Run up the Carrick hill again

Last Thursday I ran up the Carrick hill from Minishant for the first time in nearly 3 years. Well, the prospect of doing embarrassingly badly in the Carnethy5 race has impelled me to try and run up here twice a week so I went out again this afternoon for another crack at the hill.

What a difference! Of course a lot is to do with familiarity but last Thursday it was a horrible grind up and not much faster down. This time I wasn't that much quicker up but it felt a lot easier. Intentionally I wanted to concentrate on my downhill technique and I was over 4 minutes faster (over 4 miles) coming down than last week and really enjoyed it. It would be great if I could keep improving at this rate but I know I'm just enjoying early easy gains. It's bound to get progressively harder to shave seconds off as I get better.

Still, I'm feeling a bit less trepidation about the hill race and it's given me a psychological boost.

Just as an aside, my right ankle has been aching badly first thing in the morning for a couple of months now. Until I put shoes on in the morning, I could barely weightbear on it. Since my training mileage has increased, it's got better! I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I was "just getting old" and would have to live with it. A remarkable (and perplexing) thing the human body.