Tinto

Tinto profile
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

I’ve never done a run with a profile like this one.

Well, perhaps “run” isn’t the most accurate description. Perhaps “run/walk/scramble” would be more accurate.

This is Tinto Hill in South Lanarkshire, which I set out to run as much as was possible along with one other person from Motherwell AC (who had me well and truly beaten long before the top).

Total time taken - 56.24. Consider that when the REAL hill runners go up Tinto, the fastest man is about 32 minutes. I think I made the top in about that time.

Coming down wasn’t that easy though. Very tough on the quads and the rocks were quite icy. The Inovates held up well.

I suspect I’m going to feel this tomorrow.

3 x 1k efforts

3 x 1k efforts
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

It was -5 degrees when I left the house at 8.45am to do this club session. Beautiful but absolutely baltic.

I was first at the meeting point so I had a wee warm-up . No kidding, it really was absolutely freezing cold.

The course was part of the Bellshll Golf Club fartlek run, also known as "The Rollercoaster" because it's so undulating.

Correct that - it's bloody hilly.

The efforts were 0.68 of a mile (1.09km) with no more than two mins rest in between.

Here's how it panned out: 5.08 1.54 4.57 1.54 5.26.

The last one was a struggle at the end. Anyway, glad I did it.

Big change of heart

Sometimes, you just know when something isn't right and no sooner had I pressed the button to enter the Berlin Marathon, I suspected it wasn't the right thing to have done.

I'd had this hankering after doing Amsterdam again, just to see how I could fare over the same course and after at least a day of mulling it over, Holland has won out.

So, after a 180 degrees handbrake turn, it's Amsterdam 2009, not Berlin.

Sunday, October 18. Hotel booked.

Looks like I'll be on my own though. No other MAC interest at this stage.

Figure of 8s

So nice to be back on home soil!

Tonight's MAC session was the Figure of 8s on Hamilton Sports Ground.

One effort of 0.52 of a mile at faster than 10k race pace with 90secs to two mins recovery followed by an effort of 0.35 of a mile. This repeated three times.

First long effort ave pace - 6.24mi; first shorter effort ave pace - 6.14mi; 2nd - 6.15mi/6.15mi; 3rd - 6.21mi/6.11mi.

Splits: 3.21, 1.34, 2.11, 1.34, 3.19, 1.33, 2.12, 1.31, 3.23, 1.31, 2.11.

Happy with the consistency of all that and a good antidote to the slumbering performance on Sunday morning.

Berlin

Now how did that happen?

There I was, just idly musing about having done more than 1,000 miles this year and the next thing I've entered the Berlin Marathon 2009!

I must have been sleep-surfing or been suffering from some such medical condition.

Sunday September 20 is the date, which means another summer of marathon training and that suits me fine.

It'll be good to have the focus while working in London and I'm looking forward already to the long runs at home on weekends.

1,000-mile breakthrough

Hilly run
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

This was the run that saw me go through 1,000 miles in 2008 and it's a pity it was such an inauspicious event.

We set out from Kirkfieldbank and within the first mile we'd tackled a serious hill in the form of a road up into Lanark.

Then into the trails and an undulating route to New Lanark and back.

I was drained very early on because of the cold, which has left me more tired than I'd realised.

But I'm still not complaining. At least not too much.

Highgate map

Highgate
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

This is the first chance in three weeks that I've had to take the data off the Garmin - so this is what the Highgate run looks like.

The lovely hill is at two miles and it really is a test of stamina. Very good practice for our friend, the Devil's Burden, in Fife next month.

Very much looking forward to tomorrow morning's New Lanark run.

Eight days is a long time

It is indeed. But last night I hauled myself away from work and went to Camden for what I thought was going to be a track session.

It turned out to be a slow Highgate run, which at 1hr 08mins was the slowest of the three times I've done it - and that was just fine by me.

This bloody cold (not man-flu, I won't sink into that) is lingering on and is a pain in the nose.

Home tonight for the first time in three weeks. Will I remember where it is?

Intervals

A chilly night of intervals round Royal Victoria dock.

Six x 400m at something like 10k pace with a mile on either side.

My legs were a bit heavy from the previous night's run and the onset of a cold, which is a real pain in the arse. Or a pain in the head, to be more accurate.

