The Emperor's New Claws...

Last week at the cross-country I noticed that my beloved Inov8 mudclaws  were getting really uncomfortable. I could feel the individual studs pressing up through the bottom of my feet. I'd had them 2 years and got a lot of use out of them, so, thinking they might be a contributing factor to my iffy heel I ordered a new pair from Pete Bland. (Very good service - if you have to order on-line you could do worse.)

Ordinarily I'd go to Run and Become because I love them but I couldn't get there during the week plus I'm skint and Pete Bland was offering a good price so I ordered on-line. I was kind of hoping they'd arrive today (ordered on Wednesday) but there was no sign of them mid-morning so I rationalised I'd probably be better off with an easy run round the park to shake some of the kinks out from Wednesday night training.
Then just after midday the buzzer went and it was the postie with some new shoes for me. I immediately had to think it was a nice day to get out in the Pentlands. Maybe I'd go and test my heel out on something flattish like the Red Moss Revolution course...Peter is running in the Devil's Burden tomorrow and had a ton of things to do so I set out myself, somewhat late, to the Red Moss car park.

In contrast to my old Mudclaws, the new ones were spongy, warm and supportive. (They also still smell nice. Bonus.) My heel was a bit creaky jogging down the tarmac to the 1st hill but then so was the rest of me. It was very still and silent up in the hills and the ground was frozen underfoot making for great running. It took a wee while for my legs to loosen off but then I started to enjoy it.
On the way up I decided I'd extend the run so that rather than turn left at Hare Hill I'd continue up the Drove Road and then up onto West Kip, and from there take the route from the Carnethy 5 down to the Howe and  re-join the course of the RMR from there. As I crested West Kip I saw that there was thick cloud creeping up the valley and coming for me! This combined with the fact the sun was getting kind of low made me feel a bit anxious as I took some quick photos. I took a moment to take  in the scenery and then set off back down.

I had been confidently telling others that the course of the Carnethy 5 is "very runnable" from West Kip to the foot of Carnethy. Ahaha  fool! I had forgotten how relative this description is. Sure, compared to high-stepping up through deep heather its "runnable" but its still a tussocky, slippery horror. My heel was behaving very well however which put me in a  good mood and I kind of enjoyed the bumpy ride to the bottom. Then it did indeed get more runnable and I had an enjoyable stretch out nearly to the Howe. As I teetered down the last steep drop off the side of the path to cross the river I remembered chatting to a guy at the Run of the Mill race who broke his ankle putting his foot in a hole just at this point. "Luckily" there were 1st aiders with a stretcher near by so he didn't have to walk far!

The run down the side of Black Hill is getting increasingly rutted and pitted and isn't as much fun as it used to be. Still its nicely downhill. By the time I got to the bottom my funny foot was getting a bit grumpy so I was pleased there was just a mile or two to go. I was rewarded for setting out so late by some pretty sunset scenes over the re-freezing reservoirs. It was spooky in the woods mind you and I was careful to keep a good pace going so I could get back to the car before dark...

Lovely to get out in the hills again. Its been too long.

Livingston XC and a trip into the Lammermuirs

The weekend is getting away too quick so I'm going to have to squeeze things together.

Yesterday was the combined final leg of the East District XC league and the East District Cross Country Championships at Livingston.

The weather was so appallingly bad that it was all quite funny. The rain lashed down all night and abated a bit for the runners - but not all that much, and the wind likewise blew a hoollie all night and continued to blow throughout the day.

4 intrepid Porties set off together, myself, Amanda, Peter and Andrew. It was as if there was a curse on the Porty men and the 10 men the pre-entry list boasted was whittled down to a forlorn 5. When Gareth couldn't find the venue in Livingston they were down to 4 men; not enough for a team. The women did rather better having 4 out of the 6 pre-entered women finish and coming a reasonable 9th ladies' team. We'll come higher up in the East League team results I think but these are not out yet. Amanda came in an amazing 18th overall and looking pretty comfortable. Ruth, me and Jenni each came in within a minute of the last so we made quite a good cluster.

I think the course was really good but I found one lap was enough! I was a bit too far up the field in the first lap so suffered for it pretty badly in the 3rd quarter and then rallied enough to hold my place to the end. Peter has catalogued everything he didn't like on the Portobello Website.

Today we set off for an "adventure" with Scott and Amanda. Jim Hamilton, a club member, had suggested a route to Peter that starts at Longyester and goes up and through the Lammermuirs to Carfraemill. We thought it might be a reasonable out and back for a long run.

