Theresas training

Well I have been a naughty girl haven’t I? It’s been
a while since I wrote in my diary – so now I have an
epic tale to tell……starting over a week ago.

On Tuesday 15th we went out for a nice club run, on a
flat route around John Muir Country Park, taking it
easy in anticipation of the big hill that we would
have to run up the following night. We probably did
around 6.5 miles in total.

And then onto the big hill……Wednesday night was the
Carfraemill to Gifford run. Sheila decided we were to
run the whole thing (against my better judgement, but
my quad had been a bit niggly the previous night).
Any how, George Armstrong was being the sweeper at the
back, needless to say that he ran the whole run with
me! I’m not so hot on steep hills (and I couldn’t
breathe on the way up). Amazing views – next year I
will set out a bit earlier and ensure no sore bits
before we start. At the bottom of the hill Sheila and
I met up again and got a lift back to the Goblin Ha’
with Claire & co. Once there the plan was to have a
shower and head down for tea however I went in the
shower and shrieked a bit due to the fact it was ice
cold and ran back out again (I’m not good with pain).
We then headed down for tea (poor portions for
veggies, ok for those eating meat. Sheila took pity
on me and gave me a few chips and one of her
profiteroles!). George made a few cheeky comments
about my plateau at a very low level. Cheek!

On Thursday I braved the intervals, even though my
legs were complete dead weights. (At least I’m
committed). We were supposed to be doing 4x400m,
4x200m and 4x400m, I did 3x400m, 4x200m and 3x400m and
then a 200m relay. I was paired up with Grant for the
relay, (luckily) when I passed the baton over to
Grant I was in second place and Grant legged it round
the track as fast as possible to ensure we
won!!!!!!!!! It’s been a long time since I’ve won
anything so I was fair chuffed.

Saturday marked the day of an epic run for Sheila and
I. We set off at 8:00 and up round Winterfield golf
course, round by Eweford and down to West Barnes,
heading through John Muir Country Park to the North
Berwick road, We then ran along the Tyne and up to
Lawhead and then down the road past Smeaton garden
centre. From there we headed back along the Tyne
again and to the John Muir Park. After a quick Mars
Bar and lucozade break we ran through the park,
detouring round by some of the farms and East Links,
up the golf course part way and then back onto
Sheila’s. Afterwards we had a well deserved cheese
scone and a coffee. I then headed on home to relax
and ended up spending the afternoon watching the
London tri and some athletics. Fantastic!

Following the epic journey I had some well deserved
rest time and the next run was Tuesday 22nd August –
the final summer series race. I had persuaded Brian
to join me, as the run was only 5km and in Dunbar,
with a barbecue afterwards. There was quite a
gathering and in the spirit of being nice I suggested
Brian could go in front of me with a handicap of 28:30
whilst I had one of 28:00. I set off with Val and
Sheila and managed to keep up with Val for the first
7-8 minutes but then she was off. I kept it going
though and managed to pass a few folk so that I
finished in front of Fay and Sheila (not bad if you’ve
been reading about the poor performances I’ve had in
other summer series races!) and had a time of around
25 mins. Brian the complete pain (I’m not talking to
him for at least a week) had a time of under 24 mins –
23:46 I think. How annoying – with only one very slow
training run under his belt!!!! The barbecue after
was fantastic, ate far too much food and some people
maybe drank too much alcohol, (although not me – I was
too thirsty after my exertions to be drinking
alcohol!)

On Wednesday I headed off to leg man for a wee leg
rub. I’d forgotten how much it hurts. Especially
when you have tight bits! Ooowww. So the quads were
pretty bad – bit lumpy bit in the middle, and the IT
band was pretty tight, especially where it joins the
knee, shins weren’t great – whatever he did to them
was a really sore sharp sort of pain and then the
calves – they are just something else. My calves are
so huge they are really fully grown heifers - if only
I could sell them off at market I’m sure they’d fetch
a decent price.

And finally onto tonight – another lovely set of
intervals. Tonight’s joy was 3x600m, 3x300m and
finally 3x600m. Wasn’t too sure about it as I don’t
really like anything over the 600m but actually it
wasn’t too bad. Managed to whiz round the 300m ok,
but suffered for it on the first of the second set of
600m. It’s all good fun really (easy to say a few
hours later) No relay tonight – phew! So now Ian has
only a few days before his very epic journey – no
doubt all will go well but had better wish a public
good luck message for his 50 miler! (That is totally
crazy – why do I think it’s a good idea to go to
interval training with a clearly mad person doing the
coaching????)

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# posted by user : 1:25 PM  0 comments

Well another week running, another week getting
slower………On Tuesday it was the second of the
Musselburgh ELSS races – along by the river. Started
with Sheila M (which is always a bad move as I try to
keep up with her and then knacker myself). Finished –
which is always a bit of an achievement – in 37.48 but
did 37.17 last year. An extra 30 seconds? Where did
that come from? Consoled myself with egg sandwiches at
the end….

