What's it called?

Whose idea was it to do this? I couldn't remember. We headed west into the deep unknown to do the National XC relays. WTF are they? None of us knew. Some people thought I would know, but I didn't. Where is Cumbernauld? We thought it was in Glasgow, turned out to be in Lanark or somewhere. I had been there some 25 years ago for a couple of hours while my friend Graham picked up something from his mum's house. He told me he grew up just down the road from Lloyd Cole. The centre of town was built like a ship or something.

So off we set, a convoy of 2 cars of Porties from Leith and Willie and Jenni were coming from Musselburgh. Amanda came wth Horatio who tried to bite my gear changing hand and eat a hanky box. Amanda thinks he might be exceptionally bright and that's why he acts like this....

We had a little detour before Cumbernauld. We found ourselves driving over the Clackmannanshire bridge. Hmmmm.....doesn't seem quite right... and had to do an about turn. Not that M876 you idiot. The other M876. There was shouting concealed as talking in the car. We got there in plenty of time though. Jenni had picked up our numbers and we figured out who should go when. Not that it makes much difference. I was glad to go first and get it over with.

4K, pretty much 2.5 miles. I think its the shortest distance I've ever raced. The course was a good course, all of it runnable but some good hills for a cross-country, for which I was grateful - and I didn't do as badly as I thought I might, so that was a bonus. 3 times I thought I was raising my game for the finishing straits only to find a twist in the route and a new uphill into the wind and I'd have to try to pull myself together again and keep on keeping on. There was a generous amount of Porty support which was much appreciated and Robert shouting "there's a Fifer on your tail" helped me make one last effort for the line to pip Innes Bracegirdle. Afterwards I had to spend some time doubled over to calm the desire to be sick.

Then Peter and I took Horatio out onto the field to take photos while Jenni ran and Amanda got ready for her third leg. H was trying to eat my laces and kept weaving in front of me because he is exceptionally bright. Still it was a great course to spectate, as it was easy to run from one part of the course to another without having to run as fast as the people who were racing.

Pretty soon it was the men's turn so Willie led out for the Porty team. We were slow getting organised to get back out and take photos, apologies Willie, but when we saw him he was looking strong and still moving up through the field right to the end. Andrew did some tremendous show-boating when we shouted him on, producing the best photographs of the day. Robert ran a solid 3rd leg but I only got one photo because by now I was out on the course on my own and wandering around with my oxygen starved brain, frozen and starving I lost my bearings and forgot where the course went. Older age doesn't come alone.

Finally Buchanan was set free from his cage and hurtled round at an impressive rate. Chastened by my recent experience of getting lost up the top of the hill I stayed near the end where I knew I could probably get a decent picture of him coming flying down the hill. By the time that happened the other Porties had caught up with me and we decided to get to the end and get the maximum out of him so shouted him on furiously for the last 200ms or so. Then we all realised it was a while since we'd seen Amanda or Horatio, but they turned up soon having got lost in the woods nearby and having had to ask the locals how to get back to the course. Horatio was probably lucky not to have been turned into a hat.

On the way home we got lost again and so came "via" Stirling. Sigh...not a day for navigation.
I should say the Fife Ladies vet team got silver medals today. Not sure what else happened yet.

Tomorrow - Run of The Mill Hill Race! We'll find out if the wine therapy works.

Wet

The Meadows at Lunchtime

...didn't look exactly like this, but nearly. Day off today and as I ached so much yesterday I went out on my bike instead of a run I thought that today I should try to have a bit of a speed session and get my act together. You know the type of thoughts...

Nothing was getting Buchanan out in the rain. I think he's afraid his glue will melt or something. So I went solo to the meadows via Arthur's seat with a view to doing something like 5 mile repeats at joke marathon pace with half mile recovery jogs.

At the foot of the radical road some of the big boys of hill racing were starting to gather for the Monday "7 hills of Arthur's Seat" run I have never yet had the courage to sign up for. It was teeming down. There was water standing on the grass despite it being on a good slope. Undeterred I made my way up the hill aux meadows.

