"A wee scrape on a non-essential limb" - apparently. :(

Wednesday evening, when Bob came over for a run, I was tired and it was humid and I basically couldn't be arsed running. I'd planned on doing about 5 miles, but after about 3 miserable slow miles I asked Bob if he'd be okay with us cutting it short, and he said yes (I suspect 'anything to shut her up') so we turned back and finished just over 3½ miles, in approximately 44½ minutes. Terrible. I guess any run is better than no run, though... Ummm, maybe. (Running sucks.)

Thursday morning I went to personal training, and we did a session heavy on the hamstrings - loads of single-arm kettlebell swings. I was quite surprised at being able to do sets of 50 reps with the 16kg bell, though!! Nice to see the progress sometimes, especially when running is getting me down. A few other bits and pieces made up the session - some core work, on the lower abs, and stuff like that. It was tough but a good session - I don't do kettlebells work enough these days, and I ought to, because they make me feel strong and wonderful. I always have this image on the right in my head, that I randomly found on the internet a year or so ago, (no idea who/where to credit, sorry) whenever I lift or swing the bells - this is something I aspire to. :) Anyway.... back to Thursday... Having STILL not done the running workouts he designed for me, I decided I would go to the gym again after work too, and get the first one done, but my gym kit got sweaty and I'd forgotten a different top, so I went home after work, got changed, sat down on the sofa for 2 minutes to check my emails, and woke up 2½ hours later!!!!! OMG. I've been generally pretty exhausted of late, and things were catching up on me, so I just went to bed after that.

Friday, I had fully intended to get a run in on the morning, and although I woke up still physically exhausted, and with hamstrings complaining after the personal training session, I dressed for a run, and went out before work. Within 2 minutes I was completely drained, and run/walking - I just turned the loop back a bit, and ran/walked 1 mile in a woeful 13:25 - feel very sorry for myself, and generally not very well. After work on Friday, I again just went to bed early, there was no point even pretending I was going to do any exercise.

Saturday morning, I awoke after 11 hours of sleep!! Starting to feel somewhat human again (albeit still with sore hamstrings) I would have gone for a run had I not been going to a wedding all day instead. So, a rest day - but a nice day and great to see Ianthe and Mark tie the knot in a very personal Christian ceremony with a Jewish twist. Mazel tov!

I left the wedding as the ceilidh got underway, and drove home, so I was in bed at a reasonable hour and slept well. Sunday morning I woke up feeling basically okay, still a bit tight in the hamstrings but nothing too bad. I guess, despite a week of poor runs, it was Long Run time..!! According to the schedule, it should be about 11 miles, so I figured run somewhere about 5 miles away, and then come back via a slightly different route, and see what happens. Admittedly, I should have designed a proper route, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I set off onto the cycle paths near my flat, and followed it all the way from Victoria Park for 4 miles. It was a tough run, my legs didn't want to work, so I forced myself to count lamp-posts. I srtarted off runing for 3 lampposts, then walking for 1, and after a few sets of those, I increased the run to 4 lamp-posts, then later, 5, and I stuck to the 5/1 split for quite a while. I found it hard-going, but actually did a lot better enforcing the strict splits than I normally do. Around 4-ish miles, the cycle path came to an end, in a part of town I'm really not familiar with. Again, with hindsight, I should have just turned back around, ran back, and ran past my start point for another mile to the coast, etc. but no, I kind of came off the path, wandered a bit aimlessly, then ran randomly in a direction I thought might get me somewhere familiar. It did, but it was a busy part of town, so I couldn't really run very well on the pavements, and the lamp-post trick was out. Finally I found my way onto the Water of Leith path, and headed back in the direction of home. About half a mile away from my flat, I realised my distance covered was only 8.15 miles, so I was trying to work out in my head what loop I could add on for 2 extra miles, when suddenly my foot caught on a slightly raised bit of tarmac, and I felt myself fly forwards. Instantly, and instinctively, I tried to protect my knees after the clattering they got last time I felt, so I basically put my hands out, and sort of rolled my legs sideways as my hands took the impact of the fall. I quickly rolled and sat up, as a passerby shouted out to me, but I reassured them I was fine, as I surveyed the damage... legs fine, all joints fine, hands..... the left was missing quite a bit of skin, in a bad scrape. It bloodied up immediately, and I grabbed for the clean buff I had been carrying in my waist bag to wrap around it. I cursed my decision to carry water with a little fruit juice in it, instead of normal plain water, becase I had nothing to try and wash the bits of gravel out with, so I just sat there for a good 5 minutes or more, gathering my thoughts. A cyclist stopped, and I took a little bit of his water to splash on the wound, which hurt soooo much, but sadly as I'd fallen next to a kiddies' playground, there was no swearing allowed, haha.

