Covid Christmas

Let me take you back to the middle of the month and local runs on wet cycle paths. Jeezo. Peter hates the winter -  like HATES it. Ask him about it some time and you'll hear about it. I generously took him on an 11 miler I recently sketched out which has lots of good features, but he didn't appreciate it much. I tried playing a word game with him which can sometimes cheer him up, but it didn't have any effect. The best medicine for him seems to be going to Tenerife but that wasn't possible this year. We had actually thought about just taking a gamble and booking a holiday from Christmas Eve for a week and I'm now awfully glad we didn't.

I gave him one of these lights that's supposed to help with SAD and he puts it on but he puts it behind him. He's a crazy person. But this is a blog about running.

In the interests of telling the story, I was trying to remember when the restrictions upped so much we weren't allowed to go to Gullane any more. I think it was the end of November but I already don't know. I'm a bit savvier this time in that I'm remembering to move the Berlingo, so hopefully it survives its statutory lay-off. It was interesting to re-enter that restricted space and remember what it was like last time. During the first lockdown at least the sun shined a lot.

Has this really been a crazy time or does it just seem like it? I've never watched the news regularly and that might be something to do with it. The 'news' that we get just seems skewed. Skewed and shallow. I don't know what I'm looking for though. Maybe facts and numbers or something. Was Trump a president or was that a cartoon that I watched? Will we all be able to look back on this time and laugh heartily?

Anyway, I saw a sign in the sky the other night, which definitely maybe might mean something or else it was only some clouds.

I know, right?

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So another day we went to the Pentlands. The sun came out sometimes and it was chilly in the shadows.

We hoped we might get up the hill for a spectacular sunset but it had clouded over by then. Still a good few hours out and a day nearer to next spring.

Someone decorated a tree on the banks of the Almond

We went out for a longer run last Sunday. I had already done more mileage than I usually do for the week because I wanted to go over 2000 running miles for 2020. I've made it so now I'm chasing 2020 miles for 2020. Actually I'm going to make that unless something goes badly wrong.

We did well to get out fairly early for a run, but all the excitement was right at the start. There were nice ducks and coots at Lochend Park and after that there was a no-show otter at Figgate Park and again at Duddingston Loch. Peter's spirits plummeted and I was running very slowly on tired legs.

We ran 16 miles but it was pointlessly slow and I kind of hated it. It was a good reminder to not push the mileage just for the sake of it. That might improve some people but it just makes me slower. I've been running better recently and it wasn't good to revisit that achy bodied slowness that I think for me is a sign of over-training. I've persisted with it in the past and it's never done me any good.

Back to signs and signals. There was a rare (so I'm told) conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn recently. I had a look out the window to see if I could see anything. I wouldn't know if I was seeing Jupiter or Saturn but it was actually quite starry for the centre of Edinburgh, so I set up my tri-pod and sat in the dark taking pictures out the window. I've been looking at bigger lenses on the net as a result, and cameras which are good for taking night pictures. The prices are astronomical!!!! - BOOM!!!

At last - Christmas Day....the weather was nicer than advertised.

We went an easy-peasy run up and around Arthur's Seat. There was a fierce, cold westerly wind at the top. We came home and didn't stuff ourselves. I had a few moments temporary regret about not having any hot mince-pies in the house but it passed.

I have blogger's fatigue. That was too much all in a oner. Merry Xmas to anyone left out there alive!

Thanks for dropping by!

Schrodinger's Cancer

 Before I start all this, I want to say I'm fine. I didn't want to write anything until I knew for absolutely sure I was fine, so I've been stalled in my blog.

But way back at the end of September I scared myself by thinking I had something a bit lumpy in my breast. I phoned the GPs right away but they couldn't talk to me for 3 days. In 3 days they talked to me but I'd talked myself out of it. They said I better come in, so that was another 3 days. I went in and they said I'd need to go for a biopsy.  I knew it would unfold like this and I was kicking myself really. The thing is you can get benign breast lumps called fibroadenoma and disturbingly they can get bigger and smaller with hormone surges - so I figured it was this - but once you've started the investigation train there is no getting off - and it made me have to consider that maybe something actually was wrong.

