Blink and it's gone

Where on earth did January go? Cannot believe we're a week into February already.

I used to blog daily now it's monthly, i wonder if it's because of Facebook & Twitter, we all tend to find out what everyone is up to on there so maybe we don't bother with blogs so much?

January was pretty good and i managed to clock up 212miles. Only one long run in there, still early in the year though so I'm not worried about that. The long run was of course the Training weekend on WHW. What a fantastic weekend it was too. The idea formed when we were last up there doing exact same run (Oct) and after chatting to Lucy (who owns the fabulous Oak Tree) the thought became a reality.

 I think it's fair to say it was a great success. Weather was "challenging" 60mph winds and rain, character building. Learnt that from last yrs double run when i had most horrendous weather. I'm a bit strange in that i tend to run in shorts n vest when most folk are layered up Ninja styleee but even i had several layers on this time. So much so i looked like Michelin man ;)  >>

I had a vest, 2 tops and jacket on.

By 2nd mile i started stripping off, by about mile 5 i was down to vest. Here i am being introduced to Lorn by JohnK. We ran fair bit together but i lost her on approach to Rowardennan.

Arrived at Rowardennan to sideways sleet and found a gaggle of people sheltering and eating and drinking. I quickly put on everything once again  to try and warm up to get one mile up road for the sun to come out! lol, Meant we were treated to a lovely rainbow though and it was here we saw The Troon runners who'd ran out earlier and were on their turnaround.

Ran fair bit of way with Helen, normally she'd be waaay ahead of me but hasn't been training much so it was nice to catch up, Mark kept running ahead then sprinting back up hills to check on her, bless. He is proper Mountain Goat.

Loved that we had the speedsters pass us as we headed towards Inversnaid, managed quick hug off 2 Andy's (Johns & Murray)  and off i went in pursuit of others. Arrived at inversnaid and again lots of people were huddled together sheltering, i had no plans to stopping so gave Ian a quick kiss then turned and ran back. I saw JohnK and another runner ahead so decided to try and catch them. And catch them i did, i stayed with them for good while which i was delighted with. Lost them couple miles past Rowardennan though but Ian caught me here so i had company again.

Having done this exact same route quite few times now this was definitely the strongest I've felt on way back. I ran hills I'd normally immediately walk up and i was feeling great. Its the last couple miles that always get me, when it's totally flat, until you get to "that" hill. You could easily sneak round corner and go across that bridge, i guess that's what always go through my mind when I'm climbing the damn thing!  Still, ther's always that feeling of satisfaction coming down those last few steps and knowing you've got less than 1/2 mile to go.

Ian was up ahead of me and i tried to put bit of sprint on to catch him but i didn't. I finished in 6hrs 3mins though which is my fastest time doing that section so i was very happy! All this without a Garmin or a watch incidentally, having forgotten mine. Maybe i should do that more often and let my body decide on pace.
JohnK snapped us just as we finished.

Great night in Oak tree later on with some of my favourite people ever. George & Andy kindly helped me eat my Pizza and everyone did their best to get Ian drunk by buying him plenty Birthday Whiskies!

I had no DOMS to speak off which is bizarre as we'd done 13miles in Pentlands the week before and we were both aching for about 4 days at least. Go figure.

Managed a quick catch up with Susan this week who was in town having lunch @ Tigerlilys for her Birthday lunch. Few glasses of bubbly went down a treat.















Plan for now is to try and push myself and go faster so we've started doing Intervals and bit of speed Training. My default pace is around 9mm, especially at 5am so I'm trying to push a bit harder.
Yesterday we had a cracking, tough run and av pace 8.08mm. Speedy for me anyway, especially on the hills.

I've let gym slip too so I've bought some weights for house and do them once home from run for about 20mins. I'll be lean mean running machine yet....

Everywhere seems to have snow except us, beautiful day here in Edinburgh. Hadn't really planned to run but too nice not to. Only did 8.5 though as wanted to be back in time to watch Super Sunday.

Got lovely girly weekend coming up with Jemima, so a 4 day week beckons. wooop!