Training Log Archive: BrandNewMe

It was a bit vile out so apart from a slushy walk around the meadows with Bertie we stayed in and played my new game Ticket to Ride. Addictive. It’s a good game as you don’t really know who’s winning until the end which restricts the tantrums to the last moment.

Wonderful run / walk / sledge / hill bag / beer hunt with Fran on a stunning sunny snowy day in the Pentlands. I jogged over to hers then we wiggled through Steils and Covenanters wood to Bonaly. First HBT hill was White Hill at the top of the wood on the East end. Found the beer too. Then Capelaw (also found beer) sledged down to the Strain wedding stile then Allermuir which was hooching with people. There was even a bit of ‘2 meter social distancing please!!!’ argy bargy at the kissing gate - love a bit of entertainment. Left the beer hidden as it would have given the hiding place away. Then Byreside ‘hill’ (pretty much non-existent) and Caerketton (no beer at either) before refreshments at the other White Hill, on to Swanston, down to BBVP and home. What a fun day out!

The HBT hill bagging rolls on. We did the 7 Holyrood tops today with Megan and kids and one of Eilidh’s friends. Kids were totally mental for both the sledging and the beer. Asked where next from the top of Crow hill, then grabbed sledges and took a running leap in the general direction. It’s a mystery how we managed to miss gorse bushes and crags every time. A happy one.

Jill’s session. Prolly the last time for awhile due to home schooling ridiculous stress. Fun.

Then a walk to take in more hills. Torphin, Warklaw and Torduff.

Run with Loz in the dark for yet more hills. Morton hall on the way to Galachlaw then over the golf courses to Braids, then home. I think Laurence enjoyed it secretly despite the negative feedback.

Played football in morningside park with Emma, Lucy, Loz and Fran. Loz, Fran and I were hammered 50:9. Not sure Loz was really trying. Fran and I were though and we were shite.

HBT ridiculous running challenge number eight billion three hundred and nine. Summit all the hills in the Edinburgh council area in the 12 days of Christmas. Carlton, Castle and Corstorphine (one of the apparently 2 tops) yesterday. Blackford on Christmas Day. Ran the two Craiglockharts after the football then ran home from Frans with Fran and Lucy.

Quick lunch before a family trip to pick off Dalmahoy and Kaimes hills.

A trotter 7 hills adventure with a buggy. Tired at Craiglickhart and the bank with a buggy was a non starter so we jogged home from there. Totally pooped now.

Running around with Ray. Pushing the buggy for some of it. Knackered. Got home, mad rush to meet friends to walk up Arthur’s Seat. Now I am really really knackered.

I had had a few ‘cooking’ drinks by the time the trotettes reminder email went around, but I thought sod it, and within 10 mins was out the door to jog down to meet at Holyrood. We then headed back to the innocent railway, Craigmiller castle, skirted the hospital on the cycle paths then back through craigmillar and the innocent railway. Lovely night to be out and great chat.

Dropped the car at Seafield Road for a service and ran home pushing B in the buggy. Gotta get used to it. The uphill bit at the end was a bit of a killer, and I struggle to run fast with it. It’s hard to get a rhythm going without moving your arms. Requires core strength I think.

Counting my blessings still, I seem to have lost 2kg since the start of the month, which I put entirely down to one of my teeth still being sore. I imagine the dentist will shut again so hopefully the weight loss will continue. I should write a diet book.

This is totally helping but will have to stop in the New Year. Not only is home schooling (sorry ‘blended learning’ - vomit!) being brought back in, but with the nurseries not being allowed to open we are rather scuppered. FFS!

So Ray and I have to fit an 8 hour day Mon - Thursday (me) and a 7 hour day Mon - Friday (him) into 24 hours with the time spent not working or sleeping being the sole adult. Ahhh the joy! So I am probably going to be on 6am-1pm, Ray 1-8, then me 8-9. Then overtime is added into the weekend. The rumour I have heard is this is until Feb half term at least. Just a rumour. The joy!

