6+ miles moderate

After making it through football on Wednesday relatively unscathed, I went along to train with the club, prepared to have to run close to race pace in order to try to keep up. However my Achilles tendon felt a bit doubtful as I warmed up in the car park so I thought it was more likely that I would have to pull out after a mile or so. As it turned out, the fast pack was severely depleted - there were only two of us. We weren't sure of the route, which was supposed to be 7 miles, so we took our best guess and did actually manage to meet another pack after 4 miles or so, although by the end we were almost a mile short so there was probably a wrong turn in there somewhere. Didn't really push it but only got dropped during the last half mile.

No gym

Leg was a bit better today. I traced the problem down to a tight calf muscle and remembered it had cramped up while playing football on Wednesday, so I did some stretching during the day. Decided against going out for a run in the evening and went to the gym instead, bringing Natasha along for once, only to find it had closed today for refurbishment.

2 miles slow and 9+ miles moderate

Went out at lunchtime with Natasha for a slow 2 miles or so around the West End. Later in the afternoon I had another go at the Great Western Road - Blairdardie - Canniesburn - Maryhill Road route from a month ago, this time nearly 3 minutes faster in 1:08:29. The outside of my right knee is a bit painful, but there are three weeks until the next race of any note so I can lay off a bit if I need to.

5K slow

I decided I could do with a couple of days off, so I did nothing yesterday and took it easy today as well - just a slow 5K around the West End with Natasha.

5.75 miles tempo

I didn't quite feeling like training with the club but the weather improved a bit in the evening so I dragged myself along for a run scheduled as 5/6 miles. It started off at a leisurely pace but the fast group disintegrated on Great Western Road after a couple of miles. I had intended to keep up with the leaders a bit longer but didn't have the energy and was also overheating, having dressed for colder conditions. I was third to finish in a reasonable 37:02. On arriving home I discovered a serious-looking bruise at the base of my shin from a late tackle at football the night before - I was aware of the injury while I was running although it wasn't causing me any problems, but for some reason the run made it look much worse than it had before.

Long reps

Made it to training in time to tag along with the 2nd of 7 800m reps on the bumpy warm-up trail, and joined the somewhat depleted fast group for the rest. Times were usually around 2:42 although I managed 2:36 on the sixth (my fifth) without feeling like I was making any extra effort. Ran one in 2:44 on my own at the end to make up for having missed the first one. It felt like I had no strength in my legs at all for the whole session.

7.5 miles moderate

Felt decidedly off-colour, and my calves hadn't reacted at all well to two middle distance races the day before, but I finally dragged myself out for about 7.5 miles in the afternoon, up Maryhill Road to Canniesburn Toll (didn't cut through the Science Park this time), down to Anniesland Cross, and back along Great Western Road. I half-expected to run out of steam part of the way round but managed to maintain a reasonable pace and arrived back home in 54:40.

Scottish Masters Indoor Championships

After playing football on Wednesday evening I had done nothing at all on Thursday and Friday but felt like I was coming down with something and even had some kind of groin strain on Friday evening. I had entered both the 1500m and 800m and didn't feel up to either. However I felt slightly better on Saturday morning and headed down to the Kelvin Hall where I ambitiously declared for both events, which were nearly two hours apart on the timetable. I noticed in the list of 1500m participants that there only appeared to be two M35s (including me) but didn't manage to see who was in for the 800m.

The 1500m consisted of the two M35s and three M40s. I tried to run each lap in 35 seconds which was fine for the first two and put me in fourth place, but I started to lose about a second per lap and fell into fifth - in any case I wasn't likely to catch the other M35. I was still looking for an SB and with 200m left I kicked strongly, moved back into fourth and opened up a gap - possibly made up a little ground on the runners in front but I finished fourth in the race and second in the M35 category. Time was an SB of 4:30.86.

By the time of the 800m I seemed to have recovered fine from the earlier race. Again it was a combined M35/M40 but this time I was the only M35 of the four participants. The pace was quite slow and we went through 400m in about 65 seconds. I thought several times about taking it on, but I knew at least one of the three M40s was much faster than I was, and in any case the championship was assured by default so I was probably a bit complacent. Nonetheless, when the fastest M40 started to pull away, I went with him and held on to finish just behind him in second place. My time was 2:12.36 which is a bit slower than I had hoped for but I would have preferred to run the first 400m in 62 or so and try to hang on.

Hill reps

I would normally try to take it a bit easier after two comparatively hard training days in a row, but I have other commitments on Tuesday and Thursday this week, so I chose a session I would previously have classed as hard but I would now only consider moderately tough - hill reps on Crarae Avenue (in the fog). Ran five in about 40 seconds each and jogged round the block for a recovery, turnaround slightly over 3 minutes.

