OH Blog, why have I forsaken thee?

Well you know, it's partially about working a full day on a Monday now. The weekend is so short. I finish on Friday at 6pm and it still takes time to get home.Then it all kicks off again before you know it come Monday morning.  I told Peter the other day, "Here comes the weekend. Friday night is the best night. By Saturday I'm already grieving that it'll soon be over." He says it's the same for him.

Look. I've devised a way of doing a massive photo dump. I realised the other day when I was flicking mindlessly through my photos for November that I liked whizzing quickly through all the photos, not just the ones I'd chosen and cropped and straightened. You get more of a sense of being there. If there's anything good, there tends to be more photos of it from different angles as I've tried to figure out how best to capture it. So I wanted to find a way that I could see that without wearing my mouse finger out.  I found some cheap software on-line and Hey Presto. I have also stolen a little bit of Underworld's music to sweeten the medicine. I haven't got their explicit permission, but I feel they would just want me to go ahead.

Okay, I've been thinking about this thing for some time now. It's called the theory and practice of running but it is really the theory and practice of everything. I have noticed - especially in the winter when it takes a lot of thought to get outside, that I'll imagine my run is going to be one way and then it is entirely different. I look out the window, it looks cold and miserable, I dress up warm, I make a plan based partially on what the Met Office says the weather is. Out I go. In a few minutes, or half a mile, I am too warm, it's fine, I wish I'd gone out earlier; the birds are singing, I wish I'd given myself longer. It feels nice to get some fresh air. I promise myself I'll get out sooner tomorrow.

At the start of November there was relentless rain, and then it got cold and things started to freeze. "Here we go" I thought, "Winter until April". I battened down my hatches. I started wearing tights. Then it got warmer again. Warm enough for shorts.

I keep having approximately this thought.....You think a thing is a thing, but it is only an average. So winter - in my mind it's quarter of a page of A4 - it's the part with grey skies and large flakes of snow falling from the sky on a wind-swept field somewhere....and then you go outside and the birds are singing and the sun is luke-warm and it feels like spring. Things aren't as thick or as concrete as they are in our minds. Well my mind.

But I feel I haven't explained this very well. Here's the same thing again but on wheels.....I'm trying to leave for work in the morning.... many mornings I get out there and I wish I'd left just a bit earlier and taken my camera because when I get out, there is something good to see. The other morning it was frosty and there was a pink sunrise. I was huddled indoors with the heater on putting off the evil moment when I would have to go outside. I used to always be 5 minutes early for work but these days I am generally 5 minutes late, a kind of foot-dragging I disapprove of but am somehow trapped in.

1 mile into my journey on the bike, crossing St Mark's Park, the grass was all frosty and the sun was flashing pinkly on the last of the golden autumn leaves. But I was 5 minutes en retard and only had my shit camera.
I know it's wrong to call myself en retard, but I can't help it. Sometimes I just get angry. (Lol).

Another winter thought I've had a few times. Might as well leave it here too. It takes me markedly longer to leave the house unless I have to, not just because I'm hunkered down against the imagined cold outside, but also because it is somehow easier to get lost on the internet. I battled this for a few weeks and then questioned it. I quite like my semi-conscious excursions into internet world where you start off somewhere and end up somewhere markedly different. There are often unexpected delights - same as going outside for adventures. Today's treasure was a set of photos put up by a lady on one of the many fb groups I belong to. They were by a photographer called Erwin Olaf. He takes very staged photographs. I was particularly intrigued by this one depicting the controversial Greta.

I don't know what his take on Greta is but I like that the men in suits are tarred and feathered, or have they been in a sea polluted by an oil slick? Are the feathers left over by dying birds? Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Greta fan. When she arrived on the scene, telling the world what's right in a very teenage, black and white, self-referential way, I thought she was possibly a creation of people in the Trump camp seeking to further polarize the left and the right, to divide and rule.

Just to be clear. I don't like any of them. It's all wrong. I shouldn't be here. I should be in school.

But just to finish the original thought - maybe winter is a time for drifting and I should let it happen - the lights on the inside are brighter than the ones on the outside at the moment.

