Wednesday 22 August 2007

Tuesday 21/08 West Highland Way/Mugdock Run

Type: Easy/Fun
Time: 1hr30mins
Distance: about 10miles
Rating: 4.5

14.09mins - 1.55miles warm up run at 9.07m/m down to the industrial estate where I met my cycling friend. We set out along the West Highland Way and then diverted our path up towards Mugdock Country Park for about 1hour15mins. The hill up there from the WHW is HUGE. It's such a steep hill! So I walked up that, which hurt my legs probably as much as it would have if I'd run...But after that we had a gentle run/cycle round the park, round a pretty loch and a little play in the activity area which, sadly, was only a fraction of the fun I remember it being when I was little!
The run home was slightly faster, simply because it was picth black and so when on road, I had to use my phone as my light (which actually worked surprisingly well shining on my white t-shirt, apparently) I didn't want to get hit my a car, naturally! The roads are very quiet up there, yet there are a few houses and late at night cars tend to speed about, and the roads are very narrow. In contrast to that however, when on the off road parts coming home (ie- back on the WHW) I slowed the pace right down because I couldn't see a thing. As much as having someone shout out "puddle ahead" or "big rock coming up" is useful, it doesn't quite act as a subsitute for a headlamp. When we hit the roads again on the climb back home, I was very surprised because I managed a fairly fast pace up hill, which usually kills me at the end of runs.

In terms of my heel, I must say it was quite sore half way during the run. It did ease off a little - stretching definitely helps - but I'm going to take Wednesday off because I don't want to make it worse. It's sore to touch, almost as if there's a bruise there though there's no inflammation or anything, so I guess we'll wait and see. The worst thing would be having the pain during the half next weekend. I'm thinking I want to schedule a speed session this week and one steady run too, though I'm going to Edinburgh on Thursday afternoon...and I'll be fairly busy this weekend so I'll have to try and schedule a run around that. Next week I want to do 4 runs - perhaps Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, Monday being a longish run and Friday being a very easy one. I'm not sure about including speeds next week. I don't want to tire myself too much, but I think if I did some shorter, flat runs, I could include speed quite easily without adding too much strain. I might actually subsitute one run for a cross train in the gym, I'm not sure.

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