Sunday, June 04, 2006
The easy way to get a pb....
Oh dear things went a bit downhill after Loch Leven
especially the food! Sheila Morrison and I headed
along for a mid afternoon snack to an Inn in Kinross
that had been recommended to Sheila think someone
was having a rather cruel joke. Good old Scottish
hospitality won the day though we asked for a
starter each with a portion of chips and vegetables to
share however you would have thought that wed asked
for monkey brains and crocodile meat the way they
looked at us. In the end we got our starters with
chips on a plate like you would a main course. The
food was so good
.not! Sheila had salmon quiche made
with tinned salmon, frozen chips and frozen veg (it
was hot when we ate it but clearly had come from the
freezer
) and I had lovely battered mushrooms (so good
that I gave Sheila one to try with absolutely no
hesitation) that were pretty greasy with the same
frozen chips and veg. Nice
.
On Monday Sheila M, Val and I went out for a run
through John Muir Country Park, reverse of the 5km
handicap route we run. It felt hard although we kept
it going not bad for me two days after running a
half marathon.
But Tuesday was a different matter
.Sheila M, Sheila K
and I were all pretty knackered so only managed to run
through the trees to the Spott roundabout, along the
A1 at the other side of the Spott roundabout, through
to Eweford and round the farm and back to Halhill.
Think we managed about 3 mile in all, with walk
breaks! Not so good hey? But then we took Sheila K
out for her birthday tea (well only two months after
the birthday but at least we remembered!)
On Thursday I couldnt make it for the 5km handicap
run but arrived in time to see the finish Sheila M
won! She did a good time given the surface, and the
handicap must have been well timed as everyone did
just about finish at the same time. I was going to go
out for a wee trot on my own but had a stinking
headache and my heart wasnt in it so did some
hovering instead well its sort of exercise isnt it?
Saturday was Haddington 5 mile race. Ive never run a
5 mile race before so anytime I did would be a pb.
With this thought in mind Ive scoured the fixtures
list for other funny distance events that Ive never
run before, as this is definitely the easiest way to
get a pb. So some useful races are: Milnathort Dash
5.5 miles, Moffat Gala festival take your pick from
15km, 4.5km and 2.5km, Dundonald 10.5km, Ceres 8 mile,
Canal Canter 7km, Graham Clark Memorial 3.9miles and
so on (note how I didnt quote the 50 miles and 100km
races Im not that desparate for a pb!).
Also if you are really cunning you would run the first
one at quite a steady pace so you could quite easily
get another pb next year when you run the distance
again! Although I would like to point out that my not
so good performance at Haddington wasnt due to this
thinking but more due to eating far too much too close
to start time and giving myself a pretty major stitch
which required both hands gripping it and some walking
just to manage to finish. Im not even going to
embarrass myself by putting my splits in my blog!
Well done to all the other Dunbar runners though!
And today
.Sheila and I had a 15 miler planned, which
would be the longest run Id ever done. Sheila said I
wasnt to put this in my blog and just to tell
everyone how long wed been on our feet, however I
must say that we probably only ran between 12-13 of
the 15 miles (or 14.7 according to GPS). The route
had a few hills in it, and although cooler than
yesterday when racing at Haddington, it was pretty
humid and hard when running through the sheltered
bits. We ran from Belhaven, through John Muir Country
Park, along the Tyne to East Linton, up to Stenton
(thats where the walking started to come in) had a
quick peek in the art gallery and got some extra water
there, along to Pitcox (luckily running as Jim and Val
passed us on their bikes), along and down to Eweford
and back to Belhaven.
And one of our key topics of conversation was the need
for better running pants last week at Loch Leven we
didnt have enough time to sort ourselves out before
running which led to some nasty chaffing (for Sheila).
Also cotton numbers are just no good in this hot
weather (as per cotton t-shirts they are not very
breathable, hold the sweat (nice) and dont dry very
well) but also man made fabrics have their own
problems. Sheila thinks she has come up with a
cunning plan to stop pants chaff
..although I think
its a bit dodgy and not sure Ann Summers stocks
enough pairs to sort out the all of the female runners
in Scotland. Do men have the same problem? What is
the answer?
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