Splits: 10.08 1.48 1.09 1.46 1.08 1.44 1.09 1.44 1.07 1.42 1.15 1.42 1.55 9.21

Sunny London day

Sunny London day
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

Walking along the Thames on the way to a meeting and it's a beautiful, cold day.

There are loads and loads of runners outsnd I'm extremely jealous!

I guess some of them are starting to train for the London Marathon in April. Others will be out just because it's a good route.

There's a race going on as well. Looks like a lunchtime time trial, possibly staged by the Serpentine club.

Must find out more and must get out here soon as well!

Demon slain...

First run in exactly a week tonight and it went fine.

I think the psychologists call it "slaying the dragon" or "facing the demons" ... after a bad experience, don't turn your back on it. Like falling off a bike, get back on as quickly as possible and go like the clappers.

Last week's run wasn't quite that bad but I can't really think of a redeeming feature.

Anyway, tonight I took it much steadier, didn't beast the kilometre-long hill at about three miles and it played out into a decent, not fast run.

It was about two minutes slower than last week. Fine. But the wheels on my bike are going round!

Distance 7.67 miles. Time 1.03.37. Splits 8.47, 8.51, 8.50, 8.51, 7.39, 7.27, 8.13, 5.00.

More European behaviour

More European behaviour
Originally uploaded by Sparks57

A top weekend just past.

Saturday was a 6.40am start from St Pancras, a station of stunning architecture, to Paris Gare du Nord.

Have to say that I was knocked out by the exchange rate - £1 = €1.03! Bloody hell, that's way down even from Brussels a fortnight ago.

A nice lunch was intended to be the focus of our day trip and so it turned out.

A €30 formule in a brasserie at Place de Madelaine was possibly the best meal we've had in Paris. Two types of wine and coffee - formidable!

Yet again we went to the Catacombes at Denfert-Rochereau and didn't go in, this time because of the queue, so what to do other than go to the nearest cafe for coffee and wine (pictured).

We did see the American actress Julieanne Moore, who was allowed to jump the queue with her son.

A wee post-lunch walk round a very crowded Hediard and Fauchon then back to GdN Goethe train at 6.10pm.

We had an amusing exchange with a shopkeeper when buying wine for the journey because we couldn't remember the word for "cork-screw" (tire-bouchon).

Sunday - a very fine lunch with the Cliftons in an idyllic village in the Chilterns where Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed.

For the record, the Bull and Butcher in Turville.

On aime Paris

It's a sunny, chilly Friday afternoon in west London and it's now the best part of three days since my last run. Shoddy, I know.

I pondered whether or not to train last night but decided not to. I reckon a couple of days off running won't do me any harm and my quads are still a bit stiff from the hill exertions.

I had a nice evening on Wednesday in a Turkish restaurant at London Bridge, followed by a swift beer in what felt spookily like The Horseshoe in Drury St, Glasgow. I think it was called The King's Head or some such.

Much looking forward to tomorrow ... 6.20am Eurostar to Paris for the day.

The weather's forecast to be sunny intervals and 8c. Isn't that a bit warm for the beginning of December?

Uphill struggle

I was looking forward to tonight's run in north London. In the end, I was just glad to finish it.

I did the longer of the two Tuesday night runs, Highgate, which turned out to be 7.48 miles on the Garmin. The choice was to go with a group doing c.7mi or one doing about 8.30mi.

The first was too fast, the second too slow but I thought I'd go with the first and hang off the back. I wish!

From the outset, I had nothing in the tank. Heavy legs, no energy. My head was fine but my body had nothing to give.

And of course, there would be a bloody great hill at about three miles. It's maybe one km long and is seriously steep. It completely drained me.

All in, 1.01.00. Two cups of tea restored me a bit but my legs are very heavy.

I'm not downhearted though, just determined to do a damn sight better next time!

Splits: 7.49, 7.52, 8.29, 9.11 (hill - grrrr), 7.55, 7.40, 8.14, 3.50.

Noise pollution

The walls between the berths (cabins) on the sleeper trains going to and from London are very thin. They don't have sound-proofing.

How do I know this? Because the fellow traveller in coach K, 5/6, had an electronic device that regularly played about 20 seconds of drum and bass all night. The same 20 seconds. Over and over. I've no idea why.

I'm trying hard to love the sleeper, really I am. It's much more environmentally friendly than flying up and down to London.

However, the suitcases under my eyes this morning tell the real story.