Marching on...

 No pun intended given that today is the 1st of March, but 'marching on' is a fair assessment of how I am feeling at the moment. 
I've done a few fairly tough and fairly hilly sessions over the past few weekends, and in the main I've enjoyed them, however the last 7 miles of yesterday's was definitely a case of 'head down and keep on moving!' 
We were at By The Way in Tyndrum for the second of the three Fling weekends and as always, Johnny Fling put on a great weekend.  We have a long weekend this weekend so we travelled up on Friday afternoon and after checking in and getting changed I had a good run round 'Kirsty's wee loop' especially enjoying the second half through the woods where there was thick snow and I was able to run confidently in it both up and down the hill.  I am still sticking with my run 4m30s and walk 30s intervals and they are becoming easier to maintain
Saturday's planned run was from Beinglas to Inversnaid and back but I wanted to go North to get some more hill practice and John is recovering from a calf tear, so he agreed to come out with me.  I said I would go out for 5 or 6 hours depending on the weather, the miles being the secondary objective, the main objective being time on my feet and climbing metres in my legs.  I was out 5h32m and climbed 615m so goals achieved.
It was pretty wild going over Jelly Baby Hill but nowhere near as bad as when we went in January but the real shock was on the way back, I climbed up from the station at Bridge of Orchy and the wind was so strong that I could hardly stand in it never mind run in it! 

This is what Beinn Dorain looks like on a nice day, I've climbed it twice but the horizontal sleet/hail/snow/rain and gale force winds changed my perspective of it yesterday as I trudged and shuffled my way back to Tyndrum - it is still a spectacular mountain though!

Once back at BTW, showered and 2 cups of warm soup inside me, the world took on a more amenable glow and thanks to Donald's laptop and the big screen, we were able to watch the rugby as the other drookit runners started to come home, chittering and dripping. 
The rest of the evening consisted of the usual great meal, followed by the quiz -  we really missed Emma's presenting skills!  This morning, a few folk went for a run on the 'wee loop' we decided not to - the legs felt fine, but the thought of another battle with the winds and rain held no attraction. 
We decided to head down the new road at Crianlarich and so ended up in Glasgow where a spot of birthday present shopping and a nice lunch was enjoyed.
Tomorrow we have another day off so another run is on the cards.  Fingers crossed for some fairer weather, but I'm not too hopeful...

(ps I chose the marching ducks as they reminded me of Boston)