Tapering down

I'm doing a marathon next week so have been trying to take it a bit easier on the running front. (We call it tapering, for any of you non runners who happen to be reading this blog). Last week I only ran 5 days, rather than the 6 or 7 days I've been doing for the last couple of months. Despite my tapering, I decided to go up to the WHW yesterday to meet John Kynaston and a number of others for a run. John was doing the 42 miles from Tyndrum to Fort William, while Ellen, Graeme, Michelle and Mags were meeting him at Bridge of Orchy and doing the 35 miles to FW from there. Debbie joined up on Rannoch Moor, and Mike joined at Kingshouse. I didn't want to do too much so drove to Kingshouse, ran south across Rannoch Moor for about 9 miles until I met up with the group, then turned round and ran with them back to the car at Kingshouse. It was a fantastic day and I was really quite sorry I wasn't doing the whole thing. I won't say any more about it as John has written an excellent article about the day, along with some brilliant photos, which can be found on his blog:

http://www.west-highland-way-race07-training.blogspot.com/

I'm sitting here typing at 7.20pm and, thanks to the clocks going forward last night, it is actually light outside. Brilliant! Summer is here at last! I love this time of year. I often get up very early on Saturday mornings in April and May to go long training runs, and there is something completely wonderful about being out on the road at 5am, pretty much on your own, in broad daylight.

Finally, commiserations to Tim, who has had to pull out of this year's West Highland Way race because of injury. Hopefully he'll have better luck next year.