On Thursday it was intervals. Did 10x400m which feels
like an achievement in itself, although the fastest
one was only 1.48…..could do better

Saturday I decided not to run at Haddington – I had a
sneaky peak at last years results and realised I could
be in with quite a chance of being right at the back
of the pack and thought I didn’t really need that so I
went out for a nice wee run, down through Pinkerton,
round the bottom of Doon Hill and behind Spott House,
down Starvation Brae, over to the first ford and up
Daniel’s Brae, down to Eweford cottages and along Biel
Burn to the caravan park where I was getting a lift
home. Made it up all the hills so was really chuffed,
although the breathing sounded pretty impressive on
the way up Daniel’s Brae.

In the afternoon I went to lend some support to my
fellow club mates by watching the end of the
Haddington half. I thought I got there just in time,
but missed the winner (caught everyone else though!).
Some pretty impressive runs, not least by our own
Stuart Hay who got a pb and won the prize for First
East Lothian Male. Pretty damn good hey? I’ll need to
figure out what his trick is.

And today I planned on going out for a long one (well
longer than yesterdays 9 miles and possibly even up to
15). I went out the same route initially as yesterday
running round Pinkerton and round the bottom of Doon
Hill. Then I headed down towards the Spott round, by
the house with the big red chimney. I headed up the
closed road and then along the grassy field at Wester
Broomhouse to get to the road to Pitcox. There I got
mildly attacked by two dogs – good job their owners
were present to hold them whilst I went on – took a
while to catch them though! I ran onto Pitcox (yet
more hills) and then down to the A1, and down to John
Muir country park. I ran along the old A1 for a bit
until I came to the gate into John Muir that we use on
club nights and in the festive 10km and then ran back
along to East Links where Brian was waiting for me
with some juice. I had a slurp or two of energy then
set off with Brian to run the 5km route in advance of
the 22nd. It was hell. All that sand with very tired
legs is not a good idea. Hopefully it will be better
on the 22nd. And this week for some mad reason I’m
running Carfraemill to Gifford (transport permitting).
All this running ain’t doing much good to my times
though. Don’t fancy Stuart’s training approach though
– run 30miles one weekend and then 13.1 is easy the
next!

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# posted by user : 10:05 AM  0 comments

So now I’ve recovered from my bug, I’ve been trying to
catch up on the running…..Last Tuesday night we had a
committee meeting, which was a blessing in disguise as
that meant I could only do 4-5 miles before hand. We
set off from Halhill and ran down to West Barnes,
through John Muir Country Park, turning back once we
got to the East Links farm park. From there we ran
back along another track to the Biel Burn, ran along
the burn to West Barnes, up at West Barnes to Eweford
and back to Halhill via the trees. Last week the
women were severely depleted in number, with only 4 of
us there. That meant Anne and Hannah ran on and Val
and I ran together – Val certainly kept me going
that’s for sure!

Thursday night was interesting although not sure our
brains were working properly when we decided what we
were doing. There were only 5 of us – Ian Sills,
Stuart, Anne, Val and I, so Ian decided we could form
two teams and run a 10km relay. For some reason we
decided boys against girls. The boys doing 400m each
and the girls doing 200m. They only finished about 7
minutes in front of us (?) but it is the fastest time
I’ll ever get for a 10km run (42.32 for the girls
against my pb of 54.05). As I joked to Val after we
could give that method a try at the next boundary race
– Anne could run the first 4km, I’ll do the next 3 and
Val can have the final 3 and the glory leg – it could
work…..

On Saturday I thought I’d better attempt a longer run
– I set out from mine and ran around the cement
factory, along Whitesands and round the golf course to
pick Val up at her house. I left at 9 but even then
it was roasting hot. Just as I got close to Val’s, I
did a Sheila. Yup – I tripped up on some uneven
ground and went flying in a superb superman fashion.
Shame my knee and hand didn’t think it was quite so
superb. Lucky I did it just before Val’s as she
tended to my knee before we carried on. Although
carrying on wasn’t easy – it was so warm, and clearly
I ran out of energy as I was zapped out as we came
back along the beach. On running up the back road we
bumped into Clarissa so got our first glimpse of baby
Holly too. So generally a good run, although I was a
bit disappointed with the poor performance in the
second half – poor Val was being held up a bit!

On Sunday I decided to see if my knee was still
working (it is, sort of, but I have a pretty
impressive bruise and some nice grazing that makes my
knee look a bit like a 5 year olds’) – surely you are
meant to grow out of all this falling over malarkey???
Anyway I ran cross country round the bottom of Doon
Hill, up behind Spott Home Farm etc, along to the road
to Spott, down Starvation Brae (which was difficult as
knee was tender, although I still think running down
is the wise option), down to Doon Bridge, up beside
the house with the red chimney, up round the bottom of
Doon Hill to Pinkerton and back home. It was windy
and therefore felt cooler (and probably was about 5
degrees cooler than Saturday, but still over 20 which
is way too hot for a sensitive northern girl like me!)