We'd arranged to meet Scott and Amanda at the car park at Blinkbonny woods at 11.30 and we even set off 10 minutes early because we've been late for them pretty much every time we've set a time. All was going well till the instructions on our Google map sent us off up the A199 heading for Dunbar and we had to turn around. We found Gifford okay but then the road out to Longyester got narrower and more confusing and we overshot the road we wanted and ended up stalled at a crossroads with signs pointing in every direction and none of them saying what we wanted them to say. A phone call to Scott sorted us out and we were soon with them - only 10 minutes late. It must be fate.

Amanda and I found we were decidedly tired and creaky after yesterday's cross-country. Peter seemed oblivious as usual. Scott was probably the freshest. He has a knee at the moment but you're not allowed to mention the knee.
We were soon in our usual positions with me puffing along behind. Out of the car it was pretty much 2 miles straight uphill. I was puffing an awful lot, I guess its carrying some extra Christmas pounds that's doing it.

From below it looked like all the snow had gone from the hills but when we got higher we found it. Some of it was reasonable to run on and some of it had been rotting in the recent thaw and we did a few dramatic plunges through the surface up to our thighs.
Once we were up the road undulated a fair bit. It was sunny and the there were good views in all directions. Quite a contrast to yesterdays dark and rain. We were making our way down the map pretty quickly so hatched a plan to try and make a loop rather than an out and back by going up some smaller paths and hooking up with another track that ran back approximately parallel further east. The first part of our detour involved passing through someone's courtyard with dogs in a cage barking, pickup trucks with lights and you could pretty much hear the first few notes of "duelling banjo" being plucked. (This after a less threatening theme from the James Herriot series which had been playing through my head as we ran down the small roads and tracks up to this point.)

We got past the house unsavaged by dogs and felt we might be safe. Then we got into a field and started heading down a small path that followed the fence. Then BOOM or perhaps splosh, I was down. (For the 2nd time that day. I forgot to mention I'd already taken a nose-dive earlier on and then slid along the glassy ice. The others suggesting I was doing a Torvill and Dean.) This time, looking around to see what had caused my topple I saw that I'd tripped over a bit of wire. Looking closer we saw that it was a snare. Then having realised there was one snare we saw that the whole next part of the path was littered with snares. It made for interesting running. A bit further on and we realised we'd been descending steadily but according to the map should be plateauing so we did a bit of running hither and thither and trying to figure out just where on the map we really were. Finally Amanda put her foot down and suggested we should just make our way back and that would be plenty for one day. Thank god someone did. We took one further short-cut which worked out this time and were heading back along the track, this time with the wind behind us and a 2 mile descent to finish off, which was fun. I had one more fall on the ice at the top of the hill, a proper face plant, which seemed to cause much laughter and no sympathy...

So 12 and a bit slow, hilly miles, but having made inroads into the Lammermuirs we shall explore further.
Now to try and cram all the other things we were supposed to do this weekend into the remaining few hours...

Paxton XC

It was a bit of a cliffhanger waiting for this race. Would I be able to run or would my heel be too sore? Then it started to snow again and the severe weather warnings started. In a way we're used to it and know the drill. We got up this morning not entirely sure if the roads would be okay or if the race would be on.

8am everything was looking okay. Not much had happened overnight except the ice had hardened. At 9.30 we were ready to go and Andrew Stavert and Michael Geoghegan pitched up for a lift and we were off...

The roads seemed really okay and I got a bit of a fright when I pulled off the A1 onto a parking bit to go for a surreptitious pee in the bushes. (That's what the P means isn't it?) and stepping out the car onto the road realised there was a layer of ice all over the road. I had given no thought to this as I stopped but had come to no harm.

We arrived at Paxton House in good time (having crossed the border over into England and then back into Scotland again) and got registered. Other Porties turned up in the shape of Lynn Morrice and James Harrison. The word in the queue was that there were long icy stretches on the course and there was a deal of fearful anticipation  and discussion of broken legs etc. Hmmmm. I wondered how our recent frequent excursions into the snow would serve us today and I think the answer was it helped a great deal. There were some very icy bits, and there were other bits where choosing your surface was a pretty important factor in how fast you could go. As I discovered that a lot of the snow was firm on top I got the mantra "trust the crust" in my head. I don't know how this worked for people heavier than me but I am not the lightest of people and  found I could run over the top of the foot deep snow with ease. At the side there was a path but this was lumpy and hard making for an unpleasant surface that threw your feet about.

