Training Log Archive: murraystraining

A grand evening but a terrible nights sleep - I had a claustraphobic reaction to being cramped in a 1 man tent with Cheps and ended up sleeping on my survival bag in the marquee - not the warmest or quietest.
Lack of sleep notwithstanding I felt pretty good in the morning, particularly when I felt how much lighter my bag was after eating all my food last night. Similar pattern to yesterday - strong start then O started flagging after three hours. This coincided with the Swedes and T+J catching and passing us, and taking with them any chance of a podium finish. After that we basically cruised it in - not sure if that was a choice our legs made or our heads! All in all it was a cracking weekend. The cloud inversion after the first big climb today was just stunning and the general atmosphere of the event was tremendous.

C • Claustrophobic reaction 2

12 hours later we were 4 hours drive north and registering for the Highlander - a couple of hours less sleep than would have been ideal but heyho, that's the way we rolled. Running this as a last minute standin for the injured high-jumper Scotia with Oleg. Great day running round (but not to the top of) the Mullardoch/Strathfarrar munros. Mostly good route choices and no nav problems. Oleg got a bit tired after three hours due to lack of food - he perked up a bit after shoving some flapjack in and we finished reasonably strongly. 4th, 30mins behind Sam&Fin, 16 behind team Haglofs, 8 behind Tim&Johannes.
Cracking midge free evening with good company, beer and food. Didn't manage a ceilidh dance though!

Kinghorn.

Black Rock 5 title defence. Floundered across the sand on the way out to the rock, gradually getting dropped from the lead pack of Renault, Hukins and Green. I found my legs somewhere in the sea behind the rock though and worked my way back up to them on the way back, eventually drawing level with Renault coming onto the soft sand on the beach. I put in a couple of testing surges up the road back into town but couldn't shake him off so relaxed and decided to see what tactics he had in mind. He passed me just before the descent to the start line but neither of us hammered the downhill and I was back on his shoulder under the railway bridge. From there to the finish there was only going to be one winner, and it wasn't the marathon running flatlander. Title: defended.

C • Nice 1

IW via the trophy engravers.

Normal circuit.

Including a pause for a game of rounders on the Meadows. Think I pulled a muscle in my side with a swing and a miss.

Work-Flat-Registration
Warm Down-Jog to Corstorphine-Jog around Corstorphine looking for the Inn-Jog back to flat after 5/2 pints.

CAAC5. Not the fastest but not too shabby either and got the win which surprised me a bit - Meekness and Bmac were both ahead of me at the ST5k and took it out fast but I was able to reel them in and get away when we hit the hills.
The "race yourself fit" strategy is starting to pay off!

Easy with the boys.

Bank holiday hill trip. Beinn Chabhair and Beinn a Chroin from the south. The original plan was to skirt round the side of BaC and come home via Cruach Ardrain and Bein Tuilaichen however the col between An Caisteil and BaC was higher than I remembered so decided it was worth doing a bit more climb on a decent path rather than a rough descent beside the burn. That would have been fine but by the time I got to the top of BaC the weather had turned and from no where there were black clouds looming over the hills to the east. Not wanting to become another 'hill walker struck by lightning news story I bailed out via Ishag Glen. Pretty wrecked by the end so it was probably for the best. Stunning day before the storms appeared though.