So hopefully the bug hasn’t had too many lasting
effects on my fitness, certainly none of the runs was
particularly easy feeling and limbs were a bit tired –
so now I’m back on the pasta and chocolate to try to
rebuild the energy stores. Shouldn’t take me too
long…..

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# posted by user : 1:33 PM  0 comments

Well its that time of year for my mid year performance
review at work, so whilst its been gorgeous sunshine
for the most part today I’ve spent a considerable part
of it in front of my pc reminding myself what a great
employee I am…..
Therefore I thought I’d spend a bit more of the day
doing a mid year review of my running performance for
the first half of 2006 but unfortunately its not going
to be anywhere near as good as it would have been (PB
wise) last year. Anyway….here is the low-down….

Have worn out two pairs of trainers and (fingers
crossed, touch wood etc etc) the third seem to be
doing ok
Have bought no big gadgets so far
Have been for a number of deep tissue sports massages
due to tight spots
Have consistently been running four times a week (and
sometimes more)
Have now been going to interval training for about a
year
I’m now on my fourth running log (so entries like this
are a complete pain in the butt)

Anyway races:

05/03/06 – Lasswade 10 miles – official time 1 hr
37:14 *PB* (2005 time 1hr 38:05)
12/03/06 – Inverness ½ - official time 2hr 06:18 (PB
at time 2hr 04:57 Jedburgh 2005)
26/03/06 – Edinburgh ½ - time 2hr 07:07 – official
time could be anyone’s guess. PB above
01/04/06 – Dunbar 10km – 55:02 (PB 54:05 Glasgow Sept
2005; Dunbar 2005 55:09)
23/04/06 – Grangemouth 10km – 55:39 (PB above;
Grangemouth 2005 56:08)
21/05/06 – Britannic 10km – 55.03 (PB above; Britannic
2005 55.56)
27/05/06 – Loch Leven ½ - 2hr 05:03 (PB above Jed;
Loch Leven 2005 2.07.57)
23/06/06 – Haddington 5 miles – 45.23 *PB* (by default
– never done before!)
11/06/06 – Glasgow RFL 5km – 25.25 (2005 time 24.41)
25/06/06 – East Kilbride ½ - 2hr 03.45 *PB*

So performance so far not bad I guess – 3 PB’s out of
10 races not great but out of the 6 races that I also
ran in 2005, I ran 5 of them quicker in 2006. (If only
you could have race specific pb’s instead of distance
specific!!!)

Also have upped distance this year – although a bit
scary as yesterday Sheila M and I ran in one day what
I would have run in 2 weeks in the early part of 2004!

Quick run down for the week –
Tuesday club night, the weather was hot and I was
nicely sticky! Who says women don’t sweat??? Anyway
attempted a run through Halhill trees up round Eweford
and down to West Barnes along the Biel burn and back
to Halhill. Breathing a bit difficult – hopefully
because I’ve been without my performance enhancing
drugs (also known as inhaler) for a week and a half.
Struggled along and collapsed into cold shower.

Wednesday was 4 mile Haddington summer series race. On
a positive note – both Sheila M and I went the correct
way this time. On a more negative note – it was far
too bloody warm to be running. I must have thought
this on the way through Lennoxlove and for some reason
thought a little walk would be more pleasant, although
started a light trot again as I was overtaken by
George Armstrong. Haddington and I don’t seem to mix
on a race front (not on that route anyway) as I also
got a stitch – funnily enough at the 5 mile race I got
a stitch and walked there too.

Thursday was intervals and was slightly cooler than
Wednesday. Did 12x300m with a decent rest as Ian was
taking pity on us as we had run hard the previous
night. Managed to beat Ann on one of the warm up
sprints (no doubt as she was conserving energy but may
as well boost myself with the thought). On the last
300m managed to finish in 1min12 but was aiming for
1min 10 so need to push even harder next time.

And then onto Sheila M and mine’s epic journey across
East Lothian yesterday. We ran from mine to town,
picking up Val on the way. Then round the harbour, up
by the pool, round by the cost and Winterfield golf
course. Sheila was concentrating too much on the
golfers and not on the path and did a spectacular
side-twist somersault – unfortunately missed her
footing and landed on the ground (ok she fell then).
After all the golfers rushed to her aid she managed to
get up and trot on through John Muir Country Park,
down North Berwick road to the Tyne, along the Tyne to
East Linton, through East Linton, along the Tyne to
Hailes Castle and then on into Haddington for lunch at
Poldrates. We had a couple of wee stops on the way
(ok a picnic or two) and a lovely large lunch at the
end. I didn’t measure as was too hot for gps all the
way but based on previous measures it was between
17.5-18 miles. Well deserving of a slap up lunch.
Ian is in no danger of me joining in his 50 miler
that’s for sure – not sure if I’ll ever manage to find
these long distances any easier….

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# posted by user : 3:54 AM  0 comments