Jedburgh Half Marathon

It's probably not a coincidence that the Jedburgh Half is in the morning after the clocks have gone back, so although I had to get up at 6am, biologically it was only 7. I'd arranged to get a bus and meet Aileen in Portobello so she could drive us the rest of the way to the race.  I didn't love the long stretch of time between getting up and racing - it's hard to mete out your energy and figure out what to eat and when.

It was good to catch up with Aileen on the drive down though. I've not seen her for any length of time since the pre-pandemic days. What a waste of good running time - two pandemic years and then three years of injuries. Like a bad spell. This was to be my first real post-pandemic race anyway, so maybe the spell was broken. I say "real" race because everyone knows parkrun is a race; or it should be - but the official line is that it's not. Just friends holding each others' hands. Just a sympathetic walk.

I think a major theme of our chat on the way down was how old we were getting - and everyone else too, and the growing threat of all kinds of horrible illnesses. It's hard to ignore. We chatted about cars too. I finally sold the Berlingo the other day; the stress and expense of keeping it outweighing the benefits of having it. It was a little heart-wrenching though. As I took it out for its last tour of duty I noticed its wing-mirrors were sporting not one but two fine cobwebs. A nest of moss snuggled in on the window rims. At the same time I was relieved to make it all the way to the Asda carpark down at Granton without any incidents. Nobody mentioned the scrappies as the boy was assessing the Berlingo's worth, but it's hard to imagine that it's getting sold on to anyone.

This was me signing The Berlingo over. 

The 'WeBuyAnyCar' chap was nice and told me the Berlingo was a year older than he was.

In the end it was evaluated as being worth £112, but with a £50 admin fee, I walked away with £62.

It cost £3000 in 2009 so I had it for 15 years- just £200 a year. Bargain! Well that's if you don't count the other things; tax and insurance and diesel and parking and repairs.

We got to Jedburgh with plenty of time to spare so we hid in the car as long as we could. It was a bit chilly outside and the weather forecast had showed a stiffish south-westerly wind; which would mean a head-wind on the way back. We got round to talking about times and paces - what were we going to try to do today? Aileen has also been injured for much of the year, so she was being cautious. Both of us thought we could get under 2 hours. Neither of us thought we could break 1h 50. Under 1h 55 would be good. About 20 minutes before the race we got out and started warming up.

There were a smattering of other Porties. I knew who Mark Upward was, but not anyone else - except Mitchell Fraser - I know him but never saw him.

Enough preamble. We were piped to the start like haggises, and eventually we set off.

One of the things Aileen and I had talked about in the car was the importance of not overcooking it to start with. There were a lot of people but there was not very much space so I spent the first mile weaving in and out of people. The half marathon and 10k start together and so there were a variety of people with different levels of ambition and ability - by which I mean there were 5 or 6 people in matching outfits completely blocking the road ahead while running and chatting as if they had all day. Schoolboy error. I never start at the back if I can help it for just this reason, but Aileen and I had started in the last 3 lines of people. It makes sense on paper to start well back but in reality, losing time unnecessarily so early on feels intolerable.

There were a few uphills and downhills and soon enough I had some clearer space around me and I could go at my own pace. I had hoped to feel relatively comfortable in the first couple of miles. 8.40 pace would be good enough, 8.20 would be pushing my luck. The first mile went by in 8.22. At the top of a hill a bit later I sensed Aileen just behind me. As she drew even I said (gasped) to her "Aileen I think I've already over-cooked it", and just at that moment my watch beeped and showed me I'd run the 2nd mile in 8 minutes dead. The old fool contains the young fool. There's no getting away from it.

We were running around the same pace, but I was uncomfortable and although loathe to let go, just thought I needed to. I let myself drop back just a little bit, trying to focus on what was going on inside rather than get caught up in where others were in the race. Over a number of miles Aileen got maybe 200m away. There's a point at which the course doubles back on the other side of some trees - maybe around the 6 mile mark. We waved through the trees.

Later she stopped and walked at a water station, but I'd had water earlier so I ran on at that point. There was a long wide road and I was focusing on trying to find the most level bit of tarmac to run on and trying not to think anything. I've run this race twice before but I can't say I remembered any of the course at all. In the distance I saw that we were going to turn up a hill and then further along the road I could see Kathly Henly running up the road towards me. I gave her a wave and wondered just how far ahead she was.

