Day 6 of the Marcothon

So far I have managed a run every day in December. The snow has been deep at times and the weather cold but there has been lots of sunshine so running has been a joy. Friday was grey and cold but I still managed the best part of 6 miles.

However, day 6 of the Marcothon was quite different. Early morning rain in Glasgow froze into ice on the roads but turned to heavy snow at 09:00. Buses, lorries and vans slid all over the roads. By 12:00 and a thaw had set in. So we had slush and wet snow on ice. I decided to do a hill session in the Clyde pedestrian tunnel. I ran there to find it closed and so ended up doing 4 miles in the park with cold wet feet!

Ominously I finished my run as blue skies moved in from the North West. I foresee frost and total chaos on the roads tonight and tomorrow morning.

Marcothon day one.

The day was beautiful. Clear blue sky and warm sunshine. Unfortunately the air temperature of -3°C and the occasional flurries of snow meant that the first day of the Marcothon challenge was ... well .... a challenge. Rather than do the minimum required distance of 3 miles (or 25 minutes) I opted to do my 4.5 mile run through Victoria Park and up to Hyndland and back via Great Western Road and then down the Victoria Park Nature Walk. It is a good mix of quiet off road running together with pavement running. Nowhere had the snow been made into ice and so it really wasn't slippery. In fact is was a most enjoyable run. I'm ready for the next 30 days!

Preparing from the 2010 Marcothon.

Foolishly (I think) I have signed up to the Marcothon. Last year a Garscube Harrier, Marco, decided to run at least 3 miles every day in November and Debbie posted a challenge on Facebook. He completed the task as did many who took up the challenge. This year the challenge went out to do a Marcothon in December. The weather has made the start of the Marcothon a bit harder than I expected and so I went out today to try the underfoot conditions. It could have been called a warm-up, but I didn't. However my basic, just over 3 mile, run was perfectly possible and so I plan to use this run whenever the weather is bad or .............
It was a bit harder than I thought. Where the snow hadn't been walked on it was over 10cm deep and that means high knees!
Looking forward to the start of the Marcothon tomorrow.

Early Summer 2009

After the West Highland Way run I managed a couple of weeks running before we went away on holiday. We went to a village called Chite about half way between Granada and the coast of the Mediterranean at Motril. It was even hotter than expected in mid-June. One day in Granada it reached 42°C! So the only time I could cope with running was in the morning before breakfast. Add to that the fact that Chite was on a hill top with lemon and orange groves all around and you can see that running was going to be difficult. I did one run straight down the hill on a narrow road which turned into a track and then a path and then a lemon grove. The run out and back was about 3 miles and was hard. The next day I picked another downhill route and ended at the lake. The lake had a path around the side which I followed for about 2 miles seeing ahead the track leading to a dam and the road back to Chite. Unfortunately the path a bit further on had been washed away and I had to retrace my steps all the way back to the villa. A bit further than I had planned but an excellent 6 miles or so. You can just see the lake in the picture at the top of this post. The view is from the balcony of our villa. It turned out to be my last run. Late nights and busy days meant that I slept soundly and never made it up for another early morning run - but we did have a great holiday especially the visit to Granada's Alhambra.

West Highland Way relay.

I finally get round to reporting on our relay race up the West Highland Way. Those who were up early to catch the whole day or to run the first leg are pictured in Milngavie on the right.
The run took place on Saturday 6th June which was a good day for the run because it was warm and mainly sunny. This meant we could have a comfortable run and see the scenery. It did rain while we were in Glen Coe but it wasn't heavy rain like last year. I ran the last section from Lundavra over the hill into Glen Nevis and down to the finish on the edge of Fort William. It starts off as a very up and down section as it takes you into the pine forest, but once into Glen Nevis you have a long descent on a stony path. I was the slowest runner (taking just over an hour) on the last leg, even beaten by Leslie who was some months pregnant, but it was most enjoyable. We are very lucky to have such a place to run just on our doorstep.
We stayed overnight at the Inchcree Centre at Onich. Hardly any midges this year - what a relief. The food and the beer was good and I managed to get the results sorted before the end of the meal. The winning team took 13 hours and 45 minutes to complete the run and the slowest team took just over 15 hours. A great weekend.

MOKRUN - The Mull of Kintyre 10k run

I'm just back from an 8 mile run and feeling very pleased with myself. The run took me by road to Anniesland and then twice around the rather hilly Dawsholm Park before returning to home. No problems encountered so I'm ready for the West Highland Way run next weekend.
How did I get here? In my last blog I reported on the Garscube Training Weekend. It set me up for some good training over the next couple of weeks before I caught a nasty cold (with persistent cough) which put paid to training (and saxophone playing) for over a week. I managed to get a couple of runs in before running the MOKRUN with my neighbour John. You'll know from an earlier blog that John has had a recurring problem with a calf muscle. Last year at the MOKRUN he tried to race and pulled the muscle again so this year he was determined to stay on my shoulder and thus run a gentle race. He did just that and we completed the race together in a comfortable 50 minutes and 1 second. We did put on a bit of a stide to duck under 50 minutes but luckily we didn't try too hard and so no injury resulted.
I followed the race by leading the slow pack in a Fartlek session at Garscube on Tuesday. Those who took part enjoyed it and it suited me too. Just enough speed work to get moving without any strain. The speed work did ensure that I was properly stiff the next day but a gentle run soon sorted that.
So that brings me up to today and a most satisfactory run with half of it off road and up and down hills that gives me loads of confidence for next weekend's efforts on the West Highland Way.

The Training Weekend

I made it. Got to the training weekend and trained.
This year the Garscube Training weekend was at the Trossachs Tryst, as it was last year. Back then I bought a Ridgeback Neutron bike afer the training and cycled it home in glorious sunshine (but the bike was stolen from our garage a month later - doh). So this year I decided to stick to running. As usual the weekend was a mix of running and eating and drinking. I got up to the Trossachs Tryst crammed into a car with Jill diving, Maz, baby Fin and dog Cree and all our collective stuff. We got to Callander in time for a quick 3 mile run before the evening meal. Saturday was more demanding on the running side. In the morning we did a drills warm up and then 20 reps of 1 minute recovery followed by 1 minute at pace followed by a warm down. The whole thing was run along the cycle track north of Callander along the banks of the Falls of Lenny. A perfect place for a run. In the afternoon we did a hill session up a forestry trail. I ran eight times up the hill which was enough for me (six were enough... but). We were planning to have a carry-out meal on Saturday night but we had brought so much food up from Glasgow on Friday that we were able to cope with a few Pizzas bought in Callander and the food we had brought with us. The picture shows us at the meal (and Ailsa showing off her shoes). On Sunday I ran an early five miles with Rob, Marco and Lesley who were all going to looking after children while others ran their 20 miles in preparation for the Edinburgh marathon.
Jill and Maz were unexpectedly accompanied by Cree on their 20 mile run but she trotted the 20 miles without difficulty.
For me the weekend was a success. I managed to do a run in every session and had no injury problems. I can now look forward to training for the Mull of Kintyre 10k with confidence.