If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I hate hot weather, I really do. I understand lots and lots of people love it, and I understand that one or two days of lovely hot weather is preferable to snow and ice, but the heat this past week has just been unbearable and I dont function well like that! Grumpiness personified.... But anyway, I managed to get some exercise done, but I'm hoping for the temperatures to abate a wee bit for the rest of the summer, thankyouverymuch!!

So I left off last time with my wee run up Salisbury Crags on Monday morning. Monday evening I walked home from work - 6.5 miles along the Water of Leith path, which was stunning in places, and a good 4 miles or so of it was somewhere in Edinburgh I've never seen before, so all in all a nice (hot) walk. I'm lucky to not really get bothered by city midges, lol.... admittedly the West Highland Way buggers were a different story, but nah, all in all, I get off lightly, so a riverside walk on a muggy hot day wasn't too bad. The next morning, the prospect of a hot, sweaty 2 hour walk back to work (where I'd left my car) was completely unappealing, so I walked 2½ miles into town, then hopped on a bus the rest of the way. In the late evening, I had a 1 mile walk so as to take my distance walked over the 3 miles that gets me a sticker on my wall chart, lol....

Wednesday morning brought personal training at the gym, and lots of squats with the olympic bar and various weights. Owwwww.... I'm not sure what it is with my brain that doesn't let me squat as deep as I should, it clearly doesn't trust my quads and other leg muscles to get me back up again - I have to learn to trust my body and what it can achieve. And look at me saying that like it's something new..... *sigh*

Thursday was a rest day, largely because I was too hot and bothered to go for a run in the morning, and the evening was busy with slimming class (my last one - more on that another time), and Friday was supposed to include a run because I'd took the day off work, but the heat and a hectic disorganised schedule meant it ended up being a rest day, while I flew around town getting chores done, then headed out of the city for a hen night in a Perthshire country estate. It was an ACE evening (and I wore a size 12 dress, hehehehehehhehehe, me!! size 12!!! hell, it's only 3½ years since I was wearing size 24....) with lovely girls and great banter, then I drove home while they stayed on for a spa weekend, because Saturday I'd had other plans made for quite some time....

I will do a seperate write-up on Saturday's Clyde Stride, I think, because it was such an epic day of awesomeness. So, let's just brush over that for now - it was, of course, a third 'rest day' in a row for me, albeit one with no resting!!! :) Amazing day, though, and very motivating. Gave me plenty to think about on the drive home.

So after 3 full rest days, Sunday dawned, and with it the realisation that if I procrastinated over breakfast AGAIN, I'd end up running in stupidly hot temperatures, like last week. So, I kind of hurried myself along a bit, drank a lot of water, and headed out at about 8:30. Still much later than I should have gone, I think. My 'genius' plan was to get my weekly long run done by the coast, because then I'd maybe get a wee breeze. Aye, clever thinking, EXCEPT it's also not at all shaded. Sigh. And I forgot my sunglasses. Also, I think I was still a bit physically tired from the rest of the weekend, and I hadn't eaten much at all during Saturday. Regardless, that all sounds like I'm making excuses, and I guess I am, because otherwise the fact that I did 6.6 miles even SLOWER than last week would be something of a disappointment. Loads of walking, and really slow running, meant I covered the distance in 90 minutes, which is an average pace that would equate to a 3 hr 40 Southside Six, which is really not the plan....... I didn't really plan the route, other than I wanted to do more than last week's 6.2 miles, but no further than 7 miles. The stretch of seafront is about 2 miles, so it called for some inventive doubling back and an extra bit at the end up a long hill and back down again: you can see the doubling back and messing around I did at the only hill in the middle of the route, to get some hills ran during the session (it's mostly flat, otherwise, except for the mile at the end).

I felt miserable on that long run. I keep waiting for running to 'click' with me, but it was hot, I kept walking, and I didn't want to be there. At one point, doing those loops in the middle, I kept passing a runner from one of the local running clubs - it seemed to me that he was doing the same as me, trying to put some hills into an otherwise flat-as-a-pancake training run, but he just looked so comfortable flying along, and I was Queen of the Lobster-faced People, grumpy and plodding along. In my mind's eye, I really can picture myself running smoothly and confidently - I need to get that transferred to Real Life now. Some days I feel like I'm making progress, other days I'm a mess.

And, to come back to the quote in the blog title (which in my head I'm attributing to a song by Bucks Fizz, lmao, but t'internet tells me is a quote by Harry S. Truman, lol) - kitchen-wise, I'm also a bit of a train-wreck at the moment. Nothing new there, but I'll need to write some thoughts about my food intake (and self-sabotage) another day.