Starting the new year a bit early

The last few months have been pretty dire when it comes to running. Lack of motivation, along with the terrible weather and dark evenings has meant I've been a total slacker. It had to change, and not being one to wait for a new year to start making changes I decided to work off some of those Christmas cobwebs and get my hooves out onto the trails.

A couple of boring runs around Haddington really did nothing to motivate me so I took myself off into the Lammermuirs on Friday to see how those lazy days and mince pies would affect my fitness. Turns out that there's still life in the old dog yet!

I parked the van at Hopes and headed off up the track into a howling head wind. Because of the wind I ran along the low track that runs alongside the stream and heads through a wooded area and up to the reservoir. Then I cut uphill to the high path that runs along the North side of the reservoir. Low branches and mud meant I was going at a nice easy pace, so my lungs were coping well. I had thought about just running around the reservoir but I was at the turning point so quickly that I decided to extend my route. A bit of walking and running got me up to the main path that eventually leads you to Lauder. The snow which had fallen the previous day was melting fast and the path was essentially a river! That, plus a holwing head wind made the ascent pretty unpleasant. Luckily there was no-one about, cause I had to empty my nose slime many many times, and mostly it ended up on my arm! The path headed off downhill, and there was no way even my GTX shoes would cope with the amount of water and slush, so I ended up hobbling through the heather at the side. I was very relieved when I got to my turn off and finally the wind was behind me and the path was dry-ish so I managed to speed up and finally had a smile on my face.

Downhill steeply into the favourite part of my route 'Roger's Cleugh', where it was calm and even slightly warm. By this time my legs were feeling quite heavy and I was getting tired, so I cracked open the little piece of my Mum's Christmas cake that I had in my backpack. DELICIOUS!! The rest of the run was really good, with several leaps across swollen streams, a meeting with a 4 month old lab puppy and then finally seeing the van in the distance.

No GPS signal on this run, but probably about 7 miles and about 1000ft of ascent. Very nice reintroduction to my running and certainly inspired me. Slightly stiff left ankle the following day, and muscles were tender but not nearly as bad as I thought I'd be :)