I’ll be very tired, v stressed, failing at my job, failing at parenthood and the only running i am likely to get will be pushing a buggy. I’ll have amazing biceps. At least the other home schooling I was on maternity leave. Count the blessings etc etc etc

Today I realised nurseries are shutting until FK when, so I spent most of the day in a rather disconsolate heap. You have to count your blessings - we both have jobs we can do from home, no one we know has been ill from COVID, we live in a house with a garden that is big enough not to hear anyone if you don’t want, we have the skills to home school (the academic skills that’s all, perhaps not the patience!), we have a baby who lights up all of our lives every day with a smile that melts the grumpiest of grumpy strops.

But counting your blessings only gets you so far. It it hard not to get stuck in a pile of self pity when you think of what this year could have been like if it was ‘normal’. No one outside the four of us has had any relaxed quality time playing with B. And that’s rubbish as he is great. So I’ll allow myself to mope today, and go back to the bloody blessing counting tomorrow!

Home schooling. Home schooling. Jesus wept she has no idea, no idea how horrific those two words are. And in January - the only busier month working in uni tax is February - and when this year we have Brexit, which will be an unrelenting shit show for anyone at all involved in import / export such as me.

My friend Claire G is pf insane. She runs her age in miles every birthday. 44 this year. She lives just south of Beecraigs so ran to Linlithgow then Bo’ness, along the front to S Queensferry, then Ratho and back on the canal. I ran to Ratho with Ray pushing B and the kids on bikes, then nabbed the bike off Loz and cycled back to get the van. Good to catch up with Bex. One of my fave bits of route but v muddy indeed just now.

Ah, sofa king tired. Walked up to the summit of AS with Elspeth, Bertie on my back and tripped coming down the N side at the top. Went flying but luckily Bertie stayed inter rucksack and Elspeth stopped him hitting his head.

C • falling 6

Trotter training. Hill reps on the seat. Various hills, all of which I felt shite with a capital sh on. Nice to be out in the hideous weather with friends though. Beer with Ivor in the pouring rain and wind at the end. Nice.

A real ffs day. The guy came to fit smart meters 2 days early, then managed to cause quite a lot of smoke to come out of the fuse box when he turned the electrics back on, tripping the switch. Turned it back on again ok then pissed off saying ‘you might want to get an electrician to look at that’. Only later On tonight do I find that the boiler is not working. Great!

But after the smoke I was really shaken up so I went on a buggy run only for the front wheel of the buggy to fall off lots. So in the end I gave up and walked back from the meadows,gradually getting hypothermia. Had to stop at Sainsbury’s on my way home. I was so cold and stressed I did the whole self service till thing and paid and walked out without the shopping. Got home and realised and had to go back, then by the time I got back I had to go to Meggetland for 2 hours with Lucy. Lunch at 5pm. Worried about the electrics too. Calling someone first thing tomorrow.

C • Smoke 3

With Laurence off road in the dark. My heart wasn’t really in it after a tough day

Last leg of the trotter boundary relay with Tom, Kai, Mickey G, Don, Ray and Bertie. We ran down to the start at Leith and then came back, via the finish in the bog. Bog was boggy. Buggy a bit buggered. Such fun. One of those runs you have no energy for at the start but turns out to be just what you needed.

Complex logistics for a trotter relay.

Cycled out to Little France to take over from Ray with Bertie in the buggy, and Alice for company on foot. Out to Gilmerton along the cycle path where we handed over to Derek Wilkie. Had to neck a beer then realised it was 8% and I was supposed to be driving later in the afternoon. Then jogged back home. The running buggy is pretty cumbersome. Biceps were aching.

Interlopers Thursday night run. I could only go as Loz's athletics was off. It was fun. Always nice to run with others. Started from Torphin, then WoL, Blinkbonny and Bonaly. I pulled my back in the afternoon lugging a massive food shop into the house so glad I could run. Brexit panic buying done though. If the worst comes to the worst we are surviving off pasta, pesto, tinned tomatoes, halloumi and butter beans. We can go at least about 6 weeks. Kids are gonna love it. In fact I might well not tell them that there's lots of food in the shops and live of this stash regardless. Saves me the hassle of having to go shopping.

Warriston Triangle reps. One tempo, one jog, one tempo. Teeth still sore. Not good. Excellent excuse to eat brandy butter. Checked out the ingredients - brandy, butter, icing sugar. This could be ideal OMM food.