I said to the GP who was a young woman in her 30s that I thought it was probably fine and she said not to be complacent.

Everything happened pretty quickly - it would normally only be 2 weeks to go for a biopsy but cossa Covid it was more like 4, then they said I'd hear in 2 weeks but after 3 weeks I had heard nothing so I phoned up. I got the medical secretary who said that there was a letter waiting to be signed before it was sent to me, but she couldn't read it out because she was non-medical and it hadn't been signed. So more waiting. Then the next thing I heard was from an appointments officer saying that she'd been told to make an appointment for a biopsy for me and could I come in in 2 days time? She couldn't tell me why. 

Jesus Christ. That was the worst bit really, waiting to go for that appointment until I could see why I'd been called in again.

I went in again and they said it had just been an insufficient sample with the last one so they were making damn sure this time. I think I told them to take what they needed - they could have the whole lot. I like medical people, generally they're a good laugh and this time was no different. The person I'd seen the first time for the first biopsy had looked deep into my eyes and said I really don't think you've got anything to worry about, and I believed him. But the waiting and then the new mystery appointment had eroded that belief and I drank it in when the lady doctor this time said "I really don't think you've got anything to worry about." I believed her again, and I felt better. They said I'd hear in about 2 weeks so I just added a few weeks onto that this time. It was Friday 13th November and I can't believe I never made much of that because usually I'm a superstitious Nelly. But I actually didn't. And I finally got a letter today to say it's fine.

So I've had about 10 weeks of maybe cancer. Not a pleasant experience I'm telling you. At first I didn't want to make any plans at all - I didn't see how I could. I felt sick and woke up sweating in the night. Oddly, my chief concern was Peter. He  was really sad earlier in the year for Moira and Robb Flett. Moira found out she had pancreatic cancer and then had a typically short amount of time until she died. Peter was decorating some rooms in their house and he would come home and say that he'd been chatting to Moira but she was feeling sick a lot. I could see he felt really really bad for them both and of course for the kids. I didn't WANT to have to do that, and be sad, and have to try to be brave. One thing I was absolutely sure of is I didn't want a cancer journey. Nope. Not for me. Much better people than me have died this year though, so there was no reason for it to be not me. I'm sure Moira was probably nicer than me. James Harrison was a better person than me. I know he didn't die of cancer, I'm just saying why not me? Survivor guilt. I do have it I think. I've been kind of riding the crest of getting off Scot-free with the whole Covid thing. I'm just not worried about it. I think I maybe had it back in February. I'm antisocial anyway so the restrictions have barely touched me. The worst thing has been not being able to go out of the city in the Berlingo.

I tried to figure out why it felt so much worse than the heart thing. With the heart thing it had already happened by the time I knew anything about it. That might be easier to take - whereas this queasy journey was about maybe being absolutely fine and maybe being ill and having to wait with all the thoughts and imaginings that engendered.

Hospitals are such grim places. The two times I went up for a biopsy to the WGH I had to walk up past Maggie's Cancer centre where there were punters standing outside smoking cigarettes. Then I had to queue with a mask on while a dragon reception lady barked at me to put gel on my hands (even though I already had). The second time, when I was waiting to hear why I'd been called back in in a hurry, my anxiety was through the roof. I genuinely thought I might kick off. People generally go in the fight or the flight direction with adrenaline. Flight is more common but I'm a fighter. I'm just warning you.

I went in the horrible waiting room where we were socially distanced. There were two other women who I suspect were actually ill. Everyone was sunk in their own thing anyway. There were no windows. There was a poster on the wall that said "Men can get breast cancer too". Thanks for that. Fuck you. 

Do you know there's a genuine debate about health screening - whether the benefit in terms of cancer picked up early outweighs  the anxiety. I'm not coming down on either side of that debate, I'm just saying it would help to not have an imagination.

Anyway, happy days. I can plan. I want to go on holidays. I want to improve my swimming. I want to learn Spanish. I keep thinking about writing stories. I want to get every last ounce of speed out of these old legs without breaking my heart again. And I don't want to go on a cancer journey.

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.