The route turned right and up, along and then back down onto the main road, and Aileen told me later, went past a church, although I never saw a church. I don't know what I was looking at. Probably my feet. Round about the top of the downhill I think, Aileen went past me again.  Back on the main road the headwind began in earnest. It's a bleak thing running into a headwind on a wide road on a grey day in a race. I was careful not to think anything about distance or time to go or any of that. I let my mind sing songs to itself and kept on keeping on. Some miles up this road I saw that I was drawing nearer to Aileen again. I had two dextrose tablets wrapped in silver paper so I had them at the next water stop. I'd read something about them being easier to assimilate than gels. Gels had stopped doing it for me years ago, so it was worth a try. I think they likely did help although there was no miraculous boost in performance.

At some point, round about 9 miles maybe, I went past Aileen again and didn't see her until the end.

Now I knew I was doing alright. I didn't know exactly what my average pace was up to that point but I knew I was on for the low 1h 50s if I could just not drop the ball at this stage. Having said that, there were challenges. There was a head-wind, there was a long hill and I was tired. At 11 miles I remembered that Stuart Hay had said that the last 2 miles were pretty much downhill. I was near the crest of a hill so that gave me hope that relief would come soon. It wasn't easy running the downhills though. The pavement was narrow and it was on quite a fast road. The cars flying by were making me nervous because I was spaced out and my legs were a bit wobbly. I passed a couple of runners who were doggedly holding to the centre of the pavement so I had to go round them and risk pitching head-long into traffic - or so I feared. My ribs hurt, which was a new one on me. I had no idea why but they did, and I didn't want to breathe in too hard in case I set off some kind of cramp or rigor mortis that would take me out at this late stage. In the last mile, sadly, not one, but two women went past me, and I didn't have any response (although I think I actually beat the 2nd one because I had started so far back at the start of the race - chip time revenge). The finish came at last and I was glad to stop.

I got a medal and a bottle of water and a toffee crisp.

Aileen crossed the line not long after. She got a toffee crisp and a snickers bar. She said the ladies had told her to take as many as she liked. No-one said that to me!! We joked that it was because they thought I was fat enough already. There's a cruelty to this running business.

There was a winners podium so I asked a young man in an anorak if he could take a picture of me and Aileen.. I think he was maybe a bit hypothermic because it took a surprising amount of coaching to get him to take the picture, and then it was all squint and you can't see the winner's steps, which was the whole point. Aileen said I'd confused him by asking him to take a photograph with a camera and maybe she had a point

Emm, this was on some steps.

So..........then we went and had a cup of tea in the car and drove home. I am tremendously proud. We are signed up for the Edinburgh Marathon next year but Aileen is deeply unsure. I tried to tell her that the training would be good and she let me know she wasn't sure that it would be. God knows she is likely right.

Thanks to The Jedburgh Running Festival people for a well-organized race with lovely marshals.

results down the page here

Still running

Lazy way of posting August photos - watch it on HD

So a few weeks on and we're still running. I signed up for Jedburgh Half and the Edinburgh Marathon next year. Now Peter has us signed up for the Borders XC Winter series. Fingers crossed we can keep on keeping on!

Because of Jedburgh half I've got myself to run the half marathon distance a few times. First time I ran it all on road with Peter, up the cycle path and down to Cramond and back home. It was not too bad until about 8 miles after which it became increasingly a case of just digging in and keeping going., but we made it.

The next time I did a solo one from South Queensferry to Home. We had a guy in digging out the rot from under where our shower was and it seemed a good idea to absent myself for a good few hours. The wind was behind me and the sun shone and it was mostly a pleasant experience. I ran in to clubmate Karen Munro whose son had just done an overnight across-the-country ultra so we had a chat about that. He had made the route himself using Google, choosing mostly A roads, and Karen told me about how scary it was (she went along to support) hoping he wouldn't get run over in the middle of the night. However, he made it, and all was well.

The last few miles along from Granton to home were grim, but not as sore as the previous one.

Since then Peter and I have twice run down the coast from Longniddry to North Berwick. The first time we went through the dunes and the long grasses so that was much slower. Yesterday we started out on the same run, but as we ran into some early butterflies, we took a route via various Buddleia bushes in the hopes of seeing some more. The morning sunlight faded however and there were no more butterflies to be seen.