C • food 1

Session was one of those deceptive ones that didn't really feel like much at the time but mid morning I was starting to ache.

First day of this stretch of maternity leave = lots of walking, which is nice.

Warm up and down. Bit exhausted after and there is just no where to go that is remotely flat in the area.

Very wet and slippy today. Had my o shoes on which helped. Wiped out 3 times. Felt tired for various reasons. No zing but still chipping away at the time.

Shadowing Lucy around a map run at Hillend. Tried to get her running with my motivational chat. If you think you can or think you can you're right Lucy. I defiantely can't, so can we go home now please.

She did ok considering the paths are not up to much on this area. When she started using the contours it was easier.

Weather still biblical. I actually thought our windows would break with the rain / hail / thunder snow last night. Still have sore teeth so I headed out for a high calorie shop of ‘soft’ food. Mince pies, cream, brandy butter and mushroom soup ingredients. Balanced diet.

Didn’t want to head out into the rain so I tried out treadmill. We have something called iFit which I haven’t used before. It links the treadmill with an iPad app and you run around somewhere with a trainer doing a session while giving a tour. Andre took me on a walk run of some town in Morocco. The scenery was good but it was too slow so I overrode Andres pace and did the whole thing 10k/hour. The problem was Andre kept running up hills so I’d be jogging along happily then the treadmill would go mega steep and I’d have to put an effort in to get up a hill at the same pace.

This got a bit annoying so next time I did a higher intensity session with Kelsey who was running around Supertarb(?) on an island in Croatia. Looked amazing. The scenery that is. Kelsey was mesmerising too, just for the motivational chat:

If you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right!
Get rid of all of those negative thoughts just now, you need your energy for this session!
Just think about how far you’ve come! (About 3k love, it’s no biggy really. Oh you mean in my running? Well of late my fitness has been travelling in a rather depressing direction so I’d rather not thanks).

The craziest think about Kelseywas the session. Jog a few mins then 7 mins ‘hard’ then six 30 secs sprint then another 7 mins. The first 7 mins was about 8 k / hour pace, as was the last. The first one took in a 16% hill though, which was tough going. I needed all of Kelsey’s motivational tips for this one. The last 7 mins was flat as a pancake though, which at the same pace I was barely breathing. Yes she was still giving it the same motivational chit chat as though it was just as hard. Same pace, one up a steep hill, one not. Hmm.

I’d go back to Kelsey though as the motivational chat was so cheesy I couldn’t stop listening to see what gems she was going to come out with next.

Not really sure how far I ran on both but it was about an hour.

C • Kelsey sounds a bit like JD! 1

Got some breakfast in the form of scrambled eggs at Dishoom, the last and one of the best Friday brunches. Wish my teeth hurt less then I could have had the sausage and egg naan that Ray had that looked amazing.

Would recommend brunch on the whole. It’s a lot cheaper than eating out at other times of the day and you can add it in to a nice long walk.

I had a long walk today as we did some Christmas shopping then headed home, where I discovered I had broken my phone. I trudged and back in to town to the Apple store in some of the worst of the biblical rain we have had recently. And trudged home in worse. Tired, v cold, thoroughly drenched with a still broken phone by the end. And still not eating enough to go running.

Teeth too sore to eat much at all. I had supernoodles for lunch. I hadn’t had them for ages. They were grim but v soft so managed to eat them which made me less giddy. And the giddiness and volume of work stopped me running. Maternity leave sort of restarts for a month tomorrow (I have a months leave), only I’ll probably have to do at least an hour a day still. We’re a small tax team and I am only just starting to get to grips with the mess that arose from my first period of maternity leave.

Around the Seat with Loz. Lovely moonlit night. Directly After a 2 hour session with the dentist. Root canal, chipped tooth, lost filling and then a bonus really big filling that we didn’t know about before doing an X-ray I had bad teeth before getting pregnant but didn’t have time to have them fixed before being pregnant (which makes teeth worse) when they just patched things up then COVID, now lots of grim dentistry.

I found the Warriston triangle at last and did reps in it. 4 x 6 mins. 0.77m, 0.79, 0.84, 0.81. Still the biomechanics that seems to be the limiting factor rather than lactate or breathing.