I'll leave you all with a story. The other night, Peter said to me "Are you going to do the Marcothon?". "I wasn't going to.", I said, and left the conversation. But then I started to think....Maybe I should. Maybe it would be good for Peter too. He, like me, is struggling a bit with the coming winter, with the reluctance to do anything, with the desire to eat. The pounds roll on, cabin fever sets in. He starts to talk in angry speeches. The latest one; "Scotland is a shit place". Uh-oh, I've heard it before. I try to stem the tide. "I know, I know. Scotland is a shit place. People say it's the best place in the world. It's because they don't have the imagination to go anywhere else."
I hope since I've said it, it will stop, but it's as if I have said nothing at all.
"People say it's the best place in the world" he says. Glarg. It's that time of year. We could probably call it depression if we were so inclined.
So I get to thinking, maybe I should do the Marcothon. It would spur Peter on to do it. And that would get him out. If I do it, I'm pretty sure that he will do it. Maybe he would feel better. Maybe there'd be less angry speeches. It would be mighty inconvenient for me to do the goddam Marcathon. I work 2 nine and a half hour days in order to claw back some free time during the week. With travelling time they are pretty much 11 hour work days. Fitting in runs there would be hard going. It's not just the running, it's the having a shower. But maybe I should.
So I say to Peter, a day or two later. "Did you want to do the Marcothon?"
"No!" he says. "Marco can't tell me what to do! I'll run when it suits me, and if it doesn't suit me I won't go!"
Oh.
I told you I shouldn't be here. I should be in school.

Wet weekend

Saturday was the beginning of a long-awaited week off work for me. I still had some things to do, but at least there would be no early starts and more time to get outside. It seemed a bummer then that Saturday was forecast wet. When the sun refuses to come out it's hard to get the people moving in our house. We reduced our plans from Gullane - no point - to Arthur's Seat - and then remembered we had unclaimed parcels at Telferton. Peter revealed that his parcel was his book-group book and it had already been at Telferton for 2 weeks. So off we set with IDs and rucksacks. I had no idea what was waiting for me. It's usually a book which seemed essential for the length of time it took me to look it up on Amazon and press "buy". I'm not going to give myself a hard time about this though - especially because the book in question turned out to be "Working with the inner critic". ( Lol.)

As we ran along the street and I waved to the Berlingo, I spotted something wrong. The back door was open!!!. I called a halt and we went to investigate and saw that there had been people in our car. People in a hurry. People emptying glove compartments, throwing all the carefully accumulated rubbish from the....bits for rubbish in the car door - you know what I mean. Do they have a name? From there onto the floor. There was a strong smell of screen wash. The cover was off from over the fuses behind the steering wheel. I ran back up to the flat and got the car-key to see if the car was still running.....
I turned the key, the car burst into life. Hallellujah. But shit. But hallelujah.

They'd taken all my carefully saved change from the ashtray. There was probably £12 in smash. The worst thing they'd done was pour engine oil and screen wash around in the back. And I think they took my radiator fluid. And I think they took my shorty wetsuit which I'd been keeping in the boot for about 2 years "just in case" I felt like a sea swim....

But there was no substantial damage. So hallelujah. Strangely they hadn't touched any of the mixed tapes we had in the glove compartment.

The run to Telferton is grim in the best of weather and it was a damp, airless, grey fucker of a day. A dead rat on the cycle path sang a song of better days while the fallen autumn leaves scattered all around.

We came back from the sorting office a different way, just to add in some novelty, and went to Sainsbury's on the way back. It was a ho-hum, work-a-day, low grade kind of run and a reminder of what a downer the winter can be and how hard you have to work just to get out.

Here we are at the automated tills in Sainsbury's.

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Sunday had been touted as a sunnier day and we had high hopes. To be specific I thought it might be nice to drive out to the Lammermuirs and set off past the Hopes reservoir there and maybe go all the way out to the windmills and back which is about 15 miles. The forecast kept shifting however and I tried to stay ahead of it with planning. Half an hour before setting off it was looking like it was going to be nicer in Edinburgh and we considered that, but then it was saying rain in Edinburgh and sunny weather in the Lammermuirs. So off we set for Gifford in good faith even as the skies opened and chucked it down all around us. We went into The Lanterne Rouge for the kind of courage that only coffee and cake can give and had huge slabs of cake and filter coffees. Honestly, I can't believe we didn't take pictures of our cake to torture you with but our brains had switched from the picture taking part to the consuming part. We didn't even talk until we had dealt with the business of cake. And coffee. And then we had coffee refills.

