I could accurately sum up this race in 3 words. That really hurt. I could leave it there but that would be a pretty short blog so given this was my first big target race of the year, and since I can’t sleep lets give it the full on nerd analysis. It’s fair to say this years fling was massive. Johnny Fling has done an amazing job with this race and with it being a Scottish/UK trail champs race and a selection …
Blog Posts
A beautiful night for the 1st of this years Bog & Burn series of midweek hill races. Ayrshire is an unlikely spot for a hill race not being the most hilly part of the country. But this is a great wee race, fitting the bill well as it features both bog and a burn. A 7 o’clock start in Fairlie meant a bit of a rush to get away from work in time for the race start. But we made …
Clachnaben is one of those hill races I have never gotten around to racing. With it being just outside Banchory it is an awful long way to drive for an hour and 20 odd minutes of running. However with it forming race one of the Scottish Hill champs this year it seemed like a good time to give it a go. It also falls two weeks out from the Highland Fling so there was no real need to be doing …
If the my radiologist Mr Du Plessis happens to come across this blog I can only apologise. His parting words to me after my angiogram on thursday were “no racing for 2 weeks, no running for 1 week”. I tried to explain I had a race on saturday that was a vital part of my fling buildup but he was having none of it. So Mr Du Plessis I am sorry for ignoring you but I came away unscathed with a …
In Strathblane on a clear day you can just see Ben Lomond poking out in the distance. It looks quite far away but an idea had been brewing for a few weeks. Why not run all the way to Ben Lomond before running up and down it? Much nicer than faffing about with a car or bus to get there. After knocking about a few dates myself and Joe thought it might make a good last(ish) big run before the …
As an addendum to yesterdays pre run breakfast digesting post- I managed a 55km bimble taking in in a meandering route to Conic hill via a detour up Dumgoyne. A bit windy, squally and underfueled but an enjoyable 5 hours. Strava Link 171.6km for the week which is my biggest mileage week since march last year. A couple more of these hopefully then it is taper time.
Time for a quick blog as I wait for my breakfast to digest before my last run of the week. Into the last 4 weeks of training for the fling before we hit taper time. The plan is to up the weekly mileage to about 100 over these last weeks and concentrate on some good long runs while cutting back a bit on the speedier stuff (ha ha as if there has been a huge amount of speedwork). This week …
A 5km race around a Clydebank industrial estate wouldn’t normally be my 1st choice way to spend a sunny saturday afternoon but it’s a Bella club championship race and my plans for a long run had been scuppered by having to work in the morning. So after finishing work I decided to make the short hop over to Clydebank for the sociable 2pm start. With the popularity of free weekly parkruns everywhere 5km races are pretty few and far between which …
I just thought it would be a good idea to get all the years planned races down in one place as the calendar is filling up rapidly. The main target for the early part of the year is the Highland Fling. After that the summer is all about the hills. As well as the usual Scottish Hill racing favourites I have a couple of exciting trips to Norway and Italy for a bit of Skyrunning fun. Then I will be …
I can’t think of many reasons why I would voluntarily choose to get up at 4.30 in the morning to go to Aberdeen. The D33 race is one of them. On the face of it 33 miles out and back from Duthie park to Banchory along pancake flat cycle paths is a pretty uninspiring race concept, however this is one of those races that turns out to be much more enjoyable than you would expect. In the same way that …