Not the Parkrun

Oh My, It's Monday again and I'm supposed to be studying. I spent hours at it yesterday though and put myself in a bad mood. I'm reluctant to go back there, so I've been out for a nice run in the wind. I got home, had some lunch, haven't had a shower yet - maybe I'll do a quick blog and then have a shower and then just pop out to get some vegetables for tea...yeah and then study...

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On Saturday we amazed ourselves by going to Gullane again. We had thought about doing a Parkrun as one of our championship races is "any park run in August". I haven't done the Parkrun since before they lengthened the course. I'm sure that didn't improve it at all. Actually the thought of it is fairly unbearable and it turns out that if you don't take some firm and manly action to get to the Parkrun you end up just not doing it.

So about midday we pulled up next to Falko's and had a scone and a coffee, then set out on a very chatty run.

When we got down to the beach Peter suggested we do a 'High Intensity Intervals' session. We've done this down on Aberlady beach a few times now and enjoyed it. I wasn't feeling like it though so I demurred. However, the sand was in excellent condition and there wasn't much wind so by the time we'd got to the far end of the beach I'd changed my mind. I made up a new set of intervals on the spot. 5 X 2 minutes at I can't stand it pace with a minute's recovery in between.

After interval no.4. Punch drunk and happy.

I'm a rocket.

All done selfie. Or is it an ussie?

I came across this photo the other day. I have few regrets in life, but this is one of them. The majesty of Everest, with Ama Dablam over my left ear, all horribly marred by 'that hat'.

Anyway, I digress. The intervals blasted away the last of our energy and sense. We could hardly lift our legs over the last mile back to the car. We had brought our wetsuits to go in swimming, but it was so damn hot, and the effort of dragging rubber over sweaty skin seemed so great, that we decided to go in the sea the old fashioned way.

It was hard to get in and we nearly didn't. The cold sea was such a shock on my hot hot skin that I couldn't get my breath and kept getting dizzy. Peter thought I was having a heart attack and I wasn't entirely sure that I wasn't. He suggested we just leave it but neither of us could quite take the defeat. As usual there were tiny children already happy playing in the sea as if it was a warm bath.

It took a long time but I finally took the plunge.

After a little while we settled in and swam quite a few lengths until I called it. Or tried to call it and discovered my face was numb. We had felt fairly warm after the inital shock but must have got colder than we meant to as we were both shivering hard for quite some time after. In fact, we were shivering so hard we thought it would be medically the right thing to do to share a bag of chips from the Gullane Superfry.

Back home, I went to bed early and slept like the dead.