Basking in Reflected Glory

The Elswick relays were a blast on Good Friday. We watched the women give the other clubs a good old easter pasting, with the A team winning in a record time around the 2.2 mile course and the B team landing 4th. Little Miss Speedy made the A team with Jane Hodgson and Laura Weightman - quite daunting company. Her sister, known affectionately as the dark destroyer, was getting back from injury and made the B team. They were no slouches either.

I was selected for the vets B team and I was first off. With such a short and flat course there are no tactics; its simply a case of how much oxygen you can get in and how much lactic you can stand before the falling apart malarkey starts. I tried to track the A team runner Rob, but he got 20 seconds on me in the second mile. I got round in 12:41, only 5 seconds slower than last year. We finished 9th. I wouldn't like to say what the cumulative age of the team was, but it was over 200 anyway; a bit like my heart rate at the end of the stage.

We nipped over the watch the North Tyneside to watch the 10k where DD finished second to Alison Dargie and picked up £50 for her efforts and with no ill-effects.

We tracked down to London last weekend to watch the play 'The Miser' on the Saturday with Lee Mack. A right hoot. We were hoteling in Swiss Cottage so I got me trainers on and took a wander up Finchley Road on Friday evening, a park run on Saturday (19:30/1st V50 at Finsbury Park in cold conditions) and then past Hampstead Heath on the Sunday morning.

After a quick wash and breakfast, me and Mrs M took up our usual positions at Rotherhithe at the 11 mile mark to watch LMS (at her second marathon) and DD improving every day and taking part in her 4th London Marathon. It was a metronomic and measured race by LMS hitting the line in 3:11, a 30 minute improvement on her Loch Ness Marathon last year. Meanwhile DD set off too fast; We all shook our heads and stroked our chins as we supped our lattes and studied the app. that tracks runners around the course. Very clever, really. She passed the halfway mark at 1:26 and bulldozed on to finish in 2:59 and win the Army marathon champs and inter-services title to boot. toot,toot. Probably broke the club record also.  Pb's all over the place.

They took forever to get back to the hotel and it was a hug, a quick burger and the train back up the road.

So its back to normality this week, other than I'm a few quid poorer, but strangely there seems to be a second hand lightweight tandem in the hall, So no excuse for Mrs Mac anymore not to get out on the road. If you see two mentalists out in the lanes on a Mercian and out of control, that'll be us.  

Whats that coming over the Mountain..?

Having at last finished CJ Sansoms 'Lamentation' and a jolly long, but well crafted and entertaining novel it was, I have opened Aprils account with JP Donleavy's 'the Onioneaters', picked up for a quid at Pitlochry station. Bargain...or is it? Started well, but I'm still making my mind up about it.

This weekend gone, I've been out on the bike. Pedalling away, mile after mile after mile, my mind wandering. During the course of the ride, I ruminated on a number of things. The condition of the roads is one thing. Appalling. A national disgrace. potholes waiting round every corner to gub you. There was report work to do for Monday and chores to be done in the house, but for the life of me, when the sun's out, I'm sucked out the door, some force of thermal or solar magnetism. Not so odd I suppose given the climate.

A night with the lads a wee while ago resulted in plans being tabled to ride back up to North Berwick again. And then down again two days later. Riding up was a full day out last year. Its all well and good looking at the A1 and saying that'll be around 100 miles. However, as I don't ride a juggernaut, we had to pick our ways through the cycle-ways which in places were little more than a rough track. Factoring in all the side roads, it was around 140 miles and that doesn't include border controls. So I need to get some miles in.