Since there wasn't really any wind (despite the picture above) I decided to do it in reverse and run up the car side of the meadows - up and round the corner until Mr. Garmin beeped and then jog from wherever that was. It all started off well enough and I marvelled at how I could somehow manage to squeeze out a bit more speed when I set my mind to it. Rounding the corner the Garmin lost the plot (it always does at this bit) and was telling me I was going insultingly slowly. I was squeezed into the narrow and puddly cycle lane but looking nervously around for bikes as the path was choc-a-block with blind people with umbrellas. A ned did a fake move in front of me which made me have to dodge, hurt my dodgy hip and step in a puddle. I could have floored him. I realised that maybe my patience was stretched a bit thin as I thought "Honestly can the government not just eradicate these f*ck*rs." A rather final solution. I think neds are neds because they're angry inside, and they can sense it in you. I don't even see them when I'm in a better frame of mind.

It all kind of lost its charm after that. The people side of the meadows was annoying and the car side of the Meadows was - well - I might as well have been running up the motorway - and increasingly I wasn't generating any speed at all. Plus my legs didn't want to move anymore. The 2nd mile was slower than the 1st and the 3rd was the slowest yet so I decided to call it a day and run home.

Back at Arthur's Seat it was pleasantly empty. There was one of the good HBTs - I think it was Ray Ward, bounding along running at some crazy pace. Otherwise no-one. Why did I even go near the Meadows?
It was time to get home anyway. I was freezing.

I stopped off at the Scotmid to buy a can of soup to heat me up and could hardly handle my money or speak.

So anyway, its only a week after the marathon and I guess I'm still recovering. I thought I would go faster than that today. Boo.

Walsh you were here (nostalgia run)

Walshes 2008 South Lakes

I had a notion to wear my old Walshes out to the Pentlands today to see how they compared with the Mudclaws I'm so used to now. The last time I can definitely remember wearing them was in the south lakes at Nic Davies' birthday weekend.

I was  sore as I set off uphill today as we went for a short run yesterday which turned into  a speed session. My right hip is bugging me and I don't really know what's setting it off. It happened a month ago and then got a lot better - and then the marathon didn't seem to make it any worse but last night it was back to being sore to the touch and I couldn't lie on it in bed. So - I think some of the excitement of last weekend and a busy week has worn off and so today I was full of aches and pains. So it wasn't really a fair test for the Walshes.

They are definitely nice and light and neat. We ran past a herd of walkers with sticks on the Drove Rd who seemed like their average age was 70 - so that was very cheering and made us feel like we were just young things. There was a lot of mud - probably a combination of all the recent rain and all the feet of the Skyliners churning the ground up. As we had an audience we continued to run all the way up to the top of West Kip. The wind was pretty much in our faces so it was a relief to top out and start down the other side. Peter was raving on about the skies and taking photos but I was watching my feet  closely as usual and monitoring my dicky hip on the right hand side and a wobbly knee on the left. I also found out why I'd moved on from wearing these particular Walshes as the grips on the bottom were pretty worn and I did a couple of  dramatic one footed slides.

The Pentlands were looking splendid in a misty, muted autumnal kind of way. There was a purple haze over Black Hill which forced my to try to sing like Jimi Hendrix as we were now on a good downhill and I had the breath. Unfortunately I don't know any of the words apart from "Purple Haze, Nah nah nah, Nahnanah nahnahah" and then the guitar solo "wang wang wang, wang wang wang". I sensed by now some distancing behaviours from Peter. (He'd run off into the distance.) My Walshes were a slipping and a sliding and I wished I had my Inov8s on.

Down the side of Black Hill seemed more bouldery than the last time I was there and was also very wet and boggy. I kicked a stone and only very narrowly avoided doing a face plant on a bed of boulders. After that I started to realise that my legs were just plain knackered. A sad slow little trot along the hard road confirmed my thoughts that things had changed for the better since Walshes were de rigeur. There's something very nostalgic about them though. They have a pared down 50s look to them. A reminder of simpler days. I might put them through the washing machine and incorporate them into the rest of my life.

When I started to write this blog I thought I might try and write it from the Walshes point of view. Something like (with a Northern English accent of course), "We've been stuck in 't dusty bloody hall for 3 years and never seen owt and then suddenly there we are out in 't blinding light of day. No bloody Citroen ax anymore we noted. No, now they've got a Berlingo! Bloody twats. And I can tell  you the missus hasn't got any lighter in the last 3 years! Crushed we were! And she hasn't got any faster either! We were designed for light-limbed young lads who ran out in 't fell herding sheep all day not great hairy bloody slow twats!"

I sympathised with some of their views but in the end they were just too abusive.

