I'm back!

Apologies to anyone who's been wondering what's happen with the running fool of late but suitably spurred on by JK, I'm going to try and get back to this blogging lark.

A lot's happened since my last post.  First there was the River Ayr Way Challenge which was great.  As some runners found, the signposting could have been better and local knowledge clearly helped.  I finished 6th overall (out of about 20) but missed out on a sub-7 time which I would have liked.  I hope it's going to be on again next year but whether I do it or not will depend on timing and the organisers aren't sure when it will be next year.  I've offered to put together an unofficial website for the council just to raise the profile of the event a bit more as I'm sure there would have been more interest if it had been better publicised.

I've also been up to Orkney (my first visit) since my last post.  Not the most dramatic of islands but an intriguing place nonetheless.  Did the touristy things like visiting the Italian Chapel, Skara Brae, Maes Howe etc., and did one gentle run around Stromness.  Stomach problems resulted in me "claiming" another island.  You probably didn't want to know that. ;-)

As I've mentioned before, I had been agonising over whether to do the Loch Ness Marathon or not as it clashed with other races I wanted to do.  The problem was, I had already entered the LNM before I remembered about them and as my wife is running the 10K in Inverness, I was pretty committed to going up.

In the end, I decided to run the Two Breweries race (report on the Troon forum here).  It was

 really tough, tougher than the Pentland Skyline I think (which is the week after the LNM) and that's saying something.  A lot of heather bashing and bog hopping and not as much running as I would have liked but a great race nonetheless.  Any race with free beer at the end can't be bad!

Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the beer! :-(  I had to rush back to Glasgow for a family meal so I reckon I'll just have to do the race again, preferably with a non-drinking companion. ;-)

I finished pretty well down the field (4:29 137/176) but it was just great to be out running (and staggering) through the hills again.  I have probably rubbished my legs for a road marathon but I don't care.  If I'm honest, I really don't enjoy road marathons and I think I'm going to spend more time on the hills and less on the roads in future.

Although it's probably madness, I hope to do the Pentland Skyline the week after.

Hearing about JK's foot problem has helped to remind me that I'm lucky to be running at any speed and that perhaps I should be worrying less about times and more about enjoyment.  I did the Two Breweries because I didn't want to let yet another year go by without having a bash at this race.  I'm really glad I did.