Then there was the other social night, where I stated, casually and in an understated way, that I was off to the Alps in the late summer for a few days riding and before I could finish my bowl of chilli, hands were raised and it looks like that might happen as well. Best start saving. Aunt Aggie always says that good things come in threes (she also says that bad things come in threes and that she is related to Mata Hari, but who knows the truth?!). The final item in this holy trinity of cycling are my recent, protracted discussions regarding acquiring an old tandem. Its still too early to say, but matters may be resolved later this week, at which time, I will need to book myself into a therapist for people who talk the talk but can't walk the walk. I am in danger of spreading myself too thinly in the sports arena, with a karate grading round the corner and various training shoes and early summer races vying for my attention.  There is, obviously, quite a bit of organising to do on the cycling front. Lets face it, it wouldn't look too good slowing to a grinding halt up the Col de Madelaine and pitching over due to lack of training or just sheer weediness on the Col de Aggie. I don't want to cause an international incident due to a bad case of inertia.

This weekend sees me turning out for the Elswick relays, so its a two run day today and a thrashing of the weary tonight. Where will it all end?

Alloa and Birnam

At the start of my annular weeks sabbatical in the highlands, the youngsters dragged me to the Alloa (allo, allo-a) half marathon. I didn’t even have the motivation to enter myself, and for anyone that’s tried that, it’s truly a voyage of discovery. Four of us arrived in the town amid a threatening sky and swelling breeze. A typical March day in the Ochils. I did this little beauty a good few years ago. The missus was training for the 2005 London Marathon and did a sub 2hr affair. I think i did a 1:22 or 1:23 or somit.

Missy L had a glute injury and couldn’t run, so contented herself with cycling up and down the high street. After the great toilet hunt in the leisure centre, a story which will no doubt be told and serialised in a later blog sometime in the future, Me, Miss C (who we refer to as Miss Speedy) and the missus joined the throng at the start and before we could secure our headbands and leg warmers, we were off.  

We clipped along at a 6:45/mile pace and it was a bit uppy and downy for the first 3 miles before diving down into some wee town where the pace shot up to a rather uncomfortable and unsustainable 6:20/mile. I was still in step with Speedy at the turn at mile 6, where you come into a long flat straight that the romans look like they designed and it doesn’t waver in elevation or direction for 4 miles. Quite dull and straight into the wind. It ground me down. Ground me down and spat me out.

At mile seven, I reached for a gel and my running partner sauntered off in front, no doubt chasing some of her club mates down. At 8 mile I told myself I was going to be fine, but knew inside I was lying and at 10 miles I was witness to a grisly, perambulatory breakdown with impeding terminal decline when the pace started creeping into the 7 minute mile territory as the road rose back into the outskirts of Alloa. This is crap, I thought; I do this pace every day of the week training. But the tank was empty. Its an age thing.

There was a canny crowd at the finish, but by then the damage was done and I flopped over the line for a 1:28. That said, I was happy enough with the run and celebrated at the Moulin Inn with a couple of swiffties and a bar meal. The puddings are bigger than the main courses, which is good if you like your puddings. I don't know why they don't do proper chips though. The Speedster had taken 2 minutes out of me and as I finished she was there, reclining beside the medals eating grapes and fanning herself on a chaise-longue and looking at her nails. 

The week rolled on, Miss L left midway through the week, and, by Saturday I was rested and raring to go. It was a cracking warm day and we headed down to Birnam for the hill race. There was a good crowd and we signed up and paid our £10. We'd met Adrian (the organiser) and a few friends halfway up Ben Vrackie earlier in the week. Mrs Mac decided it wasn’t for her, but me and Speedy Joe took our places after a number check. We set off up the hill and dug deep for the long steep slug, trying to break into a jog where the gradient eased, but without much conviction.  At the top I was tucked in behind the youngster, but had a sudden bout of unexplainable energy and took up the chase, knowing that the big sweeping downhill was just around the corner. I caught 2 or 3 on the way down and flat out, worked hard along the final mile to outsprint a lad who wasn’t giving up easily and it was 12^th place for me and 1^st lady for the youngster who wasn't far behind.  

The tea and cake was welcome as was the burger and blackcurrent juice at the Birnam Inn after the presentation. We could have camped on the grass outside the pub all afternoon as the lazy sun gave us an early taste of summer, but it was off down the road for the long drive south.  More short hill races I think this year. I’ll have to work on the stamina if I’m thinking about anything longer.