I've just realised that I haven't updated my blog for some weeks, reason being, I've been busy at work, busy at home and busy training and I took another cold and I made the decision to rest from running for a week to make sure I didn't make things any worse.
It's now only 6 sleeps until the big event and I'm in what can only be described as a loop of emotions, going from being relatively calm to being quite excited to feeling quite emotional. Hopefully on Friday night I'll be relatively calm and will get a good nights sleep, but to be sure of that Iain will have to sleep in another room, his snoring could waken the dead!! I've been tapering for the past week, but before that I've ran some big runs. My biggest being 29miles - I had no idea that I could run that far (and given that I entered the D33, I only hoped that I could)! It was an interesting 29 miles, which I ran with what some might say complete strangers, but it didn't feel like that as I met them on facebook - now that I've actually said that and thought that through and I think of all the messages that we read about meeting up with people from social networking sites and would bollock our children for doing this, some might say that this wasn't the cleverest thing to do. However in defence of my action, the event was posted on the fb page and people knew where I was going. What a great wee group of runners it was and I've since ran with them again. On the day we ran the 29 miles, the weather was perfect, I started off with running at the Strathclyde parkrun and then ran to meet up with the other runners who ran in from Glasgow Green along the Clyde Stride route, we then followed the route all the way to New Lanark. The route was very challenging, we ran through a field where some work was being done, we had to be mindful as to where we were placing our feet as the ground was quite uneven and very muddy in places. One of the runners ran ahead and we thought that we had lost him, a quick phone call to him confirmed that we hadn't and he was waiting a wee bit ahead for us. The field that we ran through had none of it's usual resident cows in it, surely it wasn't too muddy for them, or maybe they are kept indoors over the winter - who knows, but the 'where have the cows gone' kept my mind occupied instead of thinking about the distance ahead. We stopped for one of our snacks, I like this bit and it's always interesting to see what other people bring with them - jam pieces, fudge, salted peanuts, hula hoops, jelly babies all of which we shared topped up with water or an energy drink before heading off at a nice easy pace. I stayed at the back with Julie Docherty who is in training for the Clyde Stride Ultra in July, she was great company, chatted away and I only had to listen, I'm not great at the chat back bit when I'm out running, it's difficult enough having to breath let alone talk, anyone else like that? Unfortunately Julie and David Mooney had to turn back, my choice was to go with them or continue to New Lanark, the distance was the same whatever I chose to do. I decided that as I'd never gone this way to New Lanark, I would continue on the route that I'd set out to do. The group was diminshing as it had been a group of 7, with people joining in and dropping out at verious points and now we were down to a group of 3, David Martin, Robert Soutar and me. David and Robert were a great support, they'd run on and one would run back to me or they'd stop and wait, we'd have a snack and then crack on. The last 12 or so miles were a killer, who on earth put hills like that on the route and it was so very muddy. I got a tiny wee injury, which could've been a lot worse when I slipped on the mud and grabbed the fence to stop me falling, the fence was a barbed wire one, on this occasion I only nicked my finger and snagged my t'shirt. Onward we went, I then became aware that I foolishly had not taken enough water with me and was beginning to flag, fortunately David had taken an extra bottle of lucozade with him which he didn't need and gave it to me. When we came into a wee village we stopped at a shop to buy what ever we fancied, I wanted Red Bull, glugged it down and felt a bit more energised and off we all went again. Not far 'till the end, however the climb only got harder and we could see the finish area, unfortunately we had to run away from it to reach it, my heart sunk as we had many steps to climb before coming back down to where the Clyde Stride ends, and as this was a practice run there were no hugs, bottles of beer or fudge. Just a bit of a walk into Lanark to get the train back to Motherwell for me and Glasgow for Robert and David. The guys spotted Greigs and got themselves some sausage rolls - yuck!! We arrived at the train station and we could see the train there, so in fear of it taking off without us, we had to put the foot down and get on it. What a great sense of relief it was to sit down, the train moved off from the station and we were homeward bound. When we arrived in Motherwell it became evident that my legs didn't want to work and I struggled to get up and get off the train, by now I was moving like an 80 year old. Having never been to this train station before I wasn't aware that I would also have to climb stairs to get onto the main street - not a pretty site as I groaned with every step, my shoes were covered in mud as were my clothes, not a bonny picture. My car was about a mile away in Strathclyde Park and I hadn't quite reached the miles that I wanted to complete today, so I had no choice but to start moving one foot in front of the other as fast as I could until I broke out into a 'run'. Fortunately the road to the park is downhill so it wasn't too difficult to do and after adding on wee extra bits I got to 29 miles, I couldn't be bothered taking it to 30miles, I was stood by my car, it was time to go home a happy but tired runner who's longest run had been 26.2miles. I knew then that I will run the 33 mile race on the 16th March. A week later I met up with David and Julie and some well kent faces as well as some new runners and together with a number of dogs we did a section of the West Highland Way, a first for me and I loved it, a new route for me and the dogs for the future. I ran the first section with Harv, Iain met us half way and we swapped dogs over and Lily ran the second half. Apart form waking to get fed and go out to relieve herself, she slept until Tuesday! Well that's my news, for the next week I plan to avoid people with colds and bugs, I've drafted my list of what I need to take with me for the race. Did I say it's only 6 more sleeps, I've got butterflies in mytummy thinking about it!
