Monday, September 05, 2005
It has been a hot week for my return from Ireland
On Tuesday club night we ran across the Belhaven beach
and back through John Muir Country Park. It was
really muggy and felt quite hard, but Ive been told
the route is probably only about 10k. Felt harder and
further than that. I still had my muscle niggles, but
they werent as bad as they had been on the Sunday.
Unfortunately just before the race on the Sunday I
hurt my back and had been finding it very difficult to
move around on the Sunday and Monday. By Tuesday I
had improved slightly, although waddling around like a
duck and still in pain at times.
On Thursday Sheila Morrison, Sheila Kerr and I went
for a shorter run. Sheila Morrison was leaving on the
Friday to travel out to Nepal for her trek and I was
racing on Sunday in the Great Scottish Run (10k), so
we opted out of the usual Thursday night interval
training as we thought wed better save our legs! We
ran from Halhill to Eweford, Bowerhouse, Spott Road,
Spott Roundabout and back to Halhill through the
trees.
On Friday I was going to see massage man to sort out
my back problem. Interestingly my lower back had gone
out the opposite way to the last time, and it took a
relatively easy manoeuvre to pop things back into
place. I was told to abstain from bending and
twisting for a week, so that means most housework is
out of the question (shame). I was also told not to
do my Pilates this week, and then told that running
probably wasnt a good idea. I neglected to mention
that I was racing on Sunday in the Great Scottish Run
and just looked at massage man with a funny what do
you mean running isnt a good idea? look on my face.
Hes obviously dealt with runners before though,
because he clearly knew that I would be running this
week
.
Then for the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow. I arrived
nicely on time for the run, starting at 9:30 and made
the very sensible decision to wear my sunglasses. It
was soooooo hot. I am so glad I wasnt running in the
half marathon as it started at 10:30, by which time it
must have been about 24-C, and for me running 2 hours
in that heat would have been terrible. Anyway
..the
run itself was good, I felt quite good in the race and
I must thank my Dad for reminding me to tie my laces
in double knots. The run is pretty flat and good for
fast times, just unfortunate about the weather.
However I did run a PB!!! (Well the official times
arent out yet, but pretty sure it will be an official
PB as the race was chipped. Tip for next year though
is not to wear the chip round my ankle on the funny
Velcro strap thing. I have now got a huge plaster on
my ankle where the strap was sawing through my flesh,
slight agony from about 2km onwards!) I timed myself
as running 54:04, 45 seconds faster than last week.
Now for some exciting runner chat re PBs. My fastest
time last year was in the Great Scottish Run 2004,
running 58:49. This year I have run 5 10Ks, running
PBs in 4 of these (using my personal timing).
Grangemouth I ran in 55:52 (official time 56.08),
Dunbar in 54:50 (official 55:09), Brittanic Asset
Management in 55:56, Paisley in 54:45 (official 55:48)
and Glasgow in 54:04. Comparing the Great Scottish
Runs in 2004 and 2005 my 10km time has gone down
4mins and 45 seconds in one year. This huge
improvement has a lot to do with joining Dunbar
running club, and with Sheila and Sheila especially
for taking me out for runs and getting me to run
further and faster on weekends and evenings, not just
club nights. The East Lothian Summer Series has also
helped, racing against other club runners and trying
not to get overtaken by the faster runners somewhere
behind. Incidentally I came third out of the women so
have a trophy to add to my huge collection of medals.
The aim for the future is to have even more
improvement, and Ians interval training has got a lot
to do to try to keep the improvement at these levels!
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