Mileage up to 45 miles for the week. I'd like to hold at around 40 but I guess I better be guided by my niggles and aches. I'm hoping I might feel fresher tomorrow and we might go and do something longer in the hills. Next things are xc on Saturday, Run of the Mill Hill race on Sunday, a trail handicap race through in the west the following weekend and then the GlenOgle 33 miler the weekend after that.

Kielder (Britain's Most Beautiful Marathon)

I blame Marc Grierson really. He was going down to do the Liverpool marathon and hoping for rain. The rain that was due to pour all over Edinburgh had tried to oblige by shifting South but had got stuck over Northumberland. As it got light and Richard, Peter and I were driving down to the Kielder Forest I tried to convince everyone that it was going to dry up later. Suddenly the opinion in the car seemed to be that it was my fault that we were doing "this stupid marathon".

Anyway, fast forward, it stayed wet.
The race start was a bit delayed for the final runners to get off the shuttle buses. (Not having read our event information packs, neither Peter nor I had realised that there were shuttle buses, its quite lucky Richard had paid more attention!) It was a bit of a long wait in a cooling drizzle and quite a fresh breeze but we reckoned once we got going we'd be happiest if we were just wearing vests. (Vests and shorts and trainers of course.)

I thought I'd pushed far enough forwards towards the front but had deceived myself once again and had the devil of a job skirting round fairies and, well, runners who were slower than me but better at pushing right up to the front and then jogging 3 abreast on the narrow trail and chatting.

I ran too fast to start with just blindly trying to get a bit of space. It quite quickly became apparent that the quiet warnings we had read about "short, steep hills" were absolutely right and that this course was going to be tough. The trail itself was very well-groomed and road shoes were fine for it. A lot of people were wearing trail shoes but I think my feet would have been trashed by the end without much cushioning or support.

I ran the first 3rd optimistically and then started to fade. A lot of people went past me up to 17 miles. This was very dispiriting. Then round about the 17 mile mark I had got caught with a group of guys who were running along and chatting and kept overtaking me and then slowing down and taking ages to let me past. They meant no harm but they were really pissing me off because I kept having to slow down and speed up for them so I decided to get moving a bit and just leave them behind. I found I was able to handle the increase in intensity and keep running harder, which felt absolutely great after I'd felt so defeated.

The most effective bit of pre-race prep I'd done was watching videos of marathoners on you-tube yesterday and in particular Ryan Hall who is a screaming maniac for Jesus. He was describing how he chants ole, ole, ole, ole -  when he's running, as used by bull-fighters, which he reckons is the same as Allah, helping him to run and transcend himself. This was now playing loudly in my head and continued much of the time to the end. It still seemed a long way, but I was feeling so much better and moving back forwards through the field as many people were struggling with cramp. I was glad we'd done plenty of hills and particularly the two breweries recently. I was feeling okay on the hills.

One particularly pleasing set of events was that at mile 9 a runner had bounced up to me and said "Are you alright? Feeling alright? Its a hilly course isn't it? I really love it. My name's Mark" and bounced off into the distance. At about mile 23 I thought the t-shirt and shorts looked familiar and I was delighted to see the now serious face of Mark. "I'm feeling much better now." I said as I passed him. "I feel terrible now" he was man enough to say. haha OleOleOle Ole....

Okay my time was not what I'd hoped for but I adjusted my expectations lickety split after embarking on the roller-coaster which is the Kielder Forest trail. I was pleased to run in in 3hrs 55mins (hopefully 3hrs 54 when adjusted for chip time).

Steve Cram was there in person at the end. I wish I'd been man enough to go and speak to him but I was too tired and too shy.

The goody bag was great. We got a towel - handy in the circumstances, I'd been out in the rain for nearly 4hrs - a good technical t-shirt, sweeties, maybe a gel, a banana, a nice big chunky medal.

I saw Izzy Knox shortly after finishing. She'd run a stormer in 3hrs 25mins. I think it was too short for her. She said her legs were still fresh. Shortly after picking up my bag I caught up with Peter and Richard. Peter had a lot to say about the inclement weather but had done well. Richard had done stupidly well on no training and having slipped in a park run yesterday too for good measure. Roly was there too. Grimaced ruefully about what a tough, tough race it was. We were all agreed on that. Not long after David Allwood came in. He's been having problems with a groin strain. It WAS  a tough course.

