Thursday 20 May 2010

Off to Scotland again

I've just been reading the reports and looking at the photos of the Cateran Trail race. It looks a great day out so maybe I'll be there next year. But we seem to be wearing a groove up the M6 these days and I'm just booking my car in for its 130,000 mile service so perhaps the maybe will stay a maybe. Anyway we're off on Friday for a week in our timeshare place in Kinloch Rannoch - sounds grand but really just a bedsit with a conservatory and a great view out over the loch. And as fortune would have it Kinloch Rannoch is the main halfway checkpoint on the Long Distance Walkers Association's "Heart of Scotland" 100 mile event this year, starting a week on Saturday, so of course I'm staying on a few days to give it a go.  Then a short 3 weeks later we're back for the West Highland Way Race. Carry on like this and I'll have to emigrate.

May's been a funny month so far, a bit up and down. After an enjoyable run in the Highland Fling race I had a sensible week of about 35 miles, with nothing longer than 15 and all pretty slow. Then I picked up some sort of cold-type virus and didn't run for a week. The following week I felt a bit better, and we were going to a friends' house in the Lakes for 4 days, so I spent some time walking fairly sedately up hills and jogging down, resulting in just over 60 rewarding miles, but returning home for a "proper" 5 mile run seemed to put me back to square one again. Another few days frustrating inactivity and I went to the doctor, resulting in a confirmation of no chest problems so I can go out and play again and a weeks worth of antibiotics in case it's an infection. I'm hoping to get running again tomorrow or the next day.  But these things happen, you just have to be philosophical and let them take their course. I've done the miles, missing a week or two won't hurt, particularly at my end of the field. I'm just happy that I can still get out and do this stuff.

So I'm looking forward to a week without "jobs to be done" then a hundred miles around a bit of Scotland of which I only know one small corner. What more could you want?

4 comments:

Peter Duggan said...

Your *end* of the field, Andy? Needless modesty or what? ;-)

Murdo80bob said...

Your "end of the field" = the sharp end, Andy ~ if my memory of the H Fling results is anything to go by!

Murdo t M

Andy Cole said...

Ah, but that's just a sprint guys, a hundred miles is a different game! Come the 20th of June I'll be just another old guy pottering through the woods above Fort William in the early (hopefully) hours of the morning, but still loving it.

Subversive Runner said...

Ref: plenty journeys to the Land of jock...me and you both, mate.

BTW...apologies for the Brummie remark...yikes!!