And there it was, this huge unspoken issue, the “elephant in
the room” if you go in for the current popular American Pysco-babble. Valentines
Day. There, ive said it. Interestingly enough it was Simon who was to
utter those simple few words which are enough to scare the life out of a well
practised unromantic cynic – “we really should do something to celebrate
Valentines weekend”. And then it was out there…and the look of realisation at
what he had just said crossed his face was something akin to that of a startled
rabbit in the headlights as the implications sunk in. A romantic weekend away
during the 6 nations rugby would mean missing the Wales match and I could see
his little brain racing as he frantically tried to think of a way to dig
himself out of that one. My own wee brain was similarly preoccupied as a
romantic weekend away could seriously impinge on VRT (valuable running time).
Who says romance is dead?
A compromise was swiftly reached (never under estimate the
power of panic) and it conveniently turned out that the Cupar 5 mile road race
was on the Saturday afternoon which would allow me to run while Simon could
watch the rugby leaving the evening free for the traditional Valentines posh
meal. As it turned out the Wales
game was on later and in a surprise u- turn Simon was a last minute entry in
the race.
The Cupar 5 has been held for about 30 years and the race
field of this friendly Fife AC race has grown until this year it reached a new
record of 315 starters (307 finished so we must of lost 8 en route – where?
How? Were they ever found again?). The route is an “out and back” along a
traffic free lane which is pleasantly undulating and twisting and this year the
stiff headwind for the first half of the race was the main talking point in the
post race chat
Simon, having only been back training for 4 weeks after a 6
month layoff through injury, started right at the front and tried to outrun
Derek Hawkins. For those of you who don’t know Derek Hawkins was the winner of
the national cross country championships the previous weekend and so needless
to say I trotted past a wrecked Simon at the half way point and took the
opportunity to yell unsympathetic abuse, of course this just encouraged him to
dig a little deeper and he beat me by about 20 seconds. My own race plan was to
try to keep Lorraine Brown in sight for as long as I could but my race was a
bit lack-lustre and I struggled to get out of a low gear as was the case in the
previous weekends’ cross country race.
Simon elbows his way to the front
City of Edinburgh AC had
appeared en masse and seemed to do well in the prizes although Garry did the
ungentlemanly thing and sheltered from the headwind by running behind Victoria for the first
half of the race. You can’t deny it Garry, there is photographic evidence…
The post race tea and cakes at these Fife AC races are a
great way to catch up with folk who you haven’t seen for a long time. Simon did
a run past and grab of a handful of cakes and made it to the sofa in time to
watch the rugby while I stayed and caught up with a lot of people I hadn’t seen
in a long time.
Fortunately for me there was another rugby match on the
Sunday which allowed me to escape to run over some old training routes through
the Fife countryside.
View from the tower of St Andrews Cathedral
St Andrews Cathedral
The Tower
The tunnel under St Andrews Castle
THE INVERNESS HALF MARATHON
Race preparation
The best laid plans of mice and men…and Lynx pack runners…The
arrangement was that Mike would pick John up and then we would all meet at
Eztek and travel through together in one car. Except that Mike appeared without
John. Fail. Plan B was activated and 45
minutes later we were on our way. (Plan B included hurried phone calls and
extensive grovelling by Mike)
John’s sister Joanie was kind enough to let us stay and feed
us all for the weekend at her stunning house situated near Inverness
and so pre race prep involved lots of eating drinking gazing out of the window
at the view while teaching Bert the fundamentals of Rugby Union.
Like Cupar two weeks previously this race also had a record
field of entrants this year and so finding the perfect starting position on the
start line was a bit of a challenge which I managed to not get quite right leading
to a very slow first mile spent weaving my way through the field.
At mile 5 I had passed a soldier running the race in full
army gear and I didn’t think anything of it until I heard him shout my name –
It was Andy McMahon from Stornoway RC and I have yet to establish exactly why
he was running in full army gear but he was carrying a tape recorder and was
interviewing other runners in the race and asked if he could interview me so I
trotted alongside him for a wee while chatting. Equally I have no idea what the
interview was for or who would be listening to it as Andy was fairly peppering
it with colourful language, I can only assume he wasn’t finding running in full
army gear a particularly easy task. At about mile 7 I passed Kirsty who seemed
to be having a bit of a grim time of it and we exchanged a few words but I
don’t think either of us were really in the mood for much chat and we passed
each other a few times before mile 10 and then only met up again at the end of
the race.
After a slow start by mile two I had got into my stride and
pretty much kept an even pace going and overtaking runners in front until the
last two miles when the lure of the finish line in sight kicked in and I
speeded up a bit especially when I heard Carrie shouting “HBT” from the
sidelines and saw Rob Taylor on his warm down run. The race finishes on the
track which is lined with spectators and so I mustered up a crowd pleasing
sprint finish to over take someone in the last 20m and then immediately wished
I hadn’t bothered as I wobbled across the finish line with both my quads
cramping up. With such a large number of runners in the race I had never once
caught sight of John or Mike in the race although I had shouted “well done
Mike” to someone who had ran past me during the race and looked rather startled
- and as well he might as he wasn’t Mike. Equally I hadn’t seen Susan Harley
from Fife AC during the race although I had expected her to be finishing in
around the same time as me and so it was good to finally meet up at the finish
of the race.
