Working Hard But Treading Water....or MUD

After Tuesday's Blind Man's Bluff I went along to Jog Scotland looking for about 5 miles of easy running, and got in about 4.5 with a slower group than I'm used to. Linda, who takes the group below mine, wasn't feeling too good, so had the night off and as only one of my own group turned up I was asked to take Linda's. That was no problem and JR decided to add in an extra run after his 5.30pm group finished their run, bringing with him Christine who has entered the Fling and is building up her mileage. That meant the ladies ran a bit longer than they were used to, but at about the same pace so they gained and I,too,got some recovery mileage.
And I needed it as on Thursday I went along to the club, knowing we were up for 6 half mile hill reps with a jog back down to recover. A good turn out with Stevie, Adrian and Steph putting in some fast reps with their strong hill climbing background, Garry, adding youth and probably inexperience to run very fast(!!), Brian, a Flinger attending his first session, Geraldine, Richard,Ali and, in addition, a good group from JR's training squad doing their own thing at various distances within our session. The main drag from the main Balloch Park Gates to the top of the hill near the turn off for the north gate was a busy wee street. Street lighting for about 600yards then darkness, hiding the end of the run until you started meeting the leaders coming back down.A real struggle to keep going for all 6 reps, with recovery being stretched and lunch threatening a re-appearance towards the end. Legs like jelly and regretting the heroics on the first couple of reps as the young ones (and bar JR, Chris and Linda everyone is a young one to me) kept a heady pace on what everyone agreed was a good hard session. All on the main drive though, keeping the mud for Friday morning and a 9am meet with JR,Brian,Linda, Sandra from the night before as well as Catherine,her mad Dalmation "Jasper" and Lauren. An easy run said our JR. But what he meant was "you'll be running the Whinney Hill race route for next weekend, but you can go as slow as you like" Slow? Walk more like. A wee bit of jogging, rescuing of shoes from mud, swamp and kicking of branches. Five and a bit miles maybe of very hard going. On my least favourite of all the club runs. Grrrr!
Still, back to the club's HQ at the leisure centre where for a couple of quid into the kitty, JR manages to extend his OAP status to copious amounts of tea, toast, beans, jam and all served by The WHW race's oldest ever finisher! And Cowper put in an appearance to be embarrassed by the knowledge that those club-mates he had blown away the night before were back out at 9am the following day!
Now! Feet up with a rest day tomorrow and a run on the Way on Sunday.