Edinburgh Parkrun blast

Planned to do the Edinburgh Parkrun today, with Theresa, Susan & Mary. Mary picked us up in her Subaru, she didn’t drive too much like Colin MacRae (thank goodness!). We got through a bit early so we sat in the car and nattered for a bit before venturing out into an icy NE wind coming in off the Firth of Forth. A quick warm up then we were off with 200-odd other runners.

Hadn’t done a 5k for some time, the club handicap 5K is always good for a laugh but not quite the same near-’race’ atmosphere as the parkrun. Quick blast out along the prom and back and ended up with a PB at 18:57, and 16th, so quite pleased. Mary was just behind me and was first lady at 19.12, then George Gilhooley at 19.18, Susan close behind at 19.29 and Theresa at 25.31.

So, good Dunbar RC turnout and I suspect the DRC  girls will be back for another blast along this one again soon. Probably get a long run in tomorrow.

Grangemouth ‘Around the Houses’ 10K

Bit of a mini-Dunbar contingent to Grangemouth today for the 10k. Accompanied by Theresa, we picked up Susan L and Mary W. The usually-prompt Susan took a bit of time to get to the door, and with the clocks changing last night we worried that she had  overslept and might need a bit of rousing – thankfully she was ok and we set off in good time to industrial heartland of Grangemouth. Interesting Fact: Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins & This Mortal Coil hailed from Grangemouth)

This race had a number of attractions (for me at least). It would be my first proper road race of 2012 and it would be interesting to see how my fitness was looking, after a roughish time over the winter injury-wise. It was flat, very well organised and had attracted a big field of 800 plus runners. All good.

The course itself did not redeem itself very well in a scenic sense – a prosaic square-shaped course around some houses. Which was fine for my purposes. Temperature was high – reputedly the highest of the year and with the sun out it felt quite uncomfortable, after months of winter running…..

Blasted off at the usual unsustainable pace of 6 min/miles or less, but not as fast as Susan and Mary who both kept in front of me for the 1st half mile….Theresa stayed sensible and went well to the back of the start crowd. The 3 of us expected to be in close proximity for the race, which might have been a good strategy to get through this course in a reasonable time.

There were no expectations really for this race, to get round in a reassuringly ok time without injury would be good for me. Basically a case of getting the head down and try to nail down some even-ish splits and feel ok at the end. In the event it was a tough one – flat, hot, long straight sections, all on road, so it was a case of just getting on with it, losing a bit of pace mid-way round and then picking it up slightly, but not enough to go sub 40…..40:15 according to my Garmin.

Mary was about 10 secs behind me at the finish (knocking about 5 mins off her last 10K PB!) and Susan piled in behind her about another 15 seconds behind Mary – so we were all forty-something……….Theresa managed in under 54 mins, not that far off her PB.

EDIT – results now in and Susan got 2nd in her cat – which is great considering the size of field! Sadly we left before the prizes and she would have got a shot on the podium…..

Results -

me – 40:15

Mary – 40:33

Susan – 40:51

Theresa – 53:56

Not sure i’d do this again in a hurry – it was tough, but that says more about my current fitness than the race. It was impeccably organised and the finishing bag included a technical T shirt, chocolate, drinks etc, so it was really good VFM.

Pencaitland – fishing then runner-observation

Popped along to Pencaitland today.

Had a couple of hours dry fly fishing on the Tyne at Nisbet Farm, (got one smallish trout and hooked and lost a couple of others). Nice to visit this stretch again – I first fished this section in 1984 when my uncle & aunt moved to Boggs Holdings, just outside the village. The local River Tyne was an obvious draw for me then, and very little seems to have changed in the intervening years……lots of wild trout up here. I’m involved with the East Lothian Angling Association who manage most of the 24 miles of the Tyne from Pathhead down to Tyninghame near Dunbar, and we try and encourage folk to practise catch and release to preserve the trout stocks.

