The Bandit 5K, some autumnal runs, and Lance.

I've got all these friends that I've never met these days. (Are they not strangers?) Well...possibly. Anyway, one of them is Alan Jeffrey from club, who earlier in the year staged a virtual 3 mile race. My time for it was appalling but I liked the challenge. You need a reason to push up into the red, and I have not truly been able to convince myself that 'The Gerries' are after me since I was a 6 or 7 year old playing catch at school with the boys. (Apparently if you catch a boy you have to let him go afterwards.) 

So when it was announced there was to be another club challenge, I was immediately delighted.

This time it was to be more constricting and more complicated, however. We had to run against a predicted time and we had to run a Parkrun. We could run it whenever we wanted but it had to be run at the actual course of either Portobello or Cramond Parkrun.

Then there was a further complication. We had to give our predicted time but then this was to be adjusted by Mark Fry at club - and he was not going to tell us what our adjusted time was. This was getting a bit odd, frankly. Apparently Mark had declared that the times people had submitted were ridiculously slow and that we were a shower of bandits. Thus it was named the Mark Fry Bandit 5K.

I prefer a virtual race where you get to choose the location yourself. As Lazarus Lake in the recent GVRAT so wisely said, an Old Wolf needs to hunt with the teeth they have...I like a downward slope and a following wind. But it was not to be...

How to choose? Cramond - where a headwind perpetually blows in every direction? Where the unobstructed view of how far you still have to go crushes your spirit?

Or Portobello? 3 times round a little rat run. THREE TIMES ROUND!!!! It had to be Cramond. Me and Peter kept putting it off. It's never the right time for that kind of thing.

Then a wind grew out of the West. A perpetual 15-20mph. It wasn't forecast to abate before the challenge was over, so one Wednesday I suggested we just go and get it over with. We cycled there and the wind was nearly stopping our bikes as we neared the start/finish area.

But what's to be done? A wee warm up round the mast and then READY, STEADY, GO! That's what! Buchanan galloped off with the wind behind him. I kidded myself on that I was saving myself for the return journey, but I wasn't, I was running flat out. I was puffing. I was too hot. At least when you do an actual parkrun all the people around you are a distraction and provide some cover. The pace felt glacial. People stared in disbelief. I tried to forget about them, and the distance, and the time.

Turning round into the wind was as bad as anticipated. Pushing into an invisible wall. I wondered how Peter was doing and kept on keeping on. I didn't look at my watch at all because it wasn't likely to be saying anything good.

Eventually I got to the home strait - the wee path that takes the left side of the trees. Peter was there taking photos and I kept on pushing.

Holy Moly that was nasty.

Maybe a minute after you stop it's fine. I was only 6 or 7 seconds over the time I had predicted and I was surprised and pleased by that. It was still a parkrun worst, but I knew it would be,

We went for a wander to see the gulls and cool off.

Peter had also done a PW but it's hard not to just be glad it's over when it's over. We both knew the conditions were pretty dire.

Isobel Pollard appeared on her bike and we had a chat.

Then on our way home we were rewarded with our own personal rainbow.

So neither of us ran a great time but it was a good hard workout, something I avoid these days. Maybe I'd get better if I did more?

There is a very definite change in season going on and I've had a few nice weekday runs on subdued autumnal days. I've got very mixed feelings about it. I like autumn. I like the softness and cooler air, but it means winter is coming, which isn't great. I'm not sure the combination of Covid and winter is going to be good. If there are to be more restrictions, let them not restrict me to Edinburgh again. That was horrid.

Is Wall's ice-cream called that because it's the colour of a wall?

You could set quite a convincing Scandi noir series in Edinburgh.

We've just finished watching a two-part Storyville documentary about Lance Armstrong called 'Lance'.

(Photo pinched from the New York Times)

I was really hoping it would have a bit of depth and avoid portraying him too simplistically, and it did. It's a fascinating watch - nothing new in there really. It is constructed of interview after interview with the people who were involved both with Lance and with the cycling scene at the time - and with Lance himself, who promises to tell the truth, and I think pretty much does. He has done some reflection on how he was in his pro-cycling days, and is no longer in that place - but also doesn't embarrass himself with lip-service apologies, as seems to be the fashion now-a-days! 

One particular phrase he used that I liked was that he talked about 'getting his hate on' in a race. Who amongst us has not got their hate on?

I got my hate on yesterday when two - what had to be Edinburgh University students - boyfriend and girlfriend, came past me, far too close, on the top road at Arthur's Seat. I was slacking, as usual. I had been for an off-road run and was now starving so I was just cruising home, thinking about lunch.

I heard them coming up behind me, puffing away. I could tell from the sounds they were making that they were way close to me. The guy spoke with a plummy accent and spat on the ground and then said 'Good Morning' to me as he passed inches from my right shoulder, as his girlfriend, who was breathing out of her posh arse, came round inches from my left shoulder. I said 'Good Morning' to them in a clear voice that was not fogged by plummy panting, and then I got my hate on. It was a bold move from which there could be no retreat but I upped my pace considerably and pulled away. I could feel their surprise and I could hear them trying to keep up. 'There is no way in hell, if you're breathing like that, that you're going to catch me' I thought to myself. What was I thinking? They were in their early 20s, if that. Anyway, I just wanted clear of them, so I fired off forwards. I actually got a Strava PR for that half mile of top road, which is quite something, as I've been on Strava for 6 years and run that route in the region of 200 times. 