There was a stretch of field that had been churned up by cattle hooves where the best technique seemed to be jumping from one flat bit to another rather than trying to keep a running rhythm. There were a couple of sharp downhills and uphills. Hey there was even a hay bail jump! I think this was more to stop people from tripping over the low wire than to provide an obstacle a la the International Cross-Country yesterday.

All in all it was great fun. The sun came out and shone on the snowy fields and woodlands and the course was so absorbing in its complexities that there wasn't much time to think about how far it was to go or how long it was taking. I made an extra special effort to keep a very tall chap behind me to the last, feeling that if he'd sat behind me this long I wasn't letting him past at the end without a fight. Job done!

Nice to see George Armstrong spectating. He is just getting back into running tentatively after last year's health worries.

We went for a warm down and missed hearing how Lynn and James got on, but our crew all seemed to have similar experiences of  enjoying themselves. We went into the tea-room at Paxton House afterwards and had soup. Its a very nice relaxing setting. They have slate floors so weren't fussed about having runners in. I only realise now having had a look at the Paxton House website that we would normally pay £4 each for using the grounds of Paxton House - or £7 if we wanted a tour of the house, so the Borders XC is already proving excellent value. As the 1st 3 of the series had to be called off it was only £10 to enter today, so subtracting the £4 we would have had to pay to get into Paxton House that makes £6 for 4 races (possibly more if  any or all of the 3 missed races can re-schedule). Not to labour the point but if all 7 races were to go ahead that would make 86p a race! Compare that to yesterday's Great Winter Run 5K which I hear was £20 a head....

And finally, my heel,...well its a bit sore now, but I'm icing it. I THINK that its not as bad as it was after the Tortoise and Hare relay last week. I guess I'll really know when I get out of bed tomorrow morning what damage I've done. I could do with being fixed up fast because being in a car with all runners for 120 miles has whipped up my enthusiasm for a whole load of races in the year to come.

To Heel

3 days with no running and all I can feel this morning is a tiny gripe at the outer part of my heel, so I guess I'm going to test it out. Ian Cambell of HBT is having a free 5K at Hunter's Bog as a parallel event to the "Great Winter Run" which will be running round the road round Arthur's Seat. I can't bring myself to say much about the Great Run series because I love Brendan Foster. All I would say is I don't know how much its costing this year but in 2006 it cost £16 per entry, so it won't be less than that. Its quite a lot to pay to do your usual run. Peter moaned the most about the price in 2006 when we did it but I paid him in that year and because most of the fastest boys stayed away for the very reasons outlined above he won a nice travel bag which he still has!
So anyway, the plan is to run up there gently and run Ian's counter-culture Great Run and if I survive that then maybe I'm on for the cross-country at Paxton tomorrow. The hard part is reserving judgement. Now I've thought about it I'm SURE I'm going to Paxton tomorrow and EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE but I thought that on Tuesday before I went out running in the Pentlands and set my heel back mucho. Its been sore for 10 days now and I feel like if I don't let it get completely better right away it'll settle in as some chronic injury. So I'm going to have to be strict with myself and if its sore after running today then no cross-country tomorrow...
I haven't noticed not running for 3 days much as I've been working and busy anyway. The worst thing is when I catch sight of the remaining half of the cake we won at the Tortoise and Hare, in the cupboard, and I really have to think NO WAY, if you're not running you're not eating cake...especially not cake soaked in BRANDY with MARZIPAN and ICING! Its a hard life sometimes.

Wintry Pentland Low Level Run

Normal Scottish Winter Service has resumed and it was a grim, freezing, thrawn, windy, bleak, dreich run today. An 11.5 mile route up from Flotterstone on the road, between the hills, down the other side, along beside the reservoirs and then back up between Black Hill and Harbour Hill, down the other side, back onto the road and then back to the car park.

The pain in my heel had quietened down considerably after a day of no running and a bit of icing and ibuprofens. It was okay for the 1st 4 or so miles which were also uphill, which I think is part of it. After that it started to ache increasingly, particularly on the downhills. Its nothing unmanageable, but just worrying because I don't want it to get any worse - I want to be increasing my training, not backing off!