We drove up to the car park just beneath Hopes Reservoir and sat for a little while. There was little supporting evidence for the predicted sunshine. I have this persistent idea in my head about the Met Office - or at least the Scottish Branch - having been down-sized, so that now it's just a guy with a beard and DM boots which he keeps up on his desk as he swings on his chair. He builds his predictions based on what he sees out the window from minute to minute and also what mood he's in. Sometimes he flips a coin. As I look closer I see he looks something like my cousin Grant. Well now there's a thing.

Back to the Hopes (dashed). There we are in the recently burgled Berlingo hopped up on coffee and cake.

I wanted to run more than 13 miles just to get my mileage for the week over 30 miles but apart from anything else, it was going to get dark soon! So we let go of that. Why didn't we just run up to the top of Lammerlaw? So off we set

Cleverest picture of someone having a pee!

As we climbed higher we tuned into the immense variety of autumnal colour that was spread, albeit muted by the rain, all around us.

This, we discovered later, was a snow bunting, and it kept its distance but it wasn't scared. It accompanied us down the road for a good distance.

The top part of the run was mostly clagged in and we got cold ears. It was good to get back down from there. As we were heading back down we met a guy (called Ryan, as it turned out) coming up. He had misjudged the distance and  asked us if we had any food. He was obviously shaky with low blood sugar and relieved when we said we did. Happily Peter had a Stoats Bar in his pack so we handed it over and all shook hands.

We were much better tempered and happier after our run than before it. Getting out in the air and getting a bit of space helps everything. We are reluctantly strapping on our winter mindsets. "Just get out the door".

It was hard to leave the Berlingo in the street. We were extra careful to lock up before we left it. It looked at me all like #metoo and I was all like #Iknowbutthere'snoroomintheflatforyou and it was all like #couldhavebeenworsecouldhavetriedtohotwireme. 

Thus endeth the wet weekend.

Sheffield Thursday to Tuesday

That's a sophisticated football joke by the way, but is also true. I had a course in Sheffield running from Friday to Tuesday so I went down on the Thursday. The course was on Internal Family Systems and was fascinating but I'm going to tell you about the rest of the time I was there. I didn't want to spend any money if I could help it and I wanted to get some runs in. When I arrived I thought that, rather than waste my money on a taxi, I'd walk to my hotel. My phone is challenged for memory and the app for finding places doesn't work so I'd printed off a couple of google maps. How hard could it be? 

Somehow or other I went fantastically wrong, heading South instead of West. After walking with a huge rucksack for over an hour (the hotel was only 2 miles away) I decided to swallow my pride and ask some directions. I asked a man in a vegan food shop and my asking seemed to make him a bit nervous and angry. He kept shaking his head and saying I was way wrong. I was way wrong but not THAT wrong. Anyway, he pointed me in the right direction and in a while I got in the swing of asking people if I was going the right way. This is how we used to do it in the olden days. It would have helped if I knew the name of anywhere I was trying to get to. I knew it was quite near the Botanical Gardens and also Endcliffe Park. In another hour I got there. I was pretty tired. The hotel was really just an extra block of student halls on a student campus, except without the students. There was a little cafe that was also reception or a reception that was also a cafe. They could heat up a pizza in a microwave for you so I had that, being too worn out for any more adventures that day.

When I told Peter I'd had pizza he was jealous but actually it was like cardboard and I burned the roof of my mouth on the cheese and it cost £5.50. I didn't "eat out" again after that.

The room was nice though. The bed was right next to the window so you could get fresh air in the night and then close it when the student parties got too loud. On the Friday night someone seemed to have a party that was maybe 20 people screaming for 4 hours. I liked a party myself back in the day but I don't think we ever made so - much - noise. I think they're doing it wrong.

After that 1st night pizza, I went to Tescos and got provisions and lived on cheese salad sandwiches for the rest of my time there. During the day I hung all my food in a bag in the wardrobe in case there were bears or anyone had an objection to me keeping food in a hot room.

I checked in with Buchanan each evening whilst dining.

I'm not good in the evenings so I thought if I was going to get a few runs in it would have to be in the morning. So I got up at 5am and went out. I didn't take my camera on the first day as I didn't know if I was likely to get robbed or not. I actually tried to run to the station just to see if I could make a better job of it this time - but I got lost again. Not so badly lost, because I knew how to back-track this time - somehow or other I started heading South again. I don't know what was pulling me in that direction.

