15 milliseconds of international fame!

Sunday 9 December we did our marcothon
day 9 as the Santa Dash in Glasgow...

This is a 5k fun run to raise money for local charities - we've always been lucky with the weather - it's always stayed dry and there is something quite phenomenal about looking up St Vincent Street in Glasgow as you start the race and there is a sea of red in front and behind - 2400 Santas is quite a sight!

Here we are 500metres from the finish and decided to stretch out and race for the line :-)  I wasn't aware of a photographer and certainly wasn't aware of how far off the ground our feet were though it did feel good to be 'flying along'
A friend posted the picture in the afternoon, it apparently made it on to the international 'wires' and got as far as a newspaper in Australia!  It will probably be the only time I'll be in a photo which is in the Getty image bank.  I do feel wee bit sorry for the poor bloke we are just about to pass as he looks absolutely done and we went zooming past laughing.  We met our friend Paul before the race, though he finished before us - John could have finished way before me too but he ran round with me which was really nice, it keeps me honest and makes me keep running so I clocked my second fastest 5km time which was a bonus, given that it was a fun run and has a big hill at the start then we met some other friends, Colin, Brian and Hannah who was taking part in her second Santa Dash and who managed to run the whole way round this year - she's 5 :-) 
We then bumped into Janette and Gregor (10) doing their second Santa Dash, then went to meet up with Paul in The Counting House for breakfast.  It was fun to see the pub full of Santas, but it was probably the worst breakfast I've ever had, and we'd to wait at least half an hour for it, then when it did arrive it was disappointing to say the least...
John and I stayed in Glasgow overnight as we had the day off on the Monday so we had a very pleasant afternoon watching the world go by with a bottle of prosecco followed by a very nice dinner in Arisaig in the Merchant City.
More later about our Monday off...

7/31 marcothon week1 in the bag :-)

Apologies for the slightly satanic eyes in this photo, but this is Islay 'the dug'. 

Islay rose to global fame last year as the photogenic star of marcothon 2011.  Each day her slightly bonkers owner Alan posted a photo from their runs.  He also includes the number of the day in the photo in one form or another, hence the bottle of 7up in today's...
I am really pleased that we're finished week 1 and I have managed fine this year, I've completed my runs in one piece, in reasonably good humour and without any slips or injuries on the snow and ice, my legs are holding up well too, no great niggles or aches.  This may be a result of being a year more experienced, 25lbs lighter and a year more confident, or it may be as a result of my firewalk last week and my heightened levels of self-awareness and self belief... choose whichever option you please or choose to disregard them all, but as I said to John last night, something has changed and whatever it is, it's working so I'm not complaining :-)
This weekend we will hopefully get a slightly longer run tomorrow in fair conditions, and then on Sunday we will be in Glasgow for the Santa Dash, a fun 5km round the city with another couple of thousand mad runners dressed as various incarnations of Santa!  Great fun seeing the Saturday night revellers or 'jakies' who swear to never drink again after seeing the swathe of red and white wend it's way up St Vincent Street.  It truly is a sight to behold!
Monday is a day off for us so we will enjoy the city on Sunday afternoon/evening, stay overnight and then do something on Monday - including our run, before heading home.  I have tickets for the Pharoah exhibition in Kelvingrove so would like to try and take that in if possible...
To everyone who has managed to run this week, well done, who knows what the weather has in store for us in the weeks to come, but here's to good running and warm showers when you get home!
Have a great weekend folks x