I then went along to watch a few of our club members and others do the 10K organised by the local school – did this race a couple of years ago and it was a real delight. Nice trail-type course through the village, Winton Estate and woods and back along the old railway line. A fair sized turnout this year – quite a few more faces, some familiar. It was a fairly ‘informal’ race, not organised by runners, and it kind of showed (ie no-one to take times for some of the first 5K finishers, confusion about the finish line and some times were clearly wrong) – quite shambolically funny actually when you are watching from the sidelines (guess less so if you are running…), but it didn’t seem to detract too much from the event, which went down really well with the participants.

A few photos below- i’m  off to Grangemouth tomorrow for the 10K, it will be interesting to see how my fitness has fared over the last few months, last road 10K was in September….

Nice longer training run for a bleeding change!

Think the calf injury is now behind me, thank goodness. I’ve spent the last week and a half building up from 3-7 miles, with no ill effects. After injury, it is amazingly liberating to run without any form of injury or niggle, even for a short run. I recently checked my Garmin entries, and the last long run was 5 weeks ago, about 17 miles to Haddington.

Time to ramp the miles up a bit now, if I remain ok, the plan will be to do Edinburgh to North Berwick at the start of May and a couple of halfs – maybe Loch Leven and Haddington.

Susan L was up for a weekend run so we made a plan to do 12-13 miles later on Saturday afternoon. We arranged a point to point from Dunbar – Haddington. This worked because Theresa was doing some swimming training and could lift us back. My Garmin 305 has been playing up of late, its been switching on but then switching off – decided best just to leave the damned thing in the house rather than get distracted by it malfunctioning again. Susan had hers on, but somehow it was on km rather than miles….

Really nice evening for a run too – not much wind, sunny – a near perfect spring evening. We headed out of Dunbar and bumped into Andy Sheldrick exercising his mutt prior to running the Alloa Half today- stopped for a quick chat and wished him well – he seemed pretty confident.

Up and under the A1 and we were soon onto quiet country roads – the tiny Hamlet of Pitcox was the first point, its a crossroads but all at a funny angle – quite an odd and interesting little place.

Then onto Stenton before we turned down to Biel, over the Biel Water and then left, heading along a long, arduous straight road to take the road to the north of Traprain Law – the wind started to get up as we passed the Law, but by then it was mostly downhill, and Haddington was vaguely in sight. Susan suddenly decided to up the pace for the last 3-4 miles and whilst I wasn’t struggling, I was working a bit harder, and feeling the ill effects of eating nachos with jalapenos a bit too close for comfort to the run………I said she was welcome to a sprint finish – i’d watch.

We rolled up at Haddington Pool where Theresa and Craig were in the car waiting after their mega swimming session – they seemed to want us to run to the car, but Susan was determined to keep the Garmin clocking us at 1:40 and no longer!

12.9 miles at 1:40 was not too bad for a return to this sort of distance.

Decided to check out my Garmin 305 fault  - fter a bit of googling, the problem seemed to be the internal contacts behind the screen. Unfortunately, this would involve separating it into two halves, and bending the contacts back. The casing is sealed too, so would have to be re-sealed with silicone. Anyway, I gingerly prised it in half with a knife, and the gold contacts were quite easy to see and bend back up so that contact was restored. I then cleaned up the seal, and re-applied some ‘aquasure’ sealant all around to seal it shut. Seems to have worked too – it is has been wrapped in tape so the aquasure can cure overnight, hopefully it will be all ok for use tomorrow for a lunchtime run up Arthur’s Seat.

Tested out the Brooks Ghosts…..

Popped out on Tuesday night with the Club for the first run in a few weeks – a two week lay-off doesn’t sound that bad, but it actually is…….probably seems longer as I’ve had this injury since before Christmas and have had several ‘false starts’ with smaller periods of enforced inactivity in between.

Well, the run went well – went off on my own to avoid the club competitive element and managed a nice easy and steady 3 mile route (wow), but everything felt really good. I had planned to go out again last night whilst the club were doing interval sessions, but a particulary busy and stressful day at work prevented me getting out of the office and back to Dunbar in time……..so headed out today for a 5 miler. Again, good run. No sign of any niggles in the calf, tightness or otherwise.