But Peter protested that he wanted some photos so the next night I took the camera - and my head-torch - and I braved Endcliffe Park which smelled nice and sounded nice and has a big river running through it. I heard an owl call 3 times in it - but I can't say I ever really saw it. To my surprise Sheffield is very hilly and absolutely full of trees, and the air was very nice - presumably wofting across from the Peak District. Someone told me that Sheffield is one of the happiest places in the UK and he thought it was because of all the trees. I don't know how that's measured or if it's true but I'm just saying it here.

I honestly think it was quite brave of me running around a dark park on my own. Nothing untoward happened.

There she is.

Below is my 3rd run. I got lost again. Duh! But in a more measured way. I ran past the Botanics and it smelled great.

I have no idea what this means.

Ecclesall Road.

This is where I did my course. It's also a Masonic Hall and full of dark paintings of men.

On the final morning. I think the fly wanted to get in because my bananas were rotting in my food bag. Actually my room wasn't nice at all because by now it had 3 days running kit in it.

There will be more Sheffield in February. 

The Pentland Skyline 2019...

Hello. It's been a whole month since I last blogged. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "you're not going to bore on about all your old Skylines are you?". That, dear reader, is exactly what I am going to do.

2007

Chris Upson's excellent site Scottish Hill Racing makes it easy to see all your old hill racing results and pore over them for hours. It only starts in 2005 though but luckily the Carnethy Website

also keeps the old scores on the doors.

So I ran my first Skyline in 2004 and just ducked in under 4 hrs. There was a race within a race going on because my long-time friend Jane Fletcher, now Davies, was also doing it, and was being coached round by Jim Davies of Borrowdale. Now that's obviously cheating. I was mostly a road-runner in those days and I hated Hare Hill so much that I devised a route so that I got off it as quickly as possible down onto the road that runs between Balerno and the  Howe and ran round on that to Black Hill, even though it was further. I had a bum bag the size of Wales (Oilskins packed neatly in it) and 2 big heavy plastic litre bottles brimming with lucozade. I was ahead of Jane for the longest time but on Black Hill, being wet behind the ears, I went straight up the fence line and then along instead of cutting across. I saw, behind me, Jane heading off on a better route with that flipping Jim beside her. I never caught her again. I got a stitch from all the Lucozade coming down Black Hill that was so bad I tried to make myself sick. What a state. I didn't really care about 4 hours at that point but was instead a bit gutted about being gubbed by Jane.

In 2005 I rallied and ran a much better 3.40 which has remained my best ever time.

The others are a bit of a blur. The nearest I ever got to 3.40 again was 3.43 in 2010 and I think that was likely because I'd done the 2 Breweries a couple of weeks before. I had disgraced myself at the Moray Marathon by stopping at 20 miles and hitch-hiking to the end. Look I've found a photo.

If you had to guess who was going to drop out, I don't think it would be hard.

I thought dropping out of a marathon would be fine but the taste of failure lingered and it made me try a bit harder for a while. 

In 2017 I went back to the Skyline after a 7 year rest. By chance more than anything I had never gone over 4 hours although just ducked under it twice. My dream result for the race by this time would be under 4 hours and it actually happened. It was a real surprise to me. I think the excitement of it led to me over-training over the winter and I ended up on the bench with sore IT bands well into 2018.

This year I knew there was no chance I was going under 4 hours and so I had to decide whether to not race or just let it go.

Now I'm not suggesting that anyone paid me to hang back this year but the whole scenario reminds me of Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction.

"On the night of the fight you may feel a slight sting......that's pride, fucking witya"

Unlike Bruce Willis, I decided just to go with it. I felt more than a slight sting, but I don't think it was pride. Even my shoulders hurt today. Now why is that?

This year was Skyline no.7 and I think the thing that made me go was that other Porties were making the effort. Plus I like the training. Peter and I did what I think was a minimum of preparation by doing a few Pentland runs, extending it each time.

Catherine, newish Porty, made her debut onto the hill racing scene at the 2 Breweries this year. Now that's a horrible race - and the fact that she was coming back for more, making her 2nd ever hill race The Skyline filled me with respect. She was still smiling at the end and said she enjoyed it!

