Along to Whitesands beyond sunny Dunny for the second round of the excellent Borders Series Cross Country. My legs were totally shot from Tinto and although we had plenty time for a warm up I knew today was all about damage limitation and just doing it for the scenery. Not sure where I was when the top photo was taken - probably on the beach trying to get my planks-of-wood-legs to unstiffen. The touchy-toe-ometer said uh-uh.
This was almost certainly taken while warming up (thanks Syd Woods) but I didn't really go much faster once we started.
Abigail was still not making her presence felt. The gloom and doom forecasts were wrong (again) and the rain and wind held off until we were on the way home. (Jesus loves the cross country.) In fact it was like a pleasant if dull Spring day and mild enough for vests only. I wore gloves but that was more about reluctant circulation than cold hands. I had worn cycling mitts yesterday at Tinto over thin running gloves in anticipation of taking a fall but had managed to stay on my feet.
Barns Ness Lighthouse
To warm up Mary and I ran about half the course. The lack of wind meant the second half, coming back along the undulating grassy tracks would not be the usual struggle into the headwind. I don't usually do that well on this course and put my inabilities down to this, however today I was pretty crap towards the end and couldn't blame the wind.
It was Gordon's birthday today, and his second race of the weekend.
We watched the juniors race which got underway before we all went down to the beach.
The sand was in pretty good condition for running over: neither rippled nor too soft. Before the start Stuart did one minute's silence for the atrocities in Paris on Friday.
photo Danielle
photo Cathy Holms
photo Mary (carrying camera)
I hadn't expected Mary to come along to this one. She hadn't planned to but got caught up in the fun and games yesterday and a bit hooked on the addictive nature of racing really hard (and attendant so-called-runners-high) and social interaction. We spend most of the non-racing moments blethering to folk we haven't seen since last year. Or yesterday. Quite a few did both races. Michael G seemed to be not too badly affected by Tinto but others, myself included, were hobbling. I'm sure MG would say he was feeling fairly trashed but just making less fuss. What he did say was where would you rather be? And sure enough there weren't many better options. Although I wasn't looking forward to the whipping I'd be getting from my fellow age groupers who hadn't run Tinto.
This was as close as I got to Adam F. (Photo Cathy Holms)
A huge gap quickly developed and frankly I was fortunate to hold onto 3rd m50.
Coming off the beach. Great photo Danielle, thanks!
The first out-and-back beach went ok. For a hundred yards I even went quite well. At the turn at the far end Fergus stopped to tie his shoelace. Schoolboy error Fergus! As a result it took him a while to get back towards the front of the field and in the above photo he is doing a very good job of totally blocking the camera's view of moi! Great photo though, thanks Syd W.
Both the beaches, particularly the second, were VERY whiffy with that seaweedy iodiney smell. It wasn't unpleasant and almost medicinal. A sort of feeling it might be doing my cough (yes Richard, a cough!) some good. Not as much as the Strepsils I have been munching since Friday but a little.
photo Syd W
photo Cathy Holms:
near the end but still capable of dropping a couple of places
ahh sweet!
gob of the day
important jibber-jabber!
Big thanks to all the Dunbar-ers especially those who didn't run in order to marshal and organise and help out; it all went very smoothly. Good course with lots of variety and nearly perfect weather. Looking forward to the next one (if I survive next weekend and the prospect of 7 Beers round 7 Hills, an altogether more dangerous and ill-advised project.)
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