Getting back to my feet, I headed the half mile to home, doing a little bit of half-hearted jogging. All told, including stops and the slow walk at the end, I covered 8.7 miles in 1hr 52, so depressing. When I upload the Garmin data, I'll work out what I'd done the 8.15 miles in, but if memory serves I think it was 1hr 42, which means an average pace of about 12:30 per mile. That's definitely faster than my last couple of long runs, and I think speaks volumes to how differently I run when I KNOW I'm doing run/walk intervals, as to how I run when I'm trying to keep running without doing any walking. I think I'm closer to deciding my strategy for the Great North Run, now.

After getting home and tentatively washing the wound (owwwwwww) I managed to get changed and have some lunch. Davie was running in the 50 mile ultra marathon John Lucas Memorial down in Strathaven, and based on rough calculations from his halfway point etc. I figured he'll be finishing around 4pm, so I decided I would make him up a flask of hot soup, and head to the finish to cheer him over the line. Sadly, I didn't logically think that through - driving with the skin missing from my left palm was, well, excruitating pain would be about as close to describe it without swearing. Every time I changed gears, I either swore out loud, or actually screamed - and the drive was 80 minutes' long..!! Getting to Strathaven, I found I'd missed the first two guys finishing, Grant Jeans in an impressive run considering his form this past year hasn't been all that hot (he admitted later than it's the first race he's finished in 18 months!) but still a long way outside his course record, and then Gerry Craig in second place about 20 minutes after Grant, in a pretty impressive run as well. Gerry's had a pretty good season, really, completing the 'triple crown' (WHW Race, Fling and Devil ultramarathons) as well as others, such as a great performance in Perth back in March.

I hung about with the new Race Director, David Meldrum, and chatting to a couple of people, until I spotted Davie and Julie's car drive up. With both of them in it. :( Davie had sadly dropped out, at around 40 miles in, after taking a wrong turn. Still, you can't argue with a good steady 40 mile run, in less than ideal weather, so I gave him the hot soup I'd brought for him anyway, lol..... We stayed around the finish areas at the other finishers crossed the line (the imaginary line, lol) and then for the award ceremony at the end. It's a shame that they'd only managed 17 starters on the day, but I hope it attracts more next year. From what folk were saying, it's a nice enough course, with a few challenging bits it - one section that was being discussed is where you come down a hill, then a very sharp hairpin bend, to start a climb - Grant Jeans matter-of-factly laughing about having to suddenly change gears from the 5 minute mile pace you're doing.... Aye, cos everyone runs 5 minute miles in a 50 mile ultra...!! *laughs*

I headed home after the medal ceremony, and the drive brought tears to my eyes the whole way. Just sooooo painful. When I got home, I sat in the car for about 20 minutes, miserably clutching my wrist and feeling sorry for myself. Getting inside, I remembered the first aid kit I bought for hillwalking, and gratefully applied a non-adhesive dressing to the wound. I ate some cold boiled potatoes from the fridge, took painkillers, then crawled into bed and waited for the pain to subside enough for sleep to come, feeling pathetic and wanting looked after, lol.

Yep, it's not been a great week for running, for me. But there are some positives (the pace I was averaging in the long run before the fall on Sunday is actually HM PB pace...), I just have to reach through the gloom and grab onto them. After all,as I was reminded several times last night, a scraped hand is nothing, really. (*sobs quietly through the pain*)