See what I did there? Karin smiles or Karin's miles. I like to think I do a lot of the first one a while clocking up the second, my running partners may think differently... Filed under: running
Black socks, they never get dirty,
The longer you wear them the stronger they get!
Sometimes I think I should wash them
But something keeps telling me
No, no, not yet!
My daughter used to sing this song when she was a girl guide. I should have paid more attention. This is a picture of the white socks I wore for this morning’s run, and that’s after a soak in washing powder for several hours.
White socks by karinsmiles
I got the bus up to Hunters’ Tryst this morning and then ran up through Swanston Village to Allermuir Hill. I was going to run over to Castle Law but the red flag was up, so the army were out using the range and I changed my plan. I ran over Capelaw Hill, Harbour Hill and Bell’s Hill and then I got my feet wet.
The ground between Bell’s Hill and Black Hill is a marsh but I didn’t appreciate just how boggy it is until I tried to pick my way across and found myself with brown, oily slurry right over my shoes. There were a couple of walkers trying to go the same way but I don’t think they fared any better, I suspect they also got their feet wet and they were wearing boots. I stopped to wring out my socks before I started up Black Hill but I’m not sure why. It didn’t make my feet any drier.
I thought I had seen a good path higher up on Black Hill but when I got there it was a firebreak and what was left of the heather was just enough to make it difficult to run on. The actual path wasn’t a lot better and when I got to the top it was squelchy, squidgy moss and black mud again (not that it made a lot of difference, my feet were still wet).
I found a path going off to the right, which I thought should take me down to the fence that runs towards Threipmuir, but I was wrong. It petered out at another firebreak in the heather and while I did run down that, I had to zig-zag a lot and it was quite scary (yes, I am a wimp). I don’t think I’ll be going that way again in a hurry, but I’m used to suffering the consequqnces of poor route decisions, it makes the pleasant paths that much nicer.
I went left when I got over the little causeway at Threipmuir and it was a lovely path which I’ve never ventured on before. It led into woods, quite dense but with a flat path covered in pine needles which came out at the dam. I followed the path along the eastern bank of Harlaw Reservoir to the Ranger centre and then ran down the road to Balerno and caught a bus back home.
I ran 10 and a half miles in 2 and a half hours, which is not exactly speedy, but I’m OK with that. I found a path I’d like to do again so it was a good run overall. One week to Edinburgh Marathon, 11 weeks to the Devil o’ the Highlands.
Filed under: running
I went out for a long run on Sunday with my husband Bill, following a route he’d done before. It was the most dispiriting run I’ve done in long time. From the Water of Leith walkway, we went UP West Mill Road and through Bonaly, then UP the road to Torduff Reservoir , across the moor to the path that goes past Bonaly Reservoir (UPhill again) and UP to the waymarker on the path across to Glencorse. My legs were already tired from Friday’s run, Bill’s legs seem to love these endless uphills (they’re shorter than mine – I’m sure it’s an advantage) and then it started raining.
Steep Hill by Joe Shlabotnik
I had made Bill go ahead after Torduff because I felt puggled and crabbit and I was trying to avoid taking it out on him (though it was his fault) but he waited for me at Glencorse so that he could keep me company going UP past Loganlea Reservoir. The path across to the Green Cleuch was relatively flat but I was getting slower and slower and had no hesitation pinching a couple of Bill’s jelly babies off him. They kept me going for a few minutes but I was failing rapidly. On the path alongside Harlaw Reservoir I was clearly struggling to keep going at all and Bill said he thought I should cut my losses and take the bus home.
After he went on his way, I had a Torq gel (Black Cherry yoghourt flavour – these are the best tasting gels I’ve tried) and lo and behold it worked miracles. It’s a perverse fact that when you are completely bonked, your brain ceases to function properly and tell you that you need sugar. I re-filled my water bottle at Harlaw visitor centre (millions of gallons of water in front of it yet the water comes out of the tap in a teensy trickle), took the easy route back down to Harlaw Gait and then back down the Water of Leith walkway to home. So from thinking that I might have to call it a day at 12 miles, I ran another 7 and finished still feeling fairly strong.
Actually we heard two cuckoos, a stonechat and curlews, saw a heron, skylarks and countless warblers and the sun shone for most of the run without getting too hot. I do have to be able to run up and down hills, tired or not, and I’ve said elsewhere “There’s no such thing as a bad run”. Some runs though don’t rank highly on my list.
