Back in the Groove

Two runs since my last post, 13+ miles on Sunday and 12 last night.
Sunday's run was one of those forced upon me by laziness, having stayed in bed when I could've gotten my arse down to meet JR's group for some company. However my working wife only gets a long lie on Sunday and it's nice to have a bit of company so I stayed with her. Only to keep her company mind..... ;-)
So it was a solo run a bit later in the day and I headed down to Helensburgh on the main rd then up to the top of Sinclair Street and beyond before turning back. On getting to the Fruin road end I saw a sign for an off road footpath back to Craigendoran and followed that, cutting some distance from the return journey but getting the bonus of some muddy paths. Not a great run though, pacing difficult with the hills taking their toll.
Rest day Monday with a home circuit training session to allow a bit of muscle work and stretching, then down to the club on Tuesday for a steady 12 miles. Had a lot of water to drink as I was showing some signs of dehydration and, despite a visit in the changing area, soon after starting I felt the urge to go again. I ran ahead of the group to get to MacDonalds at Balloch then ran hard until the top of the Cameron Hill on the Luss Road to catch them again. That was the hardest work of the night although I put another effort in up the same hill on the way back. The run was out and back through the Carrick golf course to the Colquhoun gates, following a rough footpath at the end of the timeshare area. It was dark by this time so a bit hard to see as no-one had a headtorch, but reminiscent of the West Highland Way race last year where, when supporting Jim and in the company of quite a few others, we were doing fine by moonlight until Sean walked back from Kingshouse and met us with his torch on, effectively blinding us. The biggest problem with this run is on the cycle path near Loch Lomond Castle where the car headlights blind you and makes it impossible to see the path. Anyway, it was fairly steady back to the club although we added a loop round the Lomond Shores as Mr Garmin was warning us we were short of 12 miles by a simple out and back. At the end of the run, Steph and I ran along Middleton St whilst Ger, Jimmy and Ian went along the Main St, all arriving together. My Garmin told me i had about .05 of a mile to do so ran round to the car park whilst the other stopped just before the centre, but I didn't see them again as I met two of Jim's group in the car park so stopped for a blether. By the time I walked back the others had gone. Sorry! Pretty stiff this morning so I've left my run to this afternoon with JogScotland tonight to build some more miles at an easy pace. Race this Sunday at Alloa so if I get the miles in early this week I can ahave a day off on Saturday to rest up. I've never run Alloa as I normally run the Balloch to Clydebank, so it's something to look forward to.Hopefully it'll give me an idea of my fitness although I'm feeling pretty good and free of previous injury.

Club run in snow....not in snow...in snow

Snow. Nice to look at, nice to run in when it's fresh, but why can't it just disappear all at once never to re-appear until it's ready to snow hard? Last night I appeared at the club to find JR heading out to do hill reps, but cutting back on the reps per set per hill, if you follow me, that meant I would have had to do an extra rep on my own per set or do a full set of hills after the rest finished. Steph meantime was staying off the hills as he is doing the Carnethy 5 on Saturday and decided to do a 10miler out into the cycle track besuide the A82 beyond thge Carrick Golf Course and return. So 4 of us set off on that with Steph and Geraldine taking it a bit slower than yours truly and Brian. Mainly good surface for running but every now and again we would hit slushy, slippy snow or rutted crunchy stuff that does nothing for me except tighten the muscles in preparation for what my pea-sized brain anticipates...... a fall!
Fortunately I didn't fall but by the time I hit the climb out of Duck Bay on the old Luss road, the one covered in aforesaid crunchy icy stuff my muscles were tighter than a tight thing and I had to stop for a stretch and slow down. A pity because it was a nice run until then, apart from the white stuff!
Checking my e-mails this morning I found this from my neice and I post it without comment except to say that it continues the driving theme that the Subversive Runner started on his site.

Club Night a Visit to the Golf Club

Two good groups at the club with Jim Robertson leading his group and Steph, Geraldine, Big Ed and I heading off for a long run, accompanied by Rob for the first couple of miles whilst on his marathon prog.
My choice of run, so decided to do the run that Geraldine and I had done a couple of weeks ago but without going into Rossdhu and looping through the Carrick Golf club a couple of times. the first time that Steph and Ed had been on this run and they gave it a pass mark. Basically a road run with forestry type trails through the golf course. A steady if easy run of about 11 and a 1/2 miles in 1hr 42, looping back a couple of times to re group with a strong finishing couple of miles.
Last year during preparation for the London Marathon and/0r Highland Fling we did long runs of up to 14 miles at night and some of this was done on roads with no lighting. I suggested that we shouldn't be running tonight's run in the dark. I should shut up! Steph suggests that we should do it using head torches!!! Something about running the WHW race at night.
Car lights on when coming home from training, the lights are fair drawing in.

Tooty Frooties and a long run

Going across to the Vale to meet Geraldine for our long run I had enough time to pop into the shops for the papers and found that Tooty Frooties have made a comeback following a campaign to bring back various sweets resulting in Wispas making a comeback too. The even better news is that they (Tooty Frooties) have no artificial colour or flavours and made with fruit juice. I tend to think the ones I ate way back in the day would have been full of EEs. Two packs went in the Camelbak pocket and Geraldine and I shared some at the halfway point in our run - and then my darling wife snaffled the remaining pack on my return home.
Anyway to the run. Elaine had e-mailed me wanting company at 9am but couldn't make 8 whilst Jimmy, who might have been coming, I knew,wouldn't want to run as late as 9. So it turned out just the two of us and we agreed to run along the west bank of the loch, through the Carrick Golf course and through Loch Lomond Golf club, all on public access paths I hasten to add. This is a run that Jim Robertson uses often but as it is mainly flat on footpaths had not been used by the A team, (or me!) The run takes us through Christie park for a short distance, the Main St and then where the Polaroid 10k turns into Lomond Shores, we continue up the Old Luss Road Duck Bay, follows the A82 on the cycle path then turns right at the Arden Roundabout down to the Inchmurrin Ferry and turns onto the Carrick on a well maintained path. How the other half live for a mile or so then back onto the A82 but only for 50 yards or so before going through the small gate at the big ornamental gates into Rossdhu Estate and through the Ross Park on a rougher trail which was muddy in places. Back along the road to the ornamental gates, whilst chewing on the Tooty Frooties then back through the Carrick returning the say way other than going through Cameron House Hotel saving the wee hill for the last couple of miles. 2 and 1/2 hours at a nice pace with good company and a lot better than last Saturday's dismal effort.

Only 4 runs this week for my mileage. Knowing I had a long run today I took Friday as a rest day, not because I felt I needed it, but because I didn't want to increase my weekly mileage by too much in a week. I'll do that gradually, with an easy week every three or four weeks depending on how I feel. I'll probably work hard next week too and then the first week of my hols as I'll have plenty of leisure time to relax and ease off the second week, prior to running the Stirling 10k on my return.
Heard from Dario yesterday and I have been accepted into The Race, so I obviously satisfied the Great Lord Dario as to my abilities and potential. It's a lot of pressure off the Fling, but in no way changes my programme which is aimed at getting plenty of miles into the tank before December and getting more structured from then on. One bonus is that so many of the club are aiming at the two races and we can train together a few time a week. When I did my marathon training last year it was good to progressively build an additional longer run of about 8-12 miles on club nights to back up the "long run" at the weekends. Some of my best training runs were on Tuesdays, and I know I wouldn't have done so well in London without them.
Now I'm sitting watching the 100m semis with laptop on knee. What a shame for the sprinters that they don't get to do what we get to do!!