I had my usual 'long' run on Sunday, where I planned to run 18km (around 11 miles). For the most part, it was beautiful. The sun was shining, it was warm, but there was a little bit of a cool breeze, which is no bad thing when you're out and about.
In fact, I would go as far to say as conditions were ideal. I ended up going around my usual park route, through Holyrood Park and out towards Musselburgh before turning back home.
By the time I got to Musselburgh, I was feeling quite good, so I thought I would go exploring. You see, on my way back, there is a VERY busy junction where the city bypass meets the main road. Que a lot of stopping and starting, waiting on red lights and a LOT of last minute sprinting to catch the green man.
So I decided to give that part of my route a miss, and went down a mysterious cycle path instead. "Heck," I thought, "it's going in the same general direction I want to go in, I'll be fine".
Except I ended up getting lost. Oops. Fast forward through about 15 minutes running about a faceless suburbia, and I finally found my way back.
All in all, I ended up adding about a mile to my journey, which took my 18km run up to 20.5km. Another 600 metres, and I would have done a half marathon.
I was just lucky that the weather was pleasant that day and I was feeling pretty good - it wasn't until I got lost that morale started to dip and I got a bit fatigued.
But, I always say that you can never tell if it was a good run or not until after you've finished. Somehow, I was able to come straight in from my run, get showered and head on into town without so much as a second thought. So I was a little tired, but not TOO tired. That's the sweet spot, really.
So yeah, Sunday's run. Tough but in a good way. Meanwhile, this morning...
I only did 5km (3 miles), but it felt like 40. After our lovely weather last week, we have come back to reality with a snowy and windy bump.
It looked okay when I peeked out the window this morning, sure there was a little bit of drizzle, but nothing I hadn't dealt with before.
Then I stepped outside.
Even with my extra layers on, the wind had a fair bite on it. I think I did the fastest warm-up I have ever done, and actually found some relief when I started running and was able to get all the lovely warm blood around my veins.
My relief didn't last long, though. When I was about halfway through my circuit, the slight drizzle turned into a fully fledged snow blizzard. Welcome to Scotland, everyone.
I was ages away from home, so all I could do was run through it. I tried to run as fast as I could, telling myself that the faster I ran, the faster I could get back to my lovely warm flat.
Even though I lost most of the feeling in my face and lower limbs, I couldn't help feeling as hard as nails.
But no, seriously. I was crying inside.
It was so bad that I skipped the cool-down completely and ran straight home. There was no way I was spending a single SECOND longer than I had to in that weather.
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| Running's actually really glamourous. (Nose starts growing) |
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