Solstice fun and xmas avoidance

Winter sunset

So apparently this year the winter solstice was at 4.19am on the 22^nd of December. This is where the tilt of the earth’s axis means that the northern hemisphere is leaning at its furthest point away from the sun. Basically it means that if you live in Aberdeen it doesn’t seem to ever get light, with sunrise being at 8.47am and sunset a mere 6 and ¾ hours later with a few hours of murky greyness between the two.

This year I was early in celebrating the solstice with a run to the summit of Morven. When I say I was early, I mean I was early in doing the run by a day or so but I wasn’t actually early in getting there for the start of the run. A combination of a last minute panic at work and some proper dorks on the road made me late for the start of the run. Very late. However, a frantic text to Gillian revealed that she too was running late albeit not quite as late as me and so I stepped on it and screeched into the car park at Groddie only a few minutes behind everyone else. A quick change of shoes and a check to make sure I had my head torch (essential kit) and we were off through the field passing the ruin of the farmhouse which I would love to do up and live in.

Climbing Morven

My dream architectural project in the field below

It was surprisingly mild for a midwinter night in Aberdeenshire as we trudged up the steep muddy path but soggy underfoot and I soon gave up on all attempts to keep my feet dry. Overall all though it was easy going if a bit of a slog upwards as the sun disappeared quickly from view. The sky took on a pinky glow with the lights from the villages and farmhouses twinkling in the darkness below us. Somewhere on the ridge Rod and (I later found out) Rolfe appeared from nowhere having started their run earlier. I didn’t recognize Rolfe at all with the brightness of his headtorch blinding me. After a quick “hello” they continued their descent down the mountain and we continued upwards. 

Beginning to get dark

I had left putting my headtorch on until the very last minute, it was still just about light enough without a torch by the time we got to the summit. Good job too as im not sure Richard had one with him. In fact, I’m not sure he really had much kit with him at all and he was wearing shorts and so he was looking a little chilled. A Corbett at 871m Morven stands higher than a lot of the surrounding hills and seems to catch every bit of weather going past. Even though it was a mild night and pleasant at the bottom of the hill the summit was still a chilly place to be. I was my usual over cautious self and had both a bivvy bag and a foil blanket in my backpack along with a spare torch and battery.

The summit

Filling in the summit log book

Still just about bright enough without a headtorch

Steve filled in the summit log book hidden in the summit cairn and passed around the hipflask of whisky and after snatching a couple of photos of the very last rays of sun disappearing quickly on the horizon  we started the descent, losing the path to start with.

A wee refreshment....beats a gel any day!

Catching the last rays of the sun

With the path quickly relocated it was a pretty uneventful descent and we seemed to be back at the car park in no time at all. And then it was back to the craziness of Union street on “mad Friday”, a total contrast to the silence of the winter mountains only a couple of hours earlier. Having been in a hurry and skipped lunch I was pretty hungry by the time I got to the pre-arranged venue only to find they had finished serving food. Half a bowl of chips later I knew it was going to be a long evening…

Descending in the dark

 

It was also Darceys 18^th and so at some point there was going to be a gaggle of teenage girls at the house but when I got home all was in silence. I left the lock off the door expecting that they being young party animals would be back in the early hours of the morning. Simon dryly informed me that Darcey had got back home quite a long time before me….Kids these days! Huh! So sensible and responsible. Some comparisons were drawn with the TV show “Absolutely Fabulous”….

I slept badly, definitely hungry and probably a bit over tired so this meant I was awake in time for Saturdays hill run with Cosmics and therefore I HAD NO EXCUSE. It was a glorious sunny morning although the roads were icy on the way there and the golf course at Elrick was covering in a crunchy frost. Martin led us around the forest paths and around the golf course before crossing the road and starting the climb to the summit of Brimmond. Having not unpacked my running pack from last night I was still carrying a bivvy bag, a torch, spare batteries spare socks. Still, I guess we would have been fine if we had ended up out there all night.

The morning after the night before...

A low winter sun

This morning the climb felt like a struggle as did the descent to the other side of the hill before we climbed yet again to the summit. Ian and Gillian were also feeling the effects of the previous evenings excursions and Ian did mention that this seemed like rather a long run. I quietly agreed. It was indeed “the morning after the night before”. 

The view over Aberdeen

We descended Brimmond and crossed the road again before climbing Elrick with me questioning why I was doing this to myself. Ah Yes! To avoid any Xmas related activities especially that horror known as Xmas shopping. As much as this run was a struggle it was nothing compared to the purgatory reported on Original 106 last night, that of trying to exit the Berryden retail park and taking an hour to do so. I think I would have lost the plot completely stuck in a queue like that. All of a sudden running on very tired legs seemed like a good option. A great option in fact. Actually given a choice between Union square on the weekend closest to Christmas and running up the Eiger I’d be booking my ticket to Grindelwald. To make matters worse my spiritual partner in avoiding all things xmassy seems to have buggered off to Tenerife leaving me to get on with it.

Summit photo

Add caption

By now the hills were bathed in sunshine and we wound our way around Elrick on the track and descended to the car park to tuck into tea and cakes. In fact todays offering was my disastrous xmas cake attempt with the burned bits hacksawed off. It was edible (just) and nobody suffered from any ill effects from it (that I know of). 