Has anyone seen Gio MacDonald?

Heel-striking Harry. This and last photo by Norman Brown.

Truth - I was already tired here. Top O' Turnhouse. Photo Sasha Chepelin.

I'm laughing. "Haha, I've run 4 miles and there's 13 to go and I'm shagged."

Yeah so yesterday - well the weather was quite nice. It was dull but it wasn't really windy. We had the usual debate about what to wear. I nearly wore a long-sleeved top through cowardice but I was glad I didn't. I was pretty much too hot all the time. I was glad of the cooling mist up Turnhouse.

I really tried not to over-cook it on the first few ascents. That should have been easy because there are a few bottle-necks early on and everyone was walking where I was, which was annoying. The path up the first bit is relatively gentle compared to what was to come, so why waste it? I tried to just take it easy but either I didn't or I just wasn't great yesterday. By the top of Turnhouse I felt pretty wasted. I kept trying to jog and then walk but Peter and I had been quite easily running all of Carnethy and Scald Law but it felt way too hard. I even felt a bit upset when I remembered about South Black Hill and having to go all that way round. I had a gel at Flotterstone but it didn't make any difference. I think gels have stopped working for me. I don't know what the chemistry of that would be but I felt the same in the marathon - they make 0 difference. At the top of SBH the marshal said "you've got 20 minutes until the cut off". I realised I wasn't that bothered and contemplated whether dropping out would be an option, but then I thought that I'd be hanging around, getting in the way with strangers  and I'd live to regret it. Reluctantly, after getting some juice and a water-bottle fill and having a couple of custard creams, 2hrs and 13 minutes into the race, I hit the Drove Road.

I think the custard creams helped. Something improved anyway. Mark Hartree and Lisa Gamble were near me and I was half-listening to their chat. Lisa was having a hard time as she's not been running much with a baby and all.  Mark was talking about his year in sport. They were going at a reasonable steady pace. Hare Hill was really clearly flagged which made it easier - no looking for good lines - its easier just to play the hand you're dealt. There was a full dead sheep laid out like one of Hannibal's tableaux (If you've watched that nonsense. We did. Peter's been making tableaux around the flat ever since. I think we need to watch him.) I wished I'd remembered I had a camera at that point.

I followed Mark Hartree off the hill without using my own wits. He seemed to take a very direct route vertically down. I used my hands and bottom, versatile like.

Going up Black Hill Lisa was saying she was feeling better, despite Black Hill being a monster. I was too. The path up there has never been better. Doubtless all the runners ahead of me had cleared the heather from the sides of the peaty trod so it was pretty much all runnable. Except I was tired so I didn't run it all. Coming down the other side of Black Hill was pretty clear too. I hate running through long heather or on bumpy stuff because my ankles twist easily - but there was good ground all the way. I caught up on a few folk who had left me behind earlier, which always feels good. Going up Bell's Hill, a girl with a Peak District kind of accent remarked that it was terrible. I agreed with her.

It definitely was. But it was Bell's Hill. It's meant to be terrible at Bell's Hill - that's the game. Terrible all the way back but you are nearly back.

Haha - I'm running a race and taking a selfie.

This chap was behind me a lot and to my fevered imagination he sounded like Edward Scissorhands.

Ah well, you know the rest, or if you don't, it's this. Every year they pop another hill between Bell's Hill and the finish. It went on and on forever. Maybe I took it easier because there was no chance I could go under 4 hrs and there was nothing else to chase. I wasn't aware of taking it easy though. I stormed over the line in 4 hrs 25 minutes, feeling pleased to stop and not at all bothered by the rain which was just starting to fall.

Haha - I'm finishing the race at last.

Haha - I don't have to run any more.

I haven't mentioned Sarah Ormerod who is a Porty but was running under a Carnethy vest. I met her at the WOL half last year and she's my Strava buddy, so oddly, even though I haven't seen her in a year, I knew her form and wasn't at all surprised she ran a good race.

Times were mostly slower than usual, except for the lead men who spoiled it for everyone. I dread to see what my Scottish Hill Racing percentage is going to be for this one!

So I think, in summary; come on, pull something out of the hat. Well this; I used to hate Hare Hill and now I think it's my favourite one. It's very green and mossy. Amen.