So. 10th marathon ever. 35th race this year. Season's best time by 9 minutes. Yeah I know but Cape Wrath was hard too. I feel very jolly. Full of pizza and wine. If you do this marathon do some hills in training.

Not so much tapering as just not running...

Enjoy Britten's "The Sick Rose"

I've been "tapering" for nearly 2 weeks now and seem to be just enjoying the rest. I need to squeeze out another wee run this morning, soon in fact, but I'm not feeling much urgency about it. The stormy wind doesn't help. I have very little anticipation about the marathon because my training for it was all over the place and I don't think I'll do particularly well. Oh and it looks like the weather's going to be pretty crap. Another race consigned to the "treat it as a training run" scrapheap. The marathon will be race 35 of the year.

I must look back and see if I had a plan for this year or if this is just what happens when you don't plan...In a very long, slack moment at work yesterday I was reflecting that it would be nice to have a goal, work towards it and achieve it. Maybe next year I'll train properly for something.

So what's with the picture by Blake and the link to Benjamin Britten? I don't know. The sick rose is a good Autumn poem. None of your season's of mellow fruitfulness. Autumn is a disaster. It means that winter's coming. Kiss the light and the heat goodbye baby.

Mum used to like a bit of Britten on the tape-player in the kitchen in the morning when we were growing up and I guess it reminds me of winter mornings with the dark at the window, eating toast and staring into space before the day got started. I guess I better get moving...

Pond Life

It was very wet over night and very wet in the morning. We had half planned to go and spectate and cheer and take photos at the Edinburgh 10K, but a glance out the windows at the tipping rain and we cancelled that as a plan. Besides, we could see it on telly, I had it set up to tape (or whatever the modern equivalent of taping is). Or so I thought. Unbeknownst to me channel 5 had changed the schedule so as we settled down to watch (it was too wet to go out yet but promised to dry up in the afternoon) we found we had a half hour program on Chester Zoo, followed by the 10K. We watched it anyway, though with an awareness we might not be able to see the outcome of the men's race.

The commentators were particularly irritating about the women's race and didn't seem to grasp  that the reason they were "slow" for the 1st K might have had something to do with the bloody great hill they were running up. The ladies race (front runners only) was pretty exciting to watch and little Charlotte Purdue put on an impressive fight to take 2nd. The men's race was also pretty exciting and closely run but with just one K to go we ran out of recording! Shame.

The rain had now eased off and so after some snacks we settled on a plan to go to Bonaly, run over to the road that goes up to The Howe - carry on on the paths to Red Moss, then along to the path which takes you up between Bell's Hill and Harbour Hill, go up and over Harbour Hill and then back down to Bonaly. I've  been tapering a little too much, only managing 19 paltry miles in the whole week, so I was feeling a bit determined to go out and try to run hard. Running by pace in the hills and off-road is too arbitrary so I was pushing (after the first mile or 2 warm up) to keep my heart-rate in the mid to high 150s. I think I was a bit short of fuel and it was a real struggle to keep pushing. I had to ban Buchanan from chatting to me and pointing things out. It took 2 or 3 terse reminders until he got it. He just bounds along and it looks effortless. I felt all effort and no grace today. I had to stay bloody-minded to stay with it but was quite enjoying it - just not in the traditional sense - not so's you'd notice a smile.

There was water, water everywhere, loads of water on the ground, Guinness tumbling down off the hills. The rivers were all bursting. My feet were wet from early on and continued wet. I stopped even trying to avoid puddles. I did get very thirsty and did imagine having a drink of the peaty water running in sheets off the hill but never truly considered it.

We found Mr. Frog on a path in the middle of a big footprint. He was very inactive and I hope he hadn't been squashed. But he might have been. Or he might have been having a bit of a winter slow down. We picked him up and spoke to him. He was definitely still breathing and his little eyes looked very clear and alert but he never made any move to crawl away or hop. We put him down at the side of the path. He made me wonder what frogs do in the winter so I've had a bit of a google. Apparently they can go and sit at the bottom of a pond...they kind of hibernate....

So just a week to the marathon. I wish I could say I was excited but my training has been a bit odd - and rather than feeling fresh I am feeling stiff and achy - although I spent most of yesterday building IKEA furniture so that's probably part of it. I've got a visit to the dentist tomorrow so I'll have to try and make sure she doesn't  do any wizardry.