Time for a review of the year :-). "Don't bore on and on," I hear you say. I'll try not to. This morning when I went out for a run I had about 1000 ideas for an end-of-year blog. Some of them were so funny I had to laugh out loud, some were so serious they changed peoples' minds...and history. But eventually all coffee wears off, no matter how strong.
So there are two broad themes for the year; inevitably...Covid and all that, but also I thought it would be fun to do a review of races. "What races?" I hear you say. Well you might be surprised, there have been a few.
Let's get on with it.
JANUARY.
Race 1 of the Year was the Feel the Burns Hill Race. I did a bit worse than last year and wasn't really sure why. Other notable facts, Nick, who made us sign up for it, had had a right old skinful the night before and had a terrible race. PW for me.
The best way to get over a stile in a race is to smile mysteriously to yourself.
These 2 making it look hard, which is good, because it was.
FEBRUARY
I was in Sheffield for a course in early February so had to do all my Carnethy training running around dark streets at 5am. Here's a bored budget hotel selfie.
Race 2 of the year - Carnethy 5 Hill Race - 50th Edition.
Nick picked us up back when it was legal.
It was blowing a hoollie and I was freezing and soaking and nearly died. Serves me right. There I am in yellow ^^^ Another PW.
Quite like this picture for its weirdness. It's like a mash-up of The Nightmare and Whistler's Mother.
MARCH
Race 3 - The Longniddry to Dunbar Station Micro-brewery Marathon.
Not really a race but I'm counting it anyway. 5hrs 10 minutes - or 6hrs 35 minutes if you include time in the pub in North Berwick.
In retrospect I'm really glad we did this as everything was about to close down, although we hadn't realised it yet. 5hrs 10 was not even a PW as the Everest Marathon took 7hrs 35 minutes. It was a long, slow plod, much improved by getting a bit steaming at the end.
A final Sheffield Selfie before everything closed down.
A final run on the beach before Lock down Proper.
Then everything went virtual. Here we are virtually having a good time.
APRIL
The world took a wee while to adjust but pretty soon people at club adapted and started throwing down virtual challenges to keep us all running. I've participated in club events more this year than I have for ages, and it's been fun.
Race 4 - The "That Relay Hurt" virtual 3 miler. 25m 11s for a 3 miler? You're kidding me on. I still think, but can never know, that I had Covid early on and then had a lung thing for a number of months. Maybe it was unrelated though. For my attempt at 3 miles I ran round the Meadows which was tricky as by then people had taken to exercising by walking round and round all the green spaces like flies trapped in a jar. It made me cross. What were they all doing in my spaces? Haven't you got a shop to go to people? Don't you want to go to a MacDonalds or something?? I'm sure they did, but they couldn't, and the government had more or less said "You can only go out if you look like you're exercising." It was the early days of the Pandemic and people had taken to policing each other on social media. Freedom envy was rife. People thought the government should get the army on the streets and lock everyone up like they did in Spain. I thought people should shut up. Wait a minute. What if I'm people too? I took to watching the news which I never do. I hadn't realised before that it was just a stream of opinion. Flipping 'eck Tucker!
The centre of town became a haven for me because since the shops were all closed, hardly anyone went there.
This isn't the centre of town. Too bad.
Welcome to Mary Hunter Castle. I even had a Strava CR for running up Johnston Terrace for a while until some bastard someone took it off me.
MAY
More running around town.
Covid curves was a thing, or pandemic pounds. All that sitting around at home complaining about other people was making us fat.
No complete races to report but
Race 5 - The Great Virtual Run Across Tennessee 1000K race was on and I had entered. Contestants had 4 months to run across Tennessee. It meant I had to up my average mileage per week from about 30 to about 35 so it was no great hard-ship.
JUNE
June was a happening month. I gather from the photos that we were allowed pals again. It was funny seeing Nick in 3D! We established a new normal of eating cakes and then Peter and Nick running along talking while I struggled along behind them.
I spent a lot of time looking out the window.
Crows became self-aware for the first time.
Jakies!!!
Race 6 - The Roly Hills Half Marathon. 4 X Round Arthur's Seat! This had been proving difficult as the road round Arthur's Seat was rammed with exercisers all the time. One Saturday, however, it was pishing down and blowing a gale and we realised this was the ideal time to go for a time....
I went the opposite way to Nick and Peter so I could take some photos. My time? - 2hrs and 8 minutes! Again, pretty sure this a PW but it was actually good fun.
Yay!
JULY
No races in July and few words for blogging. We were allowed out of town again and about time too. So I made a wee slideshow instead of saying anything and here it is again.
AUGUST
Finished Race 5 - The Great Virtual Run Across Tennessee 1000K in 105 days. Very likely a PB!
SEPTEMBER
Race 7 - the OMG PARKRUN - another club virtual challenge. This time it had to be run in situ on either the Cramond or the Portobello Parkrun courses. A great wind blew out of the west and blew and blew for days - so in the end me and Peter just went and did it. It was as bad as we were expecting. Another PW for me of 26m08s, although honestly I was quite pleased with that.
It all felt much better once we'd stopped.
On our way home, Peter got his own personal rainbow.
Autumn started to creep in.
OCTOBER
Race 8 - A virtual 10K for Scottish Athletics. Peter was rude about this because I paid £2 for the privilege of entering. There was one set of rules on the front page of the website and then a more comprehensive set of rules on another page, which I never got to, and neither did a lot of people I would guess because about half the contestants - including me - were disqualified for not following the rules. In particular, the rule that caught me and a lot of other people out was that it should start and finish at, or near, the same point. So on top of running another PW of 54m21s for a 10K, I received my first ever disqualification. This made me cross for a while because honestly if I was going to cheat I'd do a better job of it than that and you can be sure I would have had a faster time! However, I got over it, and was eventually grateful that it had pushed me into doing speed work again.
October was mostly about the visual spectacle of leaves changing colour.
Someone once generously described this as 'happy hair' - when you've been out in the wind and nowhere near a mirror.
Medals from Roly McCraw who set the Arthur's Seat Half Marathon Challenge.
NOVEMBER
Ah November...it's my birthday month and I feel like I actually own it.
I got a wee treat on my birthday when we went for a run in the Pentlands and there was a cloud inversion. Fog-tastic.
Race 9 was a Scottish Athletics Virtual 3K race. I was very near the bottom of the results page with a time of 16m16s. However I wasn't disqualified. I guess technically it was a PB because I've never run 3K before. What even is it? Something like 1.86 miles.
Somewhere along the way we locked down again. It was a complete mystery what had caused a spike in the number of Covid deaths although maybe all the schools and universities opening had everything to do with it.
DECEMBER
So here we are at last. How exhausting. Let's have a few last photos and shake hands. No races to report.
Oh, maybe one last race, now I come to think of it.
Race 10 - The race to 2000 miles for the year. Back in maybe September/October time, Nick suddenly went insane and said he was going to try and run 2000 miles for the year. He had to average about 60 or 70 miles a week - he'd be able to tell you. He wanted to be finished before Xmas because at the time he thought he'd be going to Spain and therefore more focused on drinking beer and eating sausages and octopuses than his running. I thought he'd be injured and out in a couple of weeks time - but after some initial tweaks and niggles he suddenly went from strength to strength even doing a 100+ mile week along the way. This made me think maybe I should try to get over 2000 for the year too.
So after my run today I had covered 2046 miles for the year. Nick is 40 miles ahead at 2086.
Enough already.
2020 - I know, right? *Rolls eyes* Hope I get on holiday next year. See you on the other side. :-)