It meant we were on better paths, so it took us less time. Round about 8 miles or so  my left hip started to give me some gyp and so I had to shut up and concentrate on what I was doing and not just chat with PB. I'm not out of the woods but also not in the woods. I finished the run without anything getting any worse and today I seem okay. I think my left side is just weaker than my right side. Everything up to 6 miles is now easy-peasy.

We've been doing some interval training too. It's great to be training together again, and Peter's sciatica has receded as we've been doing more. So far it has been intervals on the grassy hill under the crags. (I think Peter calls this Salisbury Hill). I should probably think about trying to do some speed training for half marathons although Jedburgh is in 4 weeks so it's nearly time for the taper.

Here's a spooky little story from today.

Today is my dad's birthday, or would have been except he died in 2000. The man was nuts about (and made) small sailing craft and I grew up, never paying much attention to boats, but immersed in a world where boat words were so common you would hardly know you knew them.

Today, because I was a bit stiff and sore, I went for a swim and then to the gym. One of my gym things is going on the assisted pull-up machine. 

The assisted pull-up machine faces a large tv screen and it's the only place in the gym where I would see the screen. While I was watching, as I was heaving myself up, I saw what my brain told me was a Drascombe Lugger, - some kind of yawl that dad had a thing about. Not only that but it was in a very familiar looking bit of water. Could it be? I thought I saw the house which was the last house we stayed in in Orkney - in Stromness - and then the boat sailed out and I could see Graemsay and the Hills of Hoy behind. Yep, it was definitely Stromness harbour.

The scene changed and I finished on the machine and I thought I'd have a look and see what the program had been when I got home.

So I found it. It was this https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001s2w7/scotlands-sacred-islands-with-ben-fogle-series-2-episode-3  at about 7m11s in.

What are the odds?

Holyrood Parkrun PB

 

Nick, Peter, Mary & Dod

Photo credit; George Dod McMullan

Went to Holyrood for a parkrun this morning and ran a course PB. Hurray! Super-chuffed. I thought it was possible because I went back for the first time since January a few weeks back and I ran the 2nd fastest time I'd done on the course. That was very unexpected because I've not really been doing any speed training.

Here's what I think did it;

Zwift indoor biking sessions, one or two a week.

Strength training.

Eating more protein.

Trying the Feldenkrais approach to moving - doing what feels good and aiming for comfort.

Robert Heggie's book and audio-course "Running with the Whole Body" which again uses the Feldenkrais method to improve inner sensing and movement patterns rather than trying to adopt "good form" in an outside-in way.

Mobility exercises - I've been using a set put together by a company who do running coaching for older runners. I haven't signed up with them but they have free content that you can access if you give them your email. I think they're pretty good. Here's their website link.

This afternoon I have accidentally signed up for the Edinburgh Marathon next year and the Jedburgh Half. It's Aileen Ross's fault. She knows why.

That be all.

This runner V3.0

 Well something like version 3.0. 

Quite often when I'm doing some kind of exercise I think of a blog theme - but then when it comes down to it I can't really be bothered. 

The grand theme for this blog was something about how mental and physical resilience are the same - but I can't even remember what it was all about now.

I think I'll just say that it's nearly July and last time I wrote a blog I was surprised that it was April. 

Last time I wrote a blog I'd knackered my foot but it was recovering. It continues to recover, in fact I don't give it much thought now. I'm back to running - albeit cautiously, and I listen particularly for how my left foot is doing, but it's not the only factor. I have to listen to my knees now too, and recently my right ankle has felt a bit weird.

Before I hurt my foot I was doing quite a bit of speed training, so I think that was maybe too much. I've been doing intense sessions on my bike indoors where I don't have to worry about stopping for traffic lights or hitting pedestrians and I never touch my brakes. I can never get my heart-rate up as high as I can running at speed but I can still get a good hard session in with much less impact so I'm less apt to hurt myself.

I've been swimming too and going to the gym, but something about it being the height of summer makes it hard to think about going to a warm indoor pool unless it's really lashing down outside - which actually it quite often has been....