At least I now had the excuse of being too knackered to go xmas shopping. I probably could have managed it but theres no point in over-doing these sorts of things is there? I wonder what I can come up with for tomorrow for in terms of a xmas avoidance strategy?

Yes! A race! Sunday morning! That’s xmas shopping forgotten about! A nice little handicap race of 5k or so along the front at Stonehaven. I gave my last parkrun time as my handicap time and I was set off at 13 minutes after the first runners along with Richard Ingram and just behind Hannah Kennedy, Rod Campbell, Sue Taylor, Murray Bryce and Neil MacBean. This meant a bit of hanging around in the cold and so I put in a decent warm up in order to stay warm but fortunately it wasn’t windy or icy underfoot. Perfect conditions really.

Midwinter means a late sunrise

Pre-race photo (photo-Neil MacBean)

The route was simple enough, along the front to Cowie, a loop of Cowie, back along the sea front southwards to the car park at the harbour, back along the front to Cowie for another loop and then finish right back where we started. The route was fast and flat although maybe a little too congested with dog walkers and families out for a Sunday stroll which I suspect we probably ruined for them. Happily though the wooden duckboards along the beach were not covered in ice or wet and slippy as it would have been a bit treacherous running at any sort of speed over them. The fun thing about this course as it is made up of 3 loops and you pass the start/finish line twice as well as starting and finishing there you get to see where virtually everyone is during the race.

Richard stuck right on my heels most of the way (photo A Chaiban)

He's still there....(Photo-A Chaiban)

It was clear from the start who had been a little “economical with the truth” about their predicted times for the handicap. The wee group I was in included Richard Ingram and we all seemed well matched apart from one guy who disappeared into the distance straight from the gun. I decided my strategy would be to go as hard as possible for as long as possible and so I ran about 95% of the race with Richard on my heels until he made a break for it in the finishing straight when my legs had tied up completely.

And he makes a break for it and out sprints me in the home straight (Photo-E Rennie)

Do i look knackered? (Photo-E Rennie)

Then it was back to “The Shed” for tea and cakes and the prize giving with prizes for the fastest in the handicap as well as prizes for the fastest overall.

Team photo (Photo-H Kennedy)

So Sunday night came and went and I duly trudged into work this morning with that sinking feeling of dread of what lay ahead – no, not work – lunchtime xmas shopping. It was time for my penance for my weekend of running and hill related fun. And it was as bad as I feared, elbows were flying and queue jumping and trolley shoving was rife in that genteel upmarket store known as M&S. The less said about John Lewis the better. And I’m still not finished.

How much is a ticket to Grindelwald?

Water of Leith Half Marathon

Once more into the blog…..I admire those people who manage to blog their runs week in and week out as I really struggle, particularly when I think that I have nothing of interest to say. Looking back, I appear to have had nothing of interest to say since August.  And that’s not to say when I do write a blog post its actually of interest anyway. It’s not like I run the UTMB every week and write informative witty things about it, is it? On a good day I can hold the camera straight and not shoogle it about but its not like I’m David Bailey either. What makes a good blog anyway? Who knows but I’ve not had hoards of fans enquiring about my blogging absence. Maybe that only happens with a good blog. Maybe I’m not an “influencer”(Actually I'm not sure what one of those is and if its a good thing to be but it does sound kind of cool) 

 

Having established that his is probably a shit blog I have very considerately decided to inflict more of it on you again, dear reader. More to the point it is also a very good way of procrastinating and avoiding any of the Christmas related activities that I am supposed to be doing tonight.

It’s fair to say it’s been a spectacularly bad running year and its fair to say my lack of blog posts have reflected this but it can only get better next year. Really. Pleeeassse god. Yes, I managed a few interesting highland games races, a few 10k races and my usual Heb halfs but nothing to REALLY write home about. Work stress and a gammy knee put paid to any long mountain adventures, and even without a gammy knee I didn’t feel much like going away for a day in the hills let alone a week long expedition to the Alps.

As the autumn closed in we decided that a trip to Jordan was something we wanted to do but going away for a holiday just tripled that workload at work for the weeks leading up to the trip, being in Jordan meant I managed to run only a handful of times and then I promptly got ill when I got home so with the Water of Leith Half Marathon looming ever closer I had barely trained in about 6 weeks. To be honest though although Jordan was fascinating and an amazing country to visit and I fully recommend it, it was a frustrating trip as a lot of it was spent on a bus and under the constant supervision of a guide who had the tendency to treat us like a party of school children. How I would have loved to run though the desert at sunrise and got to where there were no people, or run through Petra and into the mountains. It did feel like an opportunity lost. Next time…….. (Travel tip – if you ever go to Jordan choose your company and guide carefully as if you are used to independent travel then an escorted trip can be a real shock to the system)

I desperately needed a pre-race confidence booster and this presented itself a week before the race in the form of a Cosmics run organised by Gillian over the Elsick Mounth, a ancient trail and drove road linking Deeside with Stonehaven. We met up in Warren woods just south of Drumoak and headed south on the trail through woodlands, firstly Warren woods, then Ashentilly woods then Currackstone Woods then Brachmount woods then Craigie duff woods - is that enough woods for you yet? No? good, because it also went through Stathgyle woods and Bruntyards wood. I hadn’t heard of any of these places before despite living less than 15 miles away. The trail is marked but you do have to keep your eyes open to watch out for the little markings so there was the odd missed turned and doubling back required. After about 20 minutes my hands had defrosted and it was a stunning icy cold winters morning and having expected frozen hard ground all the way we were in for a bit of a shock when one track took us through cold icy ankle deep mud. Deep joy.

