The week that was

D33 seems like such a long time ago already. When i finished that race and for at least 2 days after i doubted my ability to look forward to another Ultra!

After chatting to Ian about it i think the reason i struggled was
A. my Pb the week before, i worked hard at Inverness and perhaps legs still tired?
B. I had a target, last yr i ran the race and just went with flow with no specific targets. This time i worked hard to get sub5

lessons? maybe i should go back to my devil may care attitude and not worry about times and try and enjoy the experience? hmmm

I recovered fairly quickly, after running up Craiglockheart hill on Sunday i took a total rest day monday and got bus to work. Ran every other day though and gymmed twice.

This week has seen us planning rest of runs leading to WHW race and to make a tough decision (for me anyway) This weekend is Celtic Plate and we were heading up support so decided to run it too. Up until about Wednesday i considered lots of things , not starting, not finishing, not caring etc but now I'm far more relaxed about it and I'll go up there and enjoy it and give as much support to everyone as we can. Last yr i entered it at last minute instead of doing Glasgow half and was astounded beyond belief to come 2nd lady, partly due to Lucy pulling out :( but hey, i guess we can only beat who's there on the day etc.

Next weekend I'm up on WHW for 2 days doing a back to back. We're staying at the wigwams at Beinglas, this is under duress for me as i don't do camping and i think it's tantamount to camping quite frankly but i promised Susan id do it so i will. Plan is to do Beinglass to Rowardennan and back on Saturday then To Tyndrum & back on Sunday.

Sunday is of course Mother's day so i had to break it to Stephen that he wouldn't see me that day, he was cool about it and we decided to postpone til next again week.

So that brings yet another full on weekend of running, I'm getting used to being tired all time now lol, I'm still getting up at 4.30am mon/wed/fri to gym and run and get up 5am on my non gym days, bit of lie in, sometimes it's actually 5.15! Cant recall last weekend i had of doing nothing actually.

Which brings me to next again weekend. I've managed to get tickets to Old Trafford for Fulham game, we cancelled last tickets we had cause Stephen had important game and it ended up being cancelled due to the bloody snow. It was the 7-1 game too! Be great to get back down there again, cant wait.

So, the tough decision. I've decided (after some discussion!) to pull out of the Cateran.I loved this race last year. Karen did a superb job of organising it, we got superb momento, had perfect weather,i got great time,and we had a bloody fantastic weekend. I'm bit gutted but it's just not fitting in with training and the WHW has to take precedence. Instead of the Cateran I'll be running from Balamaha to Fort William over 2 days. I'll do the first section on my own with Ian as support. stop over in Tyndrum then he will join me for 2nd half. Ive taken the thu/fri off work leading up to Cateran weekend for this.

Karen was supercool about it of course and agreed it was too close to WHW race and that has to be my priority. She rocks.

Means we can now help out at race though so we've offered out services to Karen as marshalls as we had Hotel booked for 2 night anyway. Win win situation i reckon! So when i see the runners and say I'm feeling your pain, i *really* will be.

Now anyone who reads Dave's blog will most probably be chuckling at his gym stories. We are definitely a nation of strange behaviour. This week someone brought a lap top in to gym and seemed to be doing a workout whilst following whatever was on laptop. He had it balanced on one of those vibration plate things, the big square ones. Which begs the question, why not do you're dvd workout in the house like most folk? Miss "i go on step machine and barely move" was of course there,still not moving or sweating yet still clearly feels urge to get gym before 6am on a regular basis to not do very fuckin much. I've still resisted the urge to film her and put video on youtube but I'm going to crack one day.

I reckon me & Charlie from The Proclaimers are 2 most normal people there. Although he keeps telling me I'm crazy whenever he finds out what I'm up to of a weekend.....

Very Best of luck to the whole Scotland team this weekend, i'm really looking forward to supporting you all, must be a very proud moment to run for your Country, hope you all have a fantastic race.