Easter Sunday brought the usual family commitments what with hiding easter eggs, finding easter eggs, not finding the easter eggs that I had hidden half an hour before and preparing for a meal time visit from my parents, so my long run had to be squeezed in to it's usual early morning slot.
I decided to drive up to Gartmore and run from there over to Balmaha and back. A total of 20 miles with the added bonus of a couple trips up and over Conic Hill. I set off at 7:00am and was feeling quite spritely as I trotted along the road and then up through the forest behind Drymen before the first ascent of Conic Hill. One or two little patches of snow left but nothing much and I slid my way down the wet grass before the lovely little downhill section through the trees to the car park at Blamaha.
I arrived in good shape having really enjoyed the run so far and munched on a Hot Cross Bun and Jam (it was Easter after all!) before heading back from whence I came.
The second ascent of Conic Hill was a breeze and I was up and over dancing my way down the river bed that masquerades as a footpath on the other side of the hill. By the time I got to the bottom, I decided to step up the pace as I was feeling comfortable and wanted to push myself a bit. I continued this pace all the way down to Drymen, passing hoards of walkers going the opposite way with a cheery, "morning!", "morning!", "hiya!", "morning!", "morning!"
I crossed the main road at Drymen and was heading across the field to join the road back to Gartmore when I spotted Ritchie Cunningham and another runner coming in the opposite direction. We stopped for a quick chat:
R - "Hi, have you been far?"
Me - "No just over to Balmaha and back but I'm going really well today. How about you, where are you heading?"
R - "Tyndrum"
Me - "Whoa , good for you"
R - "Then Fort William tomorrow"
Me - " Really?!"
R - "Then back again over the next two days"
Me - " "
R - "See you then, have a good run"
Me - "Yeah, you too"
So there you go - just when I was starting to feel like I was going well, along comes Ritchie to put it all into perspective - Thanks Ritchie!
Not too dispondent, I pushed on and finished my last couple of miles at breakneck speed before reaching my car and heading home. I did console myself however with the thought that as I was sitting there supping my first of several glasses of Tempranillo later that day, Ritchie would have been battling with the cow shit just past Derrydaroch - at that brief moment I did feel slightly more pleased with myself!
2 comments:
Thought I might have seen Richie in Kinlochleven yesterday, but (if it was) he'd dived into the Co-op before I could make a positive ID and (being in soaking running gear myself) I didn't particularly want to chase him to check (wish I had now)...
But 180 miles in four days just isn't natural, so I wouldn't worry too much about 'perspective' here! :-)
Re. my first comment, did I say 180 miles? Meant 190, of course (even worse!), but can admire the effort without wanting to be the same. (Think I'd fall apart on half what Richie does, hate *having* to run even what I'm doing now and just couldn't take that level of running commitment all the time!)
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