Tired :-)

And a little bit like the guy in the picture... purely down to tiredness I think, but on the more positive side, I feel ok about being tired as I've just checked my Garmin stats, and in the last 7 days I have clocked up 52.86 miles which takes me to 205.2miles for the year so far :-)

I had two good runs at the start of the week, the River Leith Walkway on Sunday, and the West Highland Way on Monday, both of which I posted about earlier this week.  I didn't run on Tuesday or Wednesday, nor did I get to fitcamp.  On Monday we didn't get back from our run in time for me to go, and then on Wednesday it started to snow just after 7am, and it didn't stop all day!  I don't mind exercising in the snow, but I don't like the drive through to Cumbernauld on the motorway in the snow, there are too many idiot drivers on the roads and they all seem to come out in force when the weather is bad :-(
Thursday evening we went to Run4It in Bridge of Allan to pick up our Trial shoes courtesy of Brooks Running, this was an offer they advertised in January where you could sign up to trial a pair of the new PureProject2 range of shoes for a week and in return you get a whopping £25 off a new pair.  I had fully intended buying the PureGrit2 when it launched, in fact I've been watching for the release, so this was a bonus and the fact that it was on my birthday as well was a nice wee surprise :-)  Anyway, I got the new Grit2 and John went for a pair of PureFlow.  I already own 2 pairs of PureFlow which I have trained for and run my last year's marathons in and I really like them as shoes, John isn't convinced yet, he, I think prefers the PureCadence or his ST5s for racing. 
I took my new shoes for a run in the forest today :-)  Next week I am taking part in the Devilla Forest 15k so I thought I'd go for a recce round the forest and get a feel for the conditions, it would also let me see how the shoes compare to my current ones - the biggest difference is a new improved sole, my current ones are quite slippy on downhills in wet conditions, or as I found out last Monday, slippy on sloping rocks if they are wet...
I was taken by surprise by how hilly it was today, I only hope that it's not that bad next week!  I have looked at the course map and I think I was on the hilliest bit of the forest and the race stays on a bit of a flatter terrain - at least that's what I'm hoping for!  The shoes performed brilliantly, the legs weren't quite so good!  It didn't help that the first 1km was a fairly hefty climb and then when I crested the hill, my legs wanted to run like I'd been running on the treadmill on Thursday night - this was not a good idea!  As soon as I levelled out and then started to climb again, my calves and hamstrings started squealing!  I took a path at a fork in the road which led into a very muddy trail, good for testing the shoes, but again not great for the legs, this path seemed to run out at a field entrance, so I doubled back on myself and then when I got back to the forest road I headed off downhill which was great a really nice long downhill run, however, as we all know, what goes down has to come back up again :-)  So at the end of my hilly tiring run, when I got back to the car, I'd only managed 14km and I was wanting 20km so that I could log my Febulous runs.  Febulous is a motivational personal challenge organised by Marathon Talk, you say how many runs you'll do a week and what your longest run will be each week, folk sign up as individuals or as part of a team, I'm part of the West Highland Way runners team so I couldn't not do the miles :-)
I finished my run by running the last 6km along the cycle path back to Clackmannan where John picked me up.  My legs are tired, and I'm tired, hence why I'm a bit grumpy, but I'm sure I will feel better after a good night's sleep and will do a wee 3-5mile run tomorrow.  Then it will be a new week...
4 weeks today I will have completed the D33, my first ultra of the year, and if I'm able to walk, I might run(?) the Alloa Half Marathon the following day, if I don't run it I will be there cheering on John and James and the rest of our friends who are running it, some for their first Half :-)

here are my new shoes, before and after...

Just out the box

After a wee run in the forest

different sole designs