Catching up

Another busy week has passed by already! Work wise it's busy and stressful, thank goodnes for exercise and running to relieve the stress...
I didn't run as much as I'd planned second half of last week, but I did get out on Saturday morning for a good 20km run, the sun shone and there was definitely a hint of Spring in the air. As usual though there was a strong headwind along Hillfoots Rd - a 4m straight from Tillicoultry to Alva which is a natural wind tunnel!
Sunday morning dawned grey and drizzly, but now wind whatsoever, perfect racing weather - It was the Alloa Half Marathon, this is our local race and it was the route I ran on Saturday. It's a well respected race which attracts a lot of club runners and is traditionally used by them as a sharpener before the London Marathon, it also has it's fair share of "fun runners" and this year there were 901 finishers. We went along to watch the start and then again at the 2miles mark before heading to Edinburgh for my last Diehard Bootcamp, this means I kept it up for 10 weeks which I am really pleased about :-) We met in the Pentland hills and headed out for a trail run with "challenges" it was about 5 miles in total in varied weather - some sharp showers and cold winds up high, but pleasant on the lower ground. We included hill sprints on short sharp grassy slopes, then on a narrow stoney footpath up a bigger hill, pressups and situps using the incline - that was interesting as slipping back down head-first was a definite possibility! We ran on all sorts of terrain, through burns and bogs, on shingle and grass but there are a good selection of paths/trails up there and a large number of "ramblers" as well as a couple of serious runners and mountain bikers. At various points along the way there were mystery challenges to complete including eating a doughnut without licking your lips, and we got to set challenges for the instructors as payback! As always we had a good laugh at the same time as working out and the 2hours passed quickly. I will miss the routine and the camaraderie which has built up over the last 10 weeks, but I am going to concentrate on training for Edinburgh over the next few weeks so will sign up for the one session a week option for the next 6 weeks at Stirling. I may well do another 10week programme over the summer months. It was definitely a good thing to do though and made getting through the dark winter evenings much more fun - I would have found excuses not to go out if I hadn't signed up to the program.
Yesterday the legs were a bit stiff, and I had an interval session on my program, I wasn't looking forward to it I can tell you! I went to the gym about 6pm and managed to complete the workout, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared it might be and in a slightly masochistic way I enjoy intervals, I think it's to do with the challenge element of it... Was very hard and I was tired when done, but sense of achievement of completing it is greater than the tiredness/pain. Today's workout is a 3mile run, which I would usually try to fit in at lunch time, but I have back to back meetings with only travelling time in between so I can't do it then, I have a bootcamp at Stirling tonight so will have a wee run before it and then do the session and that will be my training for today.
Talking about achievements... yesterday was day 80/100 of the 100 Days Challenge! 80 Days of intentional movement! Quite impressive - some of the days have only been a walk from the office at lunchtime into the town and back but they all count!