Haven't been out in the Pentlands since Boxing Day when they were still all white  but they are back to their brown-ness. Despite the wind in my face on the uphills and my sore heel I quite enjoyed the whole thing. Better than working! I iced my heel as soon as I got in which seemed maybe a little pointless as it was only just above 0'C anyway, having been wrapped in wet socks for 2 hours. Maybe 11.5 miles was a bit much. Day off running tomorrow and then maybe something more modest like a 5 miler on Thursday...

Let them eat cake!

Is this another Cruikshank? If so I can look forwards to her beating me soon.

BC isn't a cruel person but he demands the proper respect.

Fifie wifies out in force!

LUSH!!!

There were a couple of races we could have done yesterday but neither of us wanted to get up early, or road run particularly, so we saved it up for today and the Tortoise and Hare relay over in Fife.

This is usually run in Giffordtown but the hall there had burst pipes so it was rearranged at the last minute to be run in Falkland. Instead of the usual 2 sets of 2 miles each to run, there was to be 3 sets of 1 mile each. I was interested to run a mile in a race. It was about half a mile off road though so hopefully I don't have to take my mile time too much to heart.

In the last week I've developed a tweak in my right heel which is really quite sore at times, so it didn't seem that wise racing today, but I tried it out yesterday and it didn't actually feel any worse when I tried to run fast than when I ran slowly so using this as my rationale we decided to go for it anyway. We haven't raced since November and are getting withdrawal symptoms.

This is the 3rd year we've run the T & H relay and we love it. Its partly cupboard love because we've always managed to nose into the generous prizes going down to 8th pair, but also the course has always been good and the relay aspect of it makes for a really exciting race.

I gave my heel a very long and gentle warm up and it really wasn't bad by the time I set off, and as long as I didn't accelerate or decelerate too much it was fine. As expected I was rather lumpen and heavy but felt quite good and strong and determinedly didn't bother looking at my Garmin because I was running as fast as I knew how! Because I was unable to get away quickly at the start I didn't have to go through the demoralizing rigmarole of running away off ahead and then getting passed by everyone, which was nice. After some initial to-ing and fro-ing there was very little exchanging of places throughout all 3 laps.

On my 3rd lap just as I was trawling up the hill before the finishing field and wheezing like....a....bicycle pump! I had the disconcerting experience of seeing 2 friends I haven't seen in probably 17 years walking down the road towards me. There was Calum Oliver who I did an MSc in Information Technology with in 1991 and 1992 and his wife Helen. I recognised Calum right away and then looked around for Helen. She clocked me and cheered me on and told me to keep going. So I just managed to wave at them and then was away. It gave me an extra boost to run as hard as I could to the finish. I only started running in 1991 because the other people on the course didn't want to come out drinking as often as me and I needed something to do in the evenings apart from study.

Anyway. Finish I did, and then got the camera out of Peter's pocket for some rather unsatisfactory finishing pictures. (The tortoises went 1st so Peter still had a lap to go.) It wasn't very light so the camera kind of went off whenever IT  was ready, not when I had it lined up on a runner. Hence few good photos. Sorry people.

We took 5th place prize this year which was our highest placing yet. I looked back and we were 6th for the last 2 years. One very nice surprise was that part of the prize was an iced cake. I skipped doing Christmas dinner this year and in fact had no goodies (although I've still managed to put on weight - mostly eating toast I think!) - but the one thing of all the things that you can get at Christmas I felt I was really missing out on was an iced cake - and tried to harry Peter into going out looking for one on Christmas night. His response was the rather unsympathetic view that if I wanted an iced cake I could go out and get it myself. I didn't go at the time but still found myself thinking about iced Christmas cake...so to find one in the goody bag with 2 bottles of Grolsch and 2 bottles of vodka and coke was a real treat.

Sarah Legge is fixed and back running and was of the opinion that maybe I need to give up my tortoise status but I maintain that I am a bona fide tortoise and intend to run again next year. Its a great race, it really is.

Gareth Greene was the only other Porty, - he did the brave thing which is to come solo and be assigned a tortoise. A bit like a Valentine's day race really. Gareth ran well but felt he had lost some form from not being able to do much dedicated speed training in the last month - and the cold air was affecting his breathing. I suspect he was running better than he thought he was. Its hard to know what's happening in the relay race as you find yourself running with people of all different abilities.

Great to get the buzz of racing again. A bit worried about this heel now as I its stiffened up (as I  knew it would) and I can only walk with a profound limp - but hey I was like that yesterday as well and then it wasn't that bad this morning. I'd really like to have a go at the Greenmantle dash tomorrow...we'll see.