Filed under: running
To quote the chap I met on the path down to Bonaly, Friday’s weather was ‘changeable’. The Water of Leith was running much higher than I expected and the big muddy puddles that had dried up over the last few weeks were back in all the usual places. The rough path up to Woodhall Farm had a stream running down it in full flow. The clouds passed and the sun magically came out as I reached Blinkbonny and there were clouds of steam rising off the tarmac. I tried to capture it but you’ll have to look carefully to see it in the photo.
Steamy road by karinsmiles
The little cascade in Poets’ Glen had more water running through than I’ve seen for months and gave me another excuse for a photo stop.
Poets' Glen by karinsmiles
The wind was behind me on the way up to Harbour Hill but was blowing vigourously across the path on the hill itself. I think only the bogginess of the path kept me stuck to it. The rain held off until I got to the top of Capelaw Hill but then it started up again with a vengeance. When I turned at the bottom, full into the wind, I felt like I was running on the spot. I don’t know if it was sleet, hail or just rain, but it felt like I was being sprayed with tiny stones from a pressure hose – really unpleasant but it eased off just as I reached the shelter of the trees.
When I reached Kate’s Mill it looked like a beautiful spring day – another photo-opportunity, another excuse to stop…
Weir on Water of Leith by karinsmiles
Filed under: running
Pauline is one of the Harmeny jog scotland leaders and she also works for the same company as me. She has been supporting some of my colleagues who have recently started running and I agreed to go out with some of the women who are ready to run a bit further.
High heels by vestman
Pauline suggested a route that looked to be a bit over 5 miles on g-maps, a little bit further than their previous runs and with a few hills thrown in for variety. It was drizzly rain on Tuesday night but everybody was still game and the five of us got round the route no problem. We took almost exactly an hour – I can still distinctly remember the first time I ran for a whole hour and it was a really big deal. I’m hoping the women I was running with thought it was a big deal too and that they enjoyed at least some of the run. I certanly did. I’m looking forward to going out with them again and I’ve been having fun looking for interesting circular routes from work.
The postscript to this is that I had already run in to work in the morning but I felt so buoyed up after my run with the women from work that I decided to run home as well making a total of over 15 miles. My brain felt like it was another 5 mile run, but my legs definitely knew it was 15. I was shattered when I got home, but hey, that’s what endurance training is all about isn’t it?
North Berwick Law by Lilo Lil
I joined Pauline and Norma, fellow Harmeny runners, at the back of the start line and we brought up the rear a good 50 metres behind the pack for the first mile or so. We were joined by Chris, who also resisted the urge to meet the blistering pace in front and we completed the first mile not just well within the 10 minute mile pace needed to avoid the cutoffs at 5 and 10 miles, but also below the 9.5 minute mile pace that was required to finish 22 miles in 3 and a half hours.
We stayed at the back but we held our pace well all the way to the 10-mile checkpoint and we had passed a few runners. I normally don’t especially like running race with other people although I sometimes hook up with a succession of similarly-paced strangers in the course of a long race, but Pauline, Chris and Norma were great company to run with. Pauline dropped back a bit to try and ease the pain in her back before Gullane and I dogged Norma’s shadow for the next couple of miles. I should have taken a turn at the front but Norma runs the most even, steady pace I’ve seen and I’m afraid I followed blindly.
There had been a lot of chat in the early miles but we were down to grunts, expletives and moans by this time. I had felt OK on the climb into Gullane but the nasty wee hill into Dirleton felt like a mountain and it still seemed like a long way from there to the 18 mile water station and I stopped to recover for a moment, telling Norma just to go on. Fortunately for me, she refused point blank and we struggled together from there to the finish line. Thanks for that Norma, you win my vote for the person I would most want to run a marathon with.
The high point of the race? My Garmin said 19.58 miles the last time I looked at it, I was thinking I would manage the last two miles although it wouldn’t be fun, I was confused why it looked like the finish about 400 meters ahead and then I remembered it was only a 20 mile race. We finished in 3:16:09 – all this for a cup of lukewarm orange juice. Pauline and Chris finished just a minute or so later and I met Bill at the finish and he had also had a good race.
It’s a final cruelty that the sports centre is about half a mile steeply uphill from the finish but this race exorcised the demons after Lochaber Marathon and I was on a high as I waddled up. When we looked at the results on the website later in the day there were 3 Harmeny runners in the top 5 – a fantastic result.
Karinsmiles 