Sometimes it's the little things...

...that give you the biggest sense of achievement!  Today was one of those days :-)
Last year we went to watch the Devilla races, a 5k and 15k trail run through Devilla Forest.  A great event put on by Carnegie Harriers, everyone ran out of the forest with muddy legs and mostly smiling, and I said then that I would really like to enter it next year.  Today was next year :-) I signed up at the end of last year, looking forward to it, but I must confess as the day approached my enthusiasm was waning.  I woke this morning with a 'snotty head' and a cough which wasn't the best start to the day, however by the time I'd had breakfast and got dressed, I had more of a 'race head' on.  We aren't far from Tulliallan Police College where the race is hosted, so were there in plenty of time to pick up number, chip and bottle of beer, say hello to lots of folk and then get a decent wee warmup done.  This race starts on a gently climbing uphill after which you get a wee descent and then it just seemed to keep on climbing!  Nothing hugely taxing but consistently climbing.  Now this is where the little things referred to above came into play, I am notoriously not good running uphill, I can fly down them with loads of confidence, but somtimes struggle with the self belief that I can actually get up them as well without needing to walk.  However today I did it!  I climbed all the hills at a nice steady even pace, and I even passed some people on the ups which is definitely a first for me - I usually pass them on the downs then they catch me back up on the next climb.  The other little thing which made a huge difference to my race, and this isn't something I have a problem with :-) is the mud!  At about 4km there was a queue!!! I ask you?  A QUEUE?  Yep a line of people - both ladies and men, lining up to take it in turn to walk in single file around the mud to avoid it wherever possible... Sorry, apologies if anybody thought I was rude, but I jumped the queue, I didn't push past anyone, I was considerate of others, I didn't laugh out loud at the poor girl who lost her bright pink shoe in the mud ;-) or had to hop in her lovely white socks, but I did go past and I DID go right through the middle of the mud.  It was only mid calf deep in the deepest places, and it didn't smell too bad, but it made my heart sing and my  brain buzz, it was a trail race after all!  After that I felt really strong and in control and that stayed with me the whole way today, that's another 'wee thing' that sense of working hard, but knowing that you're in control, never feeling stressed - it's a great place to be...
So yep it's been another learning day today and I'm pleased with the lessons I've learnt, I'm also pleased that I finished in a respectable time, a good few minutes faster than I had hoped for and in front of a few people that I thought I'd have been behind, that will teach them to join the queue ;-)
My fab friend Margaret who is training for her first marathon in 3 weeks time (and has been a star!!) came along with her Dad to take photos today - just before I saw them I had looked at my watch and realised I'd beaten my goals, can you tell from my phot I was happy???  :-)

It's that time of year again... it's marcothon!

 

 Yep, Saturday was December 1st so not only was it parkrun, it was day 1 of marcothon!

After the rain/sleet and ice of Friday night's firewalking adventures, Saturday morning dawned bright and cold, we headed off to Falkirk to meet up with our parkrun buddies, and to catch up again with Sue, Jim, Jordan and Keira who had driven up from Ayr specially to watch the firewalk then stayed overnight to come to parkrun.  We had a great run, the boys shot off at the start and us ladies followed at a more leisurely pace, the paths were icy and the grass was icy, hearbreak hill was icy, but the sun was shining low in the sky and it was a beautiful morning to be out...
Keira did brilliantly, she finished the 5km with a blistering sprint and earned her hot chocolate in the tearoom afterwards :-)  Running with Sue was great fun, it's always nice to finally meet a 'virtual' friend.
Special mention too to a friend whom we met during last year's marcothon, Alan and his 'dug' Islay ran every day and we all looked forward to his daily photo of Islay out on their run.  It was fantastic to finally meet him in person after a few failed attempts through the year.

For those of you who can't be bothered to follow the link to find out more, marcothon is a personal challenge to complete 5km or 25 min running every day in December.  We did this last year and I wasn't sure at the start if I would manage it but I did and it gave me a really good solid base to start my Spring training from.

The biggest difference between marcothon 2011 and marcothon 2012?  By day 5 I was stressing about getting a run, stressing about not being able to do a run fast enough, stressing that John was being a hero and putting up with my stresses and coming out with me so I would go... This year?  I am loving it and looking forward to and (so far) enjoying every run!

There is a wonderful community growing around marcothon with runners from "a' the airts" logging their adventures online and it's great to read what everyone is up to, where they are running, what the weather is like etc...
There are blizzards forecast tonight so given that we still have some ice and snow from Monday, it should make for an interesting day tomorrow, but you know what?  I've got my wee spikes for my shoes and I'm really looking forward to it - I'd run in this weather any day before the rain :-)
So, happy running fellow marcothoners!  Time for a bath to ease out the aches, and to hang up the washing - you know when you first buy a dishwasher you realise you need more dishes?? Running every day you realise you need more kit... ;-)

Another 6 weeks has passed...

I really don't know what is happening to this year, it's flying in waaaay to fast!!
The clock's 'spring' forward tonight which means that Summer won't be too far away and we get the pleasure of light mornings and long light evenings and I feel so much better :-)

So what have we been up to since I last posted early February? Work has been stressful and pressured so every non-working moment has been spent either running, training or sleeping trying to forget about it... it's settled down a bit in the past few weeks but it's still not the happy place it used to be :-(

We have been to Falkirk parkrun most Saturday mornings, either to run or volunteer, and I have successfully run all the way round the course, and conquered Heartbreak Hill - at the same time I got a new PB by 5minutes so that was a good morning :-)
Apart from that we have been training, both for a couple of half marathons and for our upcoming adventure at the Hoka Highland Fling - I am running a relay leg and John is doing the whole distance solo! (53miles)
We went to Paris for the Semi-marathon de Paris on 4 March and both had good runs, we both got new PBs! It was a very well organised event with about 23000 runners and we had perfect weather conditions so there was no excuse for not doing well :-)
2 weeks later on March 18 we ran our local race, the Alloa Half Marathon, once again we had fantastic race conditions, sunshine and barely a wind along the notorious hillfoots road, once again we both PB'd :-) we had a number of friends running and everyone did really well so all in all it was a great day out.
On Thursday I had the exciting experience(!) of having an MRI scan on my left leg, what a racket the machine makes! John also had the day off on Thursday and so he decided he was going to do a 30mile long run along the Forth & Clyde canal from Grangemouth to Clydebank, this meant that he could meet me at the hospital. It was the best day of the year so far, no wind and wall to wall sunshine, warm enough for running but not too hot. He covered the 31.5 miles comfortably and when I met him at the end, he looked like he'd run 10miles or so not 31.5! He is hopefully in a good place with his training, he managed another 12miles yesterday...
I had a day off yesterday and wanted to go and conquer Conic Hill, as I was a bit nervous about it and it's my relay leg on the Highland Fling, so we set off in a freezing cold wind from Drymen, and ran/walked to the top in 1h 30m. John turned back then and went to get the car so that I could continue and he'd meet me at the finish. I felt strong so decided to try and continue all the way to Rowardennan which meant I would have done the whole leg, as when we'd gone to run the Balmaha to Rowardennan route a in February and I had not had a good time, my leg was really sore that day. It is an awesome run down off the hill, took me less than 30minutes to get down to Balmaha and by the time I got there the sun was shining :-)
Balmaha to Rowardennan was a much better experience than last time, still extremely hard work, with lots of climbing! I was still tired at the end and a bit sore, but not injured sore, just worked-hard sore... All in all it was a good day out, finished it tired, muddy but happy :-)

total distance was 14.29 miles, total elevation climber was 529m