Well it has been another busy week. Had a couple of really good jogscotland sessions on Monday and Wednesday and a great Speedsters session on Tuesday. I reckon I am getting faster!
The rest of the week was busy with work and also for those of you who don’t know I also sing (and not just in the shower) with Rock Choir Aberdeen City & Shire. Thursday is practice night and after that I had a go at a solo. Definitely some improvement needing made there, so looking forward to that too.
Reasonably early night on Friday as I had to get the 0633 train to Glasgow on Saturday morning to pick up my Commonwealth Games uniform. Didn’t time my appointment very well as I didn’t manage to get to any parkruns, so just spent the time after my appointment having a walk around Glasgow. It’s been ages since I’ve done that so I really enjoyed myself.
So here is a sneak peak of what I’ll be wearing during my time as a Clyde-sider:
Okay, so down to business. It’s Sunday today, so that means a long run. I was actually thankful that it was a cutback week, so I only needed to do 10 miles. Another warm day with the sun shining, but hey ho, there is nothing I can do about the weather.
This weeks run chum and official blog photographer was Maz Heeps. We’d decided to go somewhere that we’d never run before, so me and my big mouth suggested the old Formartine and Buchan railway line from Dyce, which goes all the way up to Peterhead. Thinking that maybe heading to Peterhead was a bit far, we opted for the less complicated strategy of 5 miles out and 5 miles back.
I’ve never run much of this before other than a mile or so in with a work colleague a couple of years ago, so I had no idea what to expect. What we got was pretty much no cover, so nowhere to hide from the sun! We also found out that it was ever so slightly uphill on the outward leg.
There was lots of farmland so we saw some sheep one with a little lamb, so I had to get a photo taken:
If you look carefully enough, it looks like I have a sheep growing out the left side of my baseball cap 😉
It turns out that 5 miles take you to Newmacher, so we headed into the village for a bathroom break and a drinks top up.
I decided to hide in the grass, you know, just for fun!
Although the route on the way back was net downhill, for the first couple of miles it didn’t seem that way. Just took a bit to get back into stride and me trying to swallow a fly and coughing it straight back up again didn’t help much, but we eventually got into more of a rhythm.
We did see something odd on the way out, but it was only when we came back I decided to stop for a photo opportunity:
No idea what the heck this is, but it seems to be the outline of a pregnant Victorian lady all made with what looks like fencing wire.
We did have a bit of a breather from the sun when clouds came over and even a quick shower, but it didn’t amount to anything. I was starting to get tired, so by the time we reached the 1 mile to go sign, I was starting to get a little tired as the sun was back out.
I still managed to smile though 🙂 and my blog photographer got a better picture of the sign:
I am starting to look a bit on the tired side here, but the last mile was quite difficult. I’d resolved to take it easy until I had about 0.2 of a mile left to go. Then I picked up the pace a bit and even managed what could loosely be described as a sprint finish.
All in all we’d covered around 10.51 miles which included the run in and out of Newmacher. Not a bad days work all in all, but you can see how pleased I was to be finished:
Next week there is another trip down to Glasgow on the Saturday for a training course and Sunday I will be running 16 miles! Any suggestions for routes would be welcome, but please make them simple. I get lost easily!
Thank you so much to Maz for your company today and the fab photos. 🙂 xx
joggingmayhem 