstring in my right leg was spasming. I really thought I was done for. But then...my lager and lime was delicious. There was live music playing which at first we weren't pleased about but quite soon I was feeling like singing along, or maybe doing a solo turn. We looked at sandwiches and stuff on the menu - Peter had soup and a cheese sandwich - but it was the dessert menu that spoke to me. I "plumped" for the chocolate fudge cake and cream and a toasted tea-cake and a big Americano and another half of lager and lime. And continued my transcendence from zero to hero. A while later, back out in the sleet, I had to run slowly because I was full as an egg, but I had forgotten about the future and the Pans and all that and was back firmly in the present and enjoying it. My leg had eased up entirely and I was relaxed and warm and good humoured. The battery on my camera was nearly done so there are few photos from Aberlady on. 

The going was objectively tough. There was some uneven snow and some very nasty cold, wet slush - but it never got me down again. Our pace was glacial but our hearts were happy. Peter had a growing ambition to "do" a Tynecastle Bronze. I thought I would ship out at Prestonpans Train Station. My mileage was up to 19 miles by then so I'd make over the 20 running up to the station and back down from Waverley - but I felt strangely reluctant to call it a day. I don't really know what moved me to say I'd carry on. Peter wasn't bothered about pace - I was a bit worried I'd kill him with the slow pace as he was wearing less than me - but he was trying to make up an extra 2 miles along the way by running forwards and then back to meet me.

So to cut a long story short I kept on keeping on. At Musselburgh quayside I had a sit down to take off my trainers and check my feet. They'd been soaked for hours and I felt like I was developing hot spots. Seeing my feet however, there was nothing to be done. They were all shrivelled up. I'd just have to hope they were tough enough to withstand it.

Along Porty prom it was dark. Peter put in a lot of work to get his extra mileage in so that we could finish together. We made it back to the house and I had run 27.8 miles and Peter had to just run to the end of the street and back to make his mileage up to 30.

So if there's a moral to the story, it's something about living in the present and staying relaxed and happy. I know that in principle anyway but alcohol made a remarkable difference. Peter told me it was the Graham Nash method. I was pleased about it anyhow. It's been a while since I actually impressed myself - but yesterday I did.