Talking of lashing it down we've had a few sad watery ingress stories. The first was that we've got a new downstairs neighbour who has been doing work on his flat. Amongst the things he did was take out a false ceiling in his kitchen which revealed that our shower has been leaking down into his flat! That's bad news. Trying to get a plumber has not proved all that easy, but we have someone coming now on Thursday. We're hoping that the water leaking has not been going on for too long and hasn't done too much damage and that it's a simple fix - but you never know until you know. Meantime we haven't been using the shower but have in fact being using a large plastic garden waste bucket to have a standing bath in. It's more than some people have got, but it isn't ideal either.....

So that was watery ingress story no.1 - or probably watery outgress from our point of view.

Watery ingress story no.2 was that one night the skies opened and the rain rattled down in a way it rarely does. Sometimes when the gutters are blocked on the roof, with a large deluge of rain, the water finds its way through the wall. It's happened like 3 times in 25 years. Well it happened again. We got a little bit of water coming in and thought "damn we better get the roof guys to come and look at the gutters", somehow our downstairs neighbour got a whole lot more - so came up knocking gently on the door, saying "I'm awfully sorry but". Technically, I suppose, we don't actually have to sort this out - but the flat next door is rented so I don't think they give a stuff, and the flat on the other side is an uninhabited council flat. So anyway we've got the roof guy lined up and he's had a look and there's this and that to do. Because we're organising it, we'll have to try and recoup the costs from our neighbours. We used to have a bossy neighbour called Carol-Ann who seemed to revel in this sort of stuff and was forever having house meetings and putting fliers around the flats and getting things sorted out - but she moved away. For me and PB, we don't revel in this stuff. I'm trying to channel my inner Carol-Ann.

So next week is a kind of ground 0 for unwanted practical tasks. I've got an MOT next week, and a guy coming about replacing our windows (that was my idea, while everything's annoying anyway we might as well get all the things done we've been putting off) and then the plumber on Thursday.

Why am I telling you all this? Och why not.

Meanwhile it's been a kind of cold and wet June and PB is not his best self at the moment. He's had a sciatic thing since probably April and it is dragging on and on. I feel sorry for him but also annoyed that he won't go and see anyone about it. Well he's going to see someone tomorrow, so I'm delighted about that. He has been going about lamenting the lack of butterflies and the weather in "this country" until I can't stand it any more. But he's in pain.

I looked back and saw that I'd taken loads of photos this month and despite the popular narrative that the weather is terrible and everything is broken, it's clear that we've had many good days out in fine weather, and seen many beasties. And to my delight I have even been away out in the Pentlands for a semi-run by myself.

I have far too many photos from June to publish them all here and I'm too lazy to choose so I've made a wee slide-show and posted it to Youtube, so you can see all my superb pics and listen to Underworld. But make sure and watch it in HD or it will look crap.

Thanks for listening :-)

Is it really April?

 Hello. So what's been happening? Well I was going along running fairly well and then I hurt my foot.

Peter had had some kind of an injury - I can't even remember what - but it meant he couldn't run Parkrun full gas, so didn't want to do it at all. I had been finding parkrun was turning into more and more of a torture as plateaus were reached, so we started doing speed training on a Saturday instead - often on the Meadows but also sometimes at Arthur's Seat.

Nothing obvious went wrong. I was trying to do plyometrics, so maybe it was that. I was trying to do a deeper squat, so maybe it was that. I went to a lifting class  - I'd been meaning to do this for ages and signed up for all 10 classes at Edinburgh Uni - but I found it demoralising. We had to partner up and my partner didn't really speak English. We were meant to be the same height but I was a head taller than her. We had to keep raising and lowering the safety bar. It was like a bad episode of Mind Your Language. Did you ever see that? I never watched a whole one. Excruciating and not at all funny. Like my lifting class. One of my take homes from lifting class was that you should really be going into a deep squat with your feet flat on the floor to lift. I've never been able to do this - not even at Brownies - not even when I was 8 years old. Don't ask me why we were supposed to squat at Brownies. That's just what you do when you're in  a ring around a big mushroom.

Look how well-ironed my uniform is. Oh no it's not - it's fresh out the packet! It would never look like this again.

Anyway, what I was trying to tell you was that I did try getting into a deeper squat. Nothing popped or "went" or broke, but a little while after that my left knee was sore, and then that seemed to go away, and then my left foot was sore. It didn't seem to be all that sore so on Monday 12th February I went out a run on it, hoping it would just fade to nothing as many aches and tweaks do, but instead it became extremely sore and I had to hobble home.

