On Easter Sunday I ran/walked for 1 hour in the morning, and went to the gym in the afternoon. Monday I went walking in the Pentlands for the first time, in the morning, and went for a swim in the afternoon. Yesterday (Weds) after work I ran continuously for one hour for the first ever time!!!! ....Okay, so admittedly I just whizzed through those things there, lol, but last night's run has eclipsed how great I was feeling about my weekend exercise sessions, because I'm really proud of myself - which in its own right is a big deal. So, while this post was going to focus on 4 activity sessions over the two days, to keep it manageable I'll just stick with the Pentlands walk, and then last night's run.
I've lived in Edinburgh twice, for a total of 11 years, over 20 years - but I've never once walked in the Pentland hills. This seems a bit ridiculous, so I decided to take advantage of the long Easter weekend off work, and the lovely weather, to rectify that. I knew I'd have nobody to go walking with, and would be on my own, so I asked friends for recommendations of nice easily-navigated walks where I wouldn't need a map or something like that, and was given a handful of great suggestions. I decided to park at Bonaly, just up from the Scout hut, and chose an early morning start - however, on waking there was a bit of fog, so I delayed leaving the flat and didn't actually get to the carpark until just before 9am. It was nice and quiet, a small handful of dog walkers and so on, and I changed into my walking boots and put my Garmin heart rate monitor strap on - ready to go. I walked right, along to Torduff Reservoir, and was struck in just that first km how lovely it was up there, and how friendly and cheerful everyone I passed was. Walking around the reservoir, and past a waterfall, the route went 'off-road' for the first time, and started to climb. Being on my own, I could stop every now and again when I felt I was struggling (though interestingly my heart rate tending to show at about 155-160 when I felt I was pushing hard up the hill, so clearly I wasn't struggling as much as I thought) and look at the scenery - I couldn't decide whether this was a good thing or not, haha. Anyway, came out through some woodland to the track which went back down to the carpark, or up to Bonaly Reservoir - I went up. And up. And up. :-) At the top, I went through the gate onto the military testing grounds, and followed the path along and down for a mile or two. The bottom of the hill was Glencorse Reservoir, which looked stunning in the sunshine. I found a grass verge to sit myself down, and drank from my flask of tea while I relaxed in the silence. Well, I say silence, but isn't nature loud when it's not drowned out by traffic and other city noises??!! :-)
After maybe 20 minutes, I set back on the route I'd taken, and walked back up to Bonaly Reservoir (this time my heart rate reached the low 170s on the climb), and then down to the carpark. The steep downhill at the end was giving the toes on my left foot a bit of pain - that's my foot with the worst bunion, and I'd worn two pairs of socks with the boots, so I think there just wasn't enough room in the toe-box of my walking boots to accomodate all 5 toes, and on the downhill, crammed up against the end of the shoe, they weren't happy. However, it was a short hill in the end, and I changed back into trainers at the end. :-) Lesson learned about socks though, in those walking boots.
It was a really lovely walk, good for the soul - though it did make me feel a bit lonely in general. This is something I suffer a lot with, and while it's usually helped by just getting out of my small flat, I really wished I'd had some company. I think all the work I'm doing this year with my self-confidence etc. should hopefully help with this in the future. It's something I continue to work on.
So, anyway, on the subject of self-confidence, yesterday I decided I would go for a run after work. The weather is still gorgeous, and I hadn't had time to go to the gym in the morning because of an early meeting. For one reason or another, I didn't end up starting my run until about 6:50pm - the air was cooling a little bit, but still perfect for running in a tshirt without the need for long sleeves or anything like that, and I set off from Silverknowes along the promenade towards Cramond. My aim was to run for 20 minutes, then turn round and run/walk back in a similar time (i.e. picking the run pace up in the second half, but with walk intervals) - but as I set off plodding along, when I reached 20 minutes, I just kept going. At around 30 minutes I thought to myself for the first time, I'll be able to run the whole 40 minutes! and it struck me moments later than because I'd turned round the flagpole at around 25 minutes, I was going to be some distance from my car at 40 minutes. So then it became "I'll run 40 minutes, then run/walk back to the car"... except when I got to 40 minutes, I kept going.
I realised my pace was pretty steady - I was running around 7:45 minute kms (equivalent to a 12:25 mins/mile sort of pace) and my heart rate was pretty consistent at around 160bpm - really pleased with the consistency, but of course it also shows the route I'd picked was mostly entirely flat, haha. At 50 minutes, I had to make a decision - turn left to run the 2 mins back to the car, or turn right and make an extra loop. By now, of course, that 1 hour mark was huge in my mind, so I turned right. Running on, and turning when I thought it was about right, I timed the return to my car perfectly (I'd speeded up my running at the end to finish where I wanted) and as soon as my watch said 1 hour, I hit the stop button on my watch, and came to a stop. My legs immediately turned to jelly, lol, even though they'd felt fine while running, and I moved around slowly for a moment or two. The sun was setting over the Firth of Forth, so I snapped a photo, and allowed myself to feel really pretty damn proud of that run.That's the first ever time I've ran for one hour without walking - it was slow, steady, and I never once pushed myself, but that wasn't what last night's run ended up being about. I covered 4.83 miles in that one hour - I know I can run much faster when I'm doing run/walk intervals, or in race conditions, but regardless, last night was a huge confidence boost. I'm heading in the right direction...
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