JogScotland night.... a little off the programme

A little bit about my involvement in JogScotland; I attended the second Jogleaders course at Linwood about 6 1/2 years ago after being shanghaied by Christina Boxer. At the course I met a certain Jim Robertson who was intending setting up a group in Alexandria. I eventually found myself leading a group on the first night of the Alexandria Wednesday night group, part of the West Dunbartonshire Sports Development Jogscotland section. I've been there ever since, and as a result have been a member of Milburn Harriers for about 4 years. However since starting my latest job, I've found it hard to get my running in but as I only work 4 days I decided to take every 2nd Wednesday off and take the alternating Tuesdays off so I can get to Millies training at least once a fortnight. As I'm not always away late I can sometimes get to training on the alternating weeks too. Tonight was one of the"extra" nights as I had been off on Tuesday but only had local jobs today. I knew plan B would have to be an option as I've found the ladies struggle in the heat and at 22 degrees C today I was quickly reminded that they weren't up to an hours hard running. So we set off at a slow jog, but as a quid pro quo told them I would be working some hills into the route. What transpired was a bit of Fartlek with the efforts on a few hills in Bonhill and a final one the long climb up from the "Magic Roundabout" onto Main Street Alexandria. A wee bonus was that I could let them run on and then follow behind at a fair pace so I took some benefit from the session other than getting to run slow. We spent exactly an hour on the road and I was very pleasantly surprised at how well I was running during the efforts, without overdoing it!
I also got a chance to catch up on the news of one of the West Dunbartonshire athletes, whose mother runs with us on Wednesdays. Jade had been down at the British Schools running in the 4 x 300m relay. Her first representative vest (for Scottish Schools) and she seems to have had a great experience and I am sure she will have many more.

On the way home I stopped in at Asda for milk but ended up treating myself to Raspberries and cream which I have just enjoyed with a dollop of ice cream! see running.... see getting to eat well...
By the way since starting training for trails and stuff, I've lost half a stone (sorry debs). I put a stone on when I went holiday daft after retiring from the polis and never got it off. I've struggled to run as fast as I was pre-retirement so perhaps faster times may follow........ not that I'm bothered now. It's distance not speed I'm chasing now!