Today I went for a nice cycle instead of running. God cycling is easy. Well a wee bit of it is.

 

OMG half way through September

 I'm not getting any prizes for blogger of the year this year, am I? However, where's the point in criticising? I'm here now aren't I? If you go on and on you'll only put me off.

So this one weekend, Peter left me to my own devices for some reason. Why would that have been? Oh yes, he was off up into darkest Fife to chum Nicola Duncan for the last stretch of her 117 mile run of the Fife Coastal Path. She did it in under 24 hours (about 23 and a half I think). She did it to try to raise cash for an adapted bike for her friend Kat who got a spinal injury in a mountain-bike accident last year.

She has nearly made her target thanks to lots and lots of generous donations. Just in case you happen to be a millionaire and you're reading this you can donate here. Actually, if you're a millionaire and you're reading this, could I please have some money too. Peter is expensive to run.

So ANYWAY I decided to try to go a longer run. I'm sure I've been on about this already, but I'm frustrated by my seeming inability to run long any more. I keep trying. An objective source (Peter) says anything over 10 miles and steer clear because it's dangerous to talk to me.  My internal experience is somewhere about 10 miles my feet and ankles start really protesting and then the run's a right dud from then on. My strategy so far to tackle this is to keep trying over and over again. So Saturday 5th September, while Peter was in Fife, there was a strong west wind but it was sunny and I decided to try to ride the elements and run down the coast as far as seemed wise. I really wanted to run to North Berwick, like I used to do in the good old days, but I was staying flexible with my goals.

Porty looked really inviting from a distance but then the Prom was hoaching, as usual. The encroachment of people in my space increased my speed and decreased my tolerance.

Coming into Musselburgh, a Peacock came and said hello, looking for Peter.

Just before the Pans it was all still going well.

By Longniddry and 13 miles or so I was back in the land of ankle and foot aches. I ran past initially, thinking to soldier on, but then changed my mind. If I can only run sore and cranky, I don't even want to. I called it a day and hurpled up to Longniddry Station where the train for Edinburgh arrived in just 2 minutes.

Peter arrived home that night at about midnight full of delight at the adventure he'd had with Nicola et al. He'd run about 37 miles, so we were both tired the next day. We headed out Gullane way for an easy recovery run. On our way there we passed the Sunflower field just off one of the back roads to Gullane. Some farmer had planted a good margin of Sunflowers at the edge of his field and they were all coming into bloom. We kept seeing it and remarking on it but the road is narrow and there's nowhere that obvious to stop and park. Today we decided to make the effort and find somewhere to park and go and scope the field on foot. As we walked towards the field a lady came over from Lufness farm and said that the farmer had said that anyone who wanted could have 6 sunflowers to take away. Planting the sunflowers seems to have been a good-natured effort to help the local wild-life. We didn't take any flowers, knowing that they'd probably die in the flat without us even noticing, but we did get in amongst the flowers and spent ages taking pictures.

That was really the highlight of the day, although we had a nice run around the shore afterwards.

A couple of days later, it was nice weather again, and we both had the day off work, so we headed back to East Lothian. Peter had been hankering to go to Saltoun Big Wood and had brought his bike with him so he could cycle up there after we'd been for a run. 

The weather forecast said the sun was going to come out later in the day, and he was anticipating seeing dragonflies. The run round the shore was nice, though uneventful. I think we were both still a bit tired from the weekend. I had thought that I didn't want to spend my day scratching around after insects in the undergrowth and so was planning to drive back to Edinburgh while Peter headed off to the woods himself, but after my run I didn't feel like there was anything in particular to hurry back for, so we went to the woods in the Berlingo.

Oak apples?

The woods were almost immediately appealing. There was plenty of autumnal stuff starting to happen. We went to the first big pond looking for dragonflies. There were some damsel flies but that was it, so we went on to the top pond, where we saw some tiny newts.  Just around about there I saw a flash of orange butterfly which we reckoned was likely to have been a Comma. This led to us going deeper into the woods in search of Commas. 

We didn't really have all that much hope but we turned a corner, up a grassy path and then....Well there were heaps of Commas, and Speckled Woods and Tortoiseshells and Peacocks and some Red Admirals. I just had my small waterproof camera and did very badly at getting pictures of Commas given the sheer numbers they were out in. It was an absorbing hour or two though.

On the way out Peter ran ahead to the bottom pond, knowing I was running out of patience for standing around being bitten by insects. In the meantime I saw this small copper and stored it up in my camera to make him jealous.

At the bottom pond, when we first arrived, a man had arrived shortly after, festooned with cameras and binoculars. He and Peter had a brief exchange of dragonfly banter. When we arrived back he was still there and he and Peter fell to talking. Well actually they took turns at monopolizing the conversation. This chap was a twitcher but the long Covid summer had turned him on to the delights of dragonflies and he had found himself driving across Scotland to fill his cravings.

I got the feeling it could have gone on indefinitely. Eventually I had to break up the party.