That whole first week I couldn't put my weight through my left foot. I had to go about the flat holding onto walls and counters and surfaces and sinks. I thought about going to see the doctor or a physio but I didn't think there was much point. Also, how was I going to get there? 

The next week I hobbled down to the swimming pool and it was excruciating but I got there and it got me out the flat. It was good to get in the water, where I was absolutely fine.

As soon as I could, I set up my bike trainer and it was great to ease into a few harder sessions. I used to kind of laugh at Zwift - how could anyone cycle 30 miles alone in their room? I really like it now. I've had to get off my high horse.

The next week I went to see James Beavis again, the acupuncture and tui na massage guy. He threw everything he had at my foot, to help it to heal as quickly as possible and he told me to massage it every day with this strong smelling stuff - Hysan muscle comfort oil. The smell is STRONG, but the effect is good. Then I'd soak it in warm water - all to increase the circulation so that it had everything it needed to heal.

Before I'd broken myself I'd insisted we book a holiday to Majorca and we were set to go on March 1st - so that was my goal - to get mobile enough so I could lug my baggage to the airport and get through security and all - to just do the basics.

MAJORCA

So what did you do in Marjorca?

Well I thought I'd just swim every day because it looked like there was a nice-ish pool at our hotel. When we got there though it was full of leaves and closed until April. It was smaller than it looked in the photo - of course it was - so I think I would have gone a bit mad swimming up and down it anyway.

I could walk if I limped in quite a marked way - it seemed a recipe for futher injury but also I wasn't planning on spending a week just lying around in a hotel room. The weather was nice - sunny and windy and about maybe 12 - 14 degrees - fine for moving around but not warm enough for lying around. There was a bit of wooded hilly land just near our hotel so we set off up the hill to explore that. To our surprise there was quite a bit of butterfly activity - in fact, honestly, it was like we were welcomed to Majorca by the local wild-life. Our very first trip into the woods we were greeted by a humming-bird hawk-moth, which (they never do this) settled on a rock and sat still so we could take photos.

We were also charmed by the sight of tiny chains of caterpillars, marching across the forest floor.

We thought these caterpillars are cute but apparently they're a problem. They are Pine processionary moth caterpillars - and apparently they can give you a nasty toxic sting if you touch them. Before we knew this, Peter did in fact pick one up and play with it, but he must have not annoyed it, because he didn't get stung. He just wanted a good photo.

At the top of the hill we were greeted by Swallowtails and Wall Browns.

We hadn't really thought there would be many butterflies about - but as they days went on the tally grew. Let's just look at their pictures. Warning; some of them aren't butterflies.

common blue

common blue

malarkey

grasshopper (missing a leg, wasn't us.)

hawk-moth casts a long shadow

holly blue

Lang's short-tailed blue

linnet

Red Admiral

Red Admiral

Top o' the hill.

Small copper

one and a half small coppers

small (blurry) heath

Southern fried chicken Brown Argus

Southern Brown Argus

Speckled Wood!

Tortuga!!!!!

I managed about 5 miles most days and even did 9 once. This was way more than we'd been hoping for so was really encouraging. I was slow as anything and Peter had a free rein to take off on his own if he wanted but once there are butterflies around he is happy and actually was moving more slowly than me a lot of the time.

So now weeks and weeks later, I have been just assuming I had a stress fracture - or a stress reaction - which I'd never heard of before but apparently is a thing and it's the thing before a stress fracture. I found a program on-line which wasn't meant for plebs but a pleb found it and has been using it. It gave ideas about what to do in what order to rehab the foot - so I've been doing, as it's become possible, walking without a limp, heel raises, some very tentative hopping and a bit of skipping as well. I've moved onto a "back to running" program and I've done three runs now with progressive amounts of running and walking. I'm trying to be careful. I've started to think about doing a run-walk marathon. I've been on about this before. Jeff Galloway is a big proponent of mixing walks into your runs which he says works really well and can even make you faster. I'm not really looking to get faster but I would like to be able to go longer again - so maybe that's my way in. So I'm thinking about doing that once my foot feels normal - which it doesn't yet.