7 miles hard

I went out intending to run up Maryhill Road as far as Canniesburn Toll, then down to Anniesland Cross and back home along Great Western Road - originally planned to run for at least an hour but was short of time. I managed the first mile (almost entirely uphill) in 6:20 and thought I should ease off a bit, as I only wanted to rack up some miles, but when I got to the cut-off point for my usual 7 mile route, which takes me through the Science Park, a PB was definitely on. I went that way instead and was a few seconds up on my previous best split when crossing the Kelvin. There was a bit of a headwind along Great Western Road which was unusual, so I wondered if I'd been pushed along by a tailwind on Maryhill Road, but when I got to the Botanic Gardens the PB was virtually guaranteed, and the goal was now sub-44. Had some minor traffic problems in the last mile but finished in 43:55, knocking a whole 49 seconds off my previous best from December 27th.

5K slow and hills

Went out in the morning for the usual slow 5K with Natasha. In the afternoon I went back to Chesters Road with the intention of doing five reps, but I was too wiped out after the fourth to do anything except stagger back to the car. My times were 64-65-66-66 - my slowest time today was equal to my previous best time. I may be getting fitter or just better at running up Chesters Road. I suppose my goal would have to be either to run sub-60 or to complete the five which I always fail to do.

Medium reps

As I was arriving at the Science Park I saw a fairly large group of runners heading down towards the bridge, so I hung about outside waiting for the fast pack. Five or six minutes later I realised that had probably been them. Not sure why there were so many, unless the decent weather had something to do with it. Rather than rack up any more miles I decided to run a few 650m reps round the warm-up trail instead as I hadn't done anything resembling speedwork in ages. Only managed three, in 1:53, 1:56 and 1:47 - stopped briefly on the second one to let a minibus past.

7+ miles hard

I took advantage of my last day off to run the course of the Hogmanay Handicap in the late afternoon, except starting and finishing at Bearsden Asda. The sun was on its way down but I got back to civilisation before it became too dark. My time for the Hogmanay Handicap part of the course was 27:something, 47:00 for the whole thing including three interruptions totalling over a minute when I was unlucky with traffic lights.

4 miles moderate, 2 miles recovery

Went out before breakfast to try the route through Tiergarten I had planned to take the previous evening. It worked out about half a mile shorter. In the evening, back in Glasgow, I went out for a couple of miles just to stretch the legs a bit.

2 miles steady and 4.5 miles hard

In Berlin now. Went out for a couple of miles through Tiergarten before breakfast. In the evening I tried to follow a route from Tiergarten station all the way to the Brandenburger Tor, but it was already getting dark and the only lit path ended up taking me to the Siegessäule. I was maintaining quite a brisk pace, most likely because I'd tapered for a race that I ended up not taking part in. I headed back down the main road to the southern edge of Tiergarten and ran around the outside and back up to the Brandenburger Tor that way, then all the way back along Straße des 17. Juni to my hotel. Time was just inside 30 minutes, probably around 4.5 miles.

No 10K

I had planned to take part in a 10K in the village of Neukirchen near Grevenbroich. This meant getting the S-Bahn from Cologne (where I was staying) to Neuss Süd and then a bus to Neukirchen. Bus frequency on Saturdays was one every hour, and I would have 8 minutes between train and bus. Rushed to the Hauptbahnhof forgetting my safety pins, gloves and sports drink only to discover that the S-Bahn was going to be 15 minutes late. It looked bad but I hoped the train might make up some time on the 40-minute journey and nipped back to the hotel for the safety pins, still forgetting about the gloves and sports drink. As it turned out, the train was still 15 minutes late when it got to Neuss Süd. There was of course no sign of the bus so I looked around for a taxi and also found a shop that sold sports drinks. No taxi turned up, so that was that. I should really have stayed on the train into Neuss and got one there.

I decided to head out to Neukirchen anyway to see what conditions were like (it had snowed overnight) and had walked about halfway there before the next bus turned up. There were some cross-country races on the schedule as well and I thought maybe if the conditions underfoot were reasonable I might give it a go. The 10K - four laps of an absolutely flat but windswept course in the bitter cold - had already been going for about 10 minutes by the time I got there, and various international cross-country teams were arriving for the other events. I had a look at the cross-country course and decided there was no chance of navigating it without spikes, and certainly not four hours later when the only other race I was eligible for was due to start. The organisation of the whole event was superb, though, and it had attracted teams from England, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Due to the weather, the road 10K apparently had a poorer turnout than in previous years. The winning time was 36:02 and even then the winner was a couple of minutes clear of second place.