It transpired that John had finished in front of me, Mike
slightly behind me and Bert had finished well ahead of us all in a new best
time so it was a good day out for all and I was happy to have finished a good
few minutes quicker than I expected.
The race was dominated by Eritrean runners taking the top
places unsurprisingly perhaps, but a Hunters Bog Trotters team of mountain
running specialists scooped the team prize and, true to form, were nowhere to
be found when the winners were announced.
Then it was back to Joanies house for showers and more food
and drink, and there was plenty of time to relax as Bert, the designated
driver, decided that he really needed a nap before driving back to Aberdeen so we let him
get his beauty sleep while we relaxed. The amount of lazing about and eating
and drinking that was involved during these two days seemed barely compatible
with a half marathon event and by Sunday evening the whole weekend had taken on
a dream-like quality by the time we drifted back to Aberdeen.
THE NEWTONMORE 10 MILE RACE.
Happy Birthday Mike
This is a great weekend of running and community events put
on by Hunters Bog Trotters Geoff and Ali. The weekend kicks off on the Friday
night with a pasta party in the Braeriach hotel on the main street in
Netwonmore to allow the runners to carbo load for the race the following day
and in true runners style (or is it just me?) the eating and drinking theme
continues throughout the weekend. The Lynx Pack dream team stayed at the
Balvanich Hotel worth mentioning because this hotel, most unexpectedly, has a
swimming pool and a sauna to help with post race recovery.
The elite Lynx pack team members were concerned about the race time keeping.....
The race itself is an “out and back” 10 mile route from
Newtonmore through Kingussie and its pretty flat and traffic free. The turn
about point just outside Kingussie meant that you could keep watch on where
others are in the race which at times was a welcome distraction and at other
times a bit of a worry. Simon again had set out fast and faded. Apparently he had missed the start and so had come haring past Innes, Myself, Mike and John in the early miles and had "almost caught Bert". And thats his story and he's sticking to it.....
Bert had set
out fast and didn’t fade. The race also saw a rare race appearance from Innes
who was getting back into fitness for the Barra half marathon in July.
I hung in behind John
for the first mile then moved away once I realised he had slowed and I spent
the rest of the race battling it out with a runner from Perth road runners
which resulted in a pb for me although some of the garmin wearing geeks were
only too keen to inform me that the course was short. Despite that my
calculations tell me it would still have been a pb….. definitely....with no shadow of a doubt....
John
Mike
Bert
And then it was back to the hall for the prizes and, more
importantly, the tea and cakes. It is a community run event and many of the
prizes were donated from local businesses but unlike the friendly reception you
usually get at these little local races the ladies serving the tea were truly
terrifying. I think they were from the Newtonmore flower arranging club or
similar. I made the mistake of asking for a clean knife and got the distinct
impression that I was lucky to get away without having the said implement
embedded between my shoulder blades. I can only conclude that flower arranging
in Newtonmore must be on a par with the shinty for violence.
John was pleased to win a prize
Bert was VERY pleased to win a prize
The all important cakes
The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying a range of
activities in the sunshine including watching the shinty, sitting outside the
pub with a pint or having afternoon tea in the garden of Eric
and Linda Dodd’s fabulous new house. Sunny weekends now seem like light years ago.
Some folk really weren't that interested in the shinty
some watched
in the glorious sunshine
and tried to make sense of the rules and who was winning
more tea and cakes
and beer
Team Lynx pack then went on to the Silverfjord in Kingussie
for dinner which is highly recommended before going back to the hotel for a few
drinks and finally only the hardcore party animals were left to go to the disco
in the village hall. In previous years the after race party has always been a
celidh but for some reason this year the celidh had metaphorphosised into a
disco which Mr Carlsberg might have described as “probably the worst disco in
the world”, in fact it was so bad it was good. The worst music ever, the worst
drink served ever and some very strange people in attendance (other than us).
However, you know you’ve had a good night when you arrive back at your digs
wearing a banana costume that you didn’t start the evening wearing.
In case you are wondering the banana suit was nicked from under a chair in the hall but was sheepishly returned the next morning
The next morning at 9am sharp (ouch!) was the Hangover mile
which we all passed in the usual blur of misery and discomfort before we were
able to consol ourselves with a large cooked breakfast. Happily even those who
hadn’t made it to the disco and who had sneaked away for an early night looked
in just as bad form and even more happily for me I wasn’t forced to wear the
banana costume during the race.
The winners of the hangover mile (the least hungover people there perhaps?)
Sunday was another gloriously sunny day and so to continue
the eating and drinking theme a trip to the cake shop at the Norwegian plant
nursery near Kincraig was the choice of activity for the day and a great choice
it was too, we were able to sit in the beautiful grounds of the nursery
enjoying amazing cakes and listening to the woodpecker in the trees. The coffee
shop has a small glazed porch type of area where you can sit and watch the
birds and squirrels climbing on the trees and ropes and eating from the various
bird feeders attracting them there.
It was quite an effort to drag ourselves away and start the
drive back to Aberdeen
after yet another great weekend.