So far so good – don’t want to make any assumptions about injury-free as yet, but looking fine at the moment. The new Brooks feel good too, nice ‘relaxed’ feel about them, hard to describe. They don’t feel ‘new’, but not in a bad way. Date of purchase has now been written on the inside, so no excuse for wearing these babies into the ground.

Nu shooz

Still in injury time – got a bruiser of a calf massage last Tuesday – quite literally. Asked Ray the perennial runner’s question – how long? “Oooooh – if I was being very cautious, id say a fortnight’s rest”. So, given I haven’t ran since 22nd Feb, then the massage on 28th, i’m thinking I might just check out the legs at the end of the coming week…..decided the current shoes had to go – a possible contributory factor, so we popped into Run4it for a gait analysis and ended up walking out with a pair of Brooks Ghost shoes, after trying 3 or 4 pairs on the dread-mill…..one leg is definitely acting differently from the other, in terms of angle and footfall, though different with various shoes. Tight hips and consequently calf seem the likely culprit, maybe caused by something joint-wise out of place? who knows? – time will tell. Calf is definitely better after the lay-off, but not wanting to rush back into things. Meanwhile, the road bike has been getting a bit more attention….

Before this, we were through early morning at Cambuslang for the Cambuslang Ronhill 10K ‘down by the river’ –  Theresa had entered this a few weeks ago, and she ran a very good race – 3 seconds outside her 10K PB which was set back in 2006 – so she is ‘really pleased’. Her continued return to form is noticeable – a good start to the year for her. The race was set in an industrial estate, which sounds terrible, but once you are down by the Clyde, it really is rather pleasant. I kinda like the old, and long disused industrial buildings that crop up along this part of the Clyde, a fair bit upstream from the city centre. New course record set too, wow – 31 minutes something…..

Spooky footnote……my number was ’253′ at Carnethy the other week, as was my position, well Theresa was no ’88′ at Cambuslang, and her position was….88.!

Road bike

I picked up a Carrera Fury hardtail bike last Autumn, it has served me quite well on the tracks up over the hill and for kicking around the rough stuff, when not running. Quite well specified for the price too, decent frame, Suntour air shocks, SRAM gearing, Avid hydraulic disc brakes, 27 speed etc. Hard to know how they can put this together for the price….only downside was the build quality out of Halfrauds, needed a bit of fettling and adjustment at home before it was ‘right’.

Not really getting enough miles in with that though, and my current temporary (and hopefully brief) lay-off from running  made me think about getting a cheap road bike. I fished about in the local ads at the weekend, and noticed an older Dawes Competition Giro 400 for sale for just over 100 notes over in Pathhead.  Gave it a look over and brief road test and went for it. Think it is a 90s vintage but is in immaculate condition. It really bears no relation to the newer Dawes bikes, this one was hand built and i’m not sure if newer Dawes stuff is built to the same standard – anyway, my research tells me that these older Dawes road bikes were quite highly respected. It’s a chromoly frame, though surprisingly light, 14 speed shimano gearing and shimano QR. Also got a few bits and bobs with it, including a Cateye computer.

Gave it a quick service, replaced the clipless pedals for the time being(didn’t want to buy shoes) and have since replaced the awful bar tape which adorns it in the above pic with black.

So far so good – great to get out and get a bit of speed up.

Physio tomorrow for my leg, and i’m hoping to get back out running maybe next week.

 

No running for a bit……

Time to hang the shoes up for a while – calf twanged with a snapping sensation last night, 2 miles into an easy and ‘experimental’ run just to see how it felt. Bang goes Sunday’s Devilla Forest race, and probably anything else for the foreseeable future. Grrrrrrr.

A theory

I am still getting a bit of bother with the calf.