The intrepid Cosmics crew

An icy frosty morning

Durris mast in the distance

Our turning point was Auquahillies Lang Stane which, according to the guide book, is one of the oldest standing stones in Scotland carved with an Ogham inscription. There is also a Roman Camp nearby built in 83-210 AD and 4 ring Cairns dating from the bronze age which we resolved we would look for on another Cosmic’s Saturday run.

The standing stone is in the centre of the picture, just to the right and in front of the farmhouse

After examining the stone and coming up with lots of theories about how it could have been moved their by the Picts, after all they didn’t use a crane, we retraced our steps up the hill but didn’t re-trace our steps through the mud, electing to go by the road parallel to it and then followed the trails back to our starting point in Warren woods having been out for a couple of hours. I had no idea what the distance was but assumed it must have been at least 10 miles so my flagging confidence was ever so slightly boosted for the half marathon in Edinburgh the following week.

This week the post run tea and cakes were had in the luxury of Bob's Campervan. We all decided that this should be an option for all Cosmics post winter run tea and cakes.

Mince pies and Yule log - xmas is on the way...

A cosy campervan

So the following week was race week. Happily it wasn’t too cold and no ice underfoot and the rain kept off until evening but Simon did decide to stay in bed with a cup of coffee and a good book rather than see me off to the bus, probably a sensible choice. It was nice to meet up with Alan Inglis and we had a good chat on the journey to the start line. It seems as though as the years go by I know fewer and fewer people at this race. There was no Jim Bruce at the race this year and Eric and Lynda were not doing the post race food. The end of an era.

The bus journey itself was very amusing as this is a very unofficial “race”, not SAL permitted, totally under the radar, “if you don’t finish, nobody is coming to find you” type of event (the best type as it means it’s fantastic value for a half marathon). However, the race organisers seem to have over-looked that they have “Water of Leith half marathon” plastered all over the race numbers!

Startline photo (Photo credit - Angus)

The bus had been a bit late in picking us up having got stuck behind an inconsiderately parked BMW so it was a bit of a rush at the other end to get the runners started according to their handicap. I had used my last half marathon time which was the Harris half marathon on my entry form and happily for me I’d had a stinker of a run there so I was only 3 minutes slower than my predicted time at the end, so no great disaster. I was set off with a guy who said he hadn’t been training for 6 weeks and he promptly disappeared into the distance (hadn’t been training for 6 weeks my ar….) so I settled into a comfortable pace and let the miles slip by. The first pleasant stretch of track by the river is less crowded with walkers and tourists than the path later on in the centre of town and I got a cheery shout from Morag McCelland which spurred me on. By the time I got to Saughton I was getting a bit heavy legged and it seems as though a lot of folk were over taking me without me overtaking anyone, which is a worrying scenario in a handicap race, but eventually I started catching up with people once I had reached Murrayfield. I was a bit surprised to find that I actually felt stronger as the miles went by, dodging the crowds of tourists who seemed to be everywhere, and within the final mile and a half I caught up and went past the guy who had started with me. By now he did indeed look as though he hadn’t trained for 6 weeks. Peter B didn’t catch me up until later in the race this year which is a good benchmark but I suffered a lot less this year compared to last year and, despite the interrupted training, I think I was actually faster than last year. At least Simon had the good grace to admit that he hadn’t waited for too long for me to come in. Encouraging as always.

On the startline

A wee uphill start then its all downhill

The finish line

Leith - art by the river

Finished!

Finish line selfie

A new caterer had been employed to provide the post run soup and tea and cakes and I have to admit the scones and chocolate cake were very good but nothing can beat that post race pint and bacon butty in the pub. A pleasant afternoon was had in the pub but another familiar face, Mary was missing so there was no one to make sure a beer filled Buchanan got home safely. I think he did.

Beer and bacon butty!

 I always think that the Water of Leith Half Marathon means that xmas is officially “open for business” (jury's out as to whether thats a good thing or not) so it was off to find the venue with the biggest xmas tree. We didn’t get as far as the Dome but the Vaults in Leith had a pretty damn good go at claiming that title and a weekend spent running, in the pub, eating and at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society meant another weekend of successfully avoiding any form of Xmas shopping or having to carry out any infuriating xmas obligations. Mission accomplished.

My favourite bookshop

Where else can you browse books while sipping a mug of tea?

And the bookshop owner makes origami animals....

My origami elephant! :-)

Middle Eastern food - my new favourite since coming back from Jordan

And camels.....I love camels!

xmas tree and open fire at the SMWS