Chicken, egg. Egg, chicken

As I probably mentioned, I had a rather cr*p run last Saturday. Part of me would like to believe that I was "brewing" something before my run which led to my poor run but another part would rather believe that the exertion of my run (and the previous week's training) was what led me to develop the streaming nose that I've had most of this week.

The problem with theory A is that I had no symptoms or signs of anything brewing and if something *was* brewing, I certainly wasn't aware of anything before our run. The problem with theory B is that it means admitting that I wasn't as fit as Ithought I was before our run. Consequently I'm not too keen to accept either theory.

The good news is that my cold is much better now and I went out on my jaunt around Auchincruive today, my 6.22 mile trail run that I've been using for tempo runs. Concious that I'd done very little running this week I set off at a nice easy pace and just pushed gently on the hills, anxious not to do naything that might provoke any sort of relapse. Either my mind is wandering more than usual or the hills are getting flatter but by the time I'd finished without feeling I'd pushed myself that hard, I had knocked another 34 seconds off my PB for this circuit. Just goes to show what you can do after a few days rest!

Anyway, feeling a bit more optimistic about Loch Ness. Still be happy with a 3:30 but part of me feels that I might surprise myself. Having said that, with no race results lately to actually measure my progress with, any estimate is a bit of a "shot in the dark". Whatever happens, it'll be good to get together with a few WHW'ers and clubmates.

I suppose like most runners I'm rather obsessed with "times" but family events recently have reminded me lately that people are far more important. Really looking forward to a planned training run on the WHW in November with a number of other WHW runners.