I had a very comfortable run on Tuesday night with the club, if truth be told, the best training run in ages – not because I was fast, or managed to beat Susan L (I didn’t), or anything like that, but I was pain-free for the first time in months….The next day, I hatched an impromptu plan to run from the office at Haymarket, join the canal at the basin and run right round the towpath to Sighthill, then drop down to the Gyle Station where Theresa had left the car. It was getting dark about half way round and a bit ropey on the dark section around Wester Hailes, more from the bikes coming at me in the dark at fair speed. Got round to the car ok, and felt fine with just under 7 miles on the clock.

Fast forward to the interval session on Thursday – Ian R hatched a plan of the usual mile warm up, then 6 X 1Km, with a shortened recovery time each kilometre. Warm up was ok, but I only managed to complete two of the kilometre intervals before the calf got sore again. Decided to stop and take a slow session elsewhere, away from the track.

I’m now increasingly suspicious that my leg problem may somehow be related to the track sessions. It always occurs at intervals, and I think it may have something to do with running around in circles (no change there..), on a not so great grass track, with the strain on my left leg exacerbated by leaning around the bends.

Just a theory. I don’t think the cause is speed work per se, as I i’ve participated in the odd race in recent weeks, and of all races, the Carnethy 5 would surely have tested my calf to the limits…

So, no intervals for a few weeks, i’ll replace that with maybe some tempo running, or hill reps, just to see what happens.

Will see how it holds up today at the final Borders XC at Floors Castle today. Where has the winter XC series gone…?

Parkrun then Carnethy debut….

Theresa wanted to try another parkrun today, as her form is improving, so it was an early start – first stop Cramond, then into ‘The Gyle’ shopping centre (I hate that place) for brunch prior to heading on for my Carnethy5 debut. Theresa’s time is continuing to improve and conditions were ideal down on Cramond foreshore – cool and no wind. She managed to shave about 25 seconds off a recent 5K.

Carnethy was new to me so I wanted to get there sharpish to get registered and sorted. Its a pretty big event, logistically, you park in Penicuik, register etc then get bussed to Silverburn, at the foot of the Pentlands – all for 600 entrants. We decided to getting bussed out fairly early then we spent a bit of time hanging about, me getting psyched up for the race and Theresa getting pissed off with hanging about in the cold – no matter. I swithered quite a bit about what attire to settle on, shorts ticked the box, and then concluded after much indecision that there would be ‘no jacket required’. Very unfortunately for me, this set in motion an subconscious process of recall and I had to suffer the continual playback in my head of various songs by that that F*ckw*t slap-headed king of bland, Phil Collins.

Thankfully, I managed to reach my lactic threshold a few times on the climbs, and this coupled with my heart rate approaching the red-zone, took my mind off the pish spinning about in my head.

But what a race – fantastic. 5 peaks to climb @ total climb of 2500′ (first and last seemed the worst) Scald Law, South Black Hill, East Kip, West Kip and Carnethy – What more can I say? – i’ve got to hand it to seasoned hill runners. I’m just a big woose running downhill – teetering here and there, scared to open up some bigger strides, all the while all sorts fly past, without any apparent fear. Guess its all about confidence – can it be learnt? I don’t know. Anyway, this is where I lost a lot of places and I simply don’t do enough of this sort of thing currently to get better at it. The climbs don’t bother me – they are a bit of a leveller insofar as most folk just lock into line and walk , I enjoy the flat and have no problem with some of the easier gradients, but once it gets to about 45 degrees downhill, I start to lock up.

Would I do it again? Probably, just to see if I could work on my technique between now and 2013. Think I ambled in about 1:15, so no disaster and came in within the time I anticipated. More importantly,  my calf held up – I’ve been worried about it most of the past week, and have been massaging it and generally working at it, hoping it would ease off. Seemed to get away with it.

Noticed they were doing free massage back at the finish, so got checked out there by no less than Angela Mudge, the regular first lady of the event for a good few years.

Looks like my fate was marked out from the start…..my number was 253, guess what my position was? Weird…

Results etc HERE