sunday runday not a lot of funday

When I saw the Porty club run and weather for Sunday I groaned. Westerly strong breeze with rain / hail / sleet mix as if designed to aggravate a 9 out, 9 back to Port Seton. The prospect of adding a cycle to the mix was worse than running, so I ran to the start at Tumbles/Shambles adding 3 + 3 miles to the joy of a cold grey day. I thought I might prefer to keep on heading East and catch the train back from North Berwick than turn at Port Seton into the teeth of the wind and hail, so carried a change of clothes, sports bars, juice and train fare in a back pack. Also 9 miles marks the end of the bad scenery and start of the good, so it would make more sense to carry on and take a couple of the trails towards the coast than just cover the worst 9 miles of East Lothian twice.

Proper training is about embracing the pain and hard work, not disguising it with scenery, mp3 players and snack-stops, so sometimes you should just get out the door and knock out the miles rather than spend too long seeing which running jacket matches your shoes best. I was swithering between the 2 standpoints and had forgotten to pack a rain jacket. Though my pack did not feel light, despite only bringing half a litre of juice. And it did not get any lighter. 

It was good to see John B along for some marathon training. He is going very well over the shorter stuff but has less experience over long distances and was trying running with a group today to see how that panned out. He has a tendency to just run at one speed (max!) which works for short fast runs but can make longer stuff more challenging. Consequently today's run saw the leading pack gallop off at a faster pace than the last couple of PRC group runs started at. I kept with them for a while then realised I would die in the second half if I didn't lower the pace. I blame the heavy back pack! And sloth. Plenty of sloth.

Also, last night, I got out of bed and left the flat at 3.20am in search of (perhaps mythical) local wildlife, but that is a story for another time. The video is inconclusive. I missed less than an hour's sleep.

Also I had run 3 miles before we even started. I realised about 10 miles into it I was not enjoying the icy rain and chilly wind (as much as possible). And that I could turn around before the lead pack because I had started 3 miles before. I turned at 11.2 which would make a total distance of 22+, plenty for such a miserable day. This was about 8.25 into the group run. I spent quite a long time distracting myself with the maths of: would the lead pack catch me if they continued at 6.45 m/m to 9 miles and back, while I dropped to 7.45 if they have to run a mile point 5 longer than I do. I reckoned not but I also felt it was quite possible. I didn't turn round to look though. I waved hello and said bad things about the weather to Craig, Neil, Lee, Julie and others as we ran past each other. The wind hadn't got up the way it was forecast so North Berwick plans were shelved. However it was a horrible day weather-wise and I was keen to be done. My back pack seemed to be absorbing the rain and growing in weight.

Neil caught up with me just before Musselburgh which made for some company. And sharpened up the pace which had begun to drift. The weather improved a little and the last few miles passed without too much pain. And I got to Shambles before the lead pack. I still had 3 miles back home so didn't hang around to see what state Roy got back in. He had already been on the ground after a disagreement with a kerb-stone. I told myself the run home was not training, just the warm down. Though it was so slow I'm not sure it even qualifies as that. A hot shower and lots of cups of tea did much to repair the damage.