Sunday, October 05, 2008

Frustrated

I spent most of the day wishing I had been at the Loch Ness marathon - it's the first one I've missed - and it wasn't made any easier watching most of the UK doing the Great North Run on television this morning. My 'sensible' head tells me that you can't do everything, and that it would have been daft to do a marathon just 3 weeks after the 24 hour race. On the other hand, my instinct tells me that I was an idiot for not entering, and I should just have gone for it - even doing the 10k would have been better than not being there at all. Anyway, by the afternoon I was so frustrated that I jumped in the car with a surprised but delighted dog and headed to Tyndrum. It was sunny, I had the roof down in the car (even though it was freezing), and had an excellent run with Lucy (the dog) down the West Highland Way track to the bridge after St Fillans, then back the same way. It was only 7 miles but it helped blow away some of the frustrations of the day, if only temporarily.

A big well done to everyone who finished one of today's races. A particularly special well done to Thomas for his 2.48 marathon PB at Cologne - that is quality running.

2 comments:

Tim said...

Hi Ian, I'm sure that you don't to hear that the weather was perfect for running today. ;-)

Despite that, you almost certainly were right not to do the marathon (although the 10K would have been a different matter). As usual, I forgot just how painful a marathon can be compared to trail runs. I completely seized up after crossing the finish line and have almost certainly blown my chances of running the Pentland Skyline next week. When I consider how good I felt after the Two Breweries it really brought it home to me just how much road marathons take out of you.
Glad you had a nice run on the WHW instead though. A good place to be on a nice day, specially with a dog.

Thomas said...

Hi Ian, that Loch Ness Marathon was quite a reunion of WHW Race family. I too feel like I have missed something...
Last year I was there watching (I could not run because of injury) and taking photos even from you (although I did not know you) and Davie Bell (did not know him either) and other folks which I did not know but now do.

Anyway as Tim sais not running the Marathon was probably the right decision and having a relaxed run on the way in nice weather instead was certainly not the worst thing...

We (me included) must not forget that the body needs to rest to recover. Maybe that time has come now...