Last time I wrote about training I had signed up to the Glen CLova Xtreme duathlon and was raring to go. I'm still raring, but have now actually got going. The last month was spent working, sleeping and catching up with friends with no running at all. I did however dust off the bike, get it serviced and now cycle to work every day (forget that its only 1.9 miles) up and down a wee hill.
The cycling has actually been fun and I've been on some longer rides to St Andrews and some of the surrounding villages of Dundee. It's been great fun finding routes and going places I haven't really been. I felt I had exhausted my running routes last winter and the thought of running my 'usuals' filled me with dread. But, the Bike lets you go a little further (still not for for a cyclist I know) and slightly faster so you can explore more of this amazing area. The most enjoyable of these was rides with Steve and his expert navigational skills (I'm a liability with directions) through Liff and Fowlis then down to Longforgan. I think it's a popular area to cycle as we saw a few cyclist despite our early rise of an 8am meet. This weekend we are heading a bit further but importantly for Glen Clova taking in more hills.
There has been less running, and for a while none at all. But recently I've been doing a few trail runs around Lundie crags and Tentsmuir. Both were run with Anna and at a fairly relaxed, but fun pace. This was our second attempt a Lundie Crags. After taking a wrong turn the first time, we cheated and took the map and the gps. The route we followed was great fun and produced great views. Suprisingly it was still a little boggy on the descent but it was great fun with changes in views and tempo as the gradiant changed.
Another interesting run was through Tentsmuir. I've ran a lot in tentsmuir as it was part of my regular long run last winter but I had stuck to the main paths. Last week we decided to do a small recovery run (for Anna, I had nothing to recover from) but went onto some of the smaller paths. The benefit was that we found even more variety to tentsmuir. However, after only three(ish) miles we found ourselves very suddenly and somewhat abruptly at the Leuchers Barrier having entered Tentsmuir by Tayport. Having no idea how we managed to get so far off track and with no map or phone (silly I know) we ended up extending the run to 8 miles and stuck to some more familiar routes on the way back. The beauty of this was that we had no other option than to get on with it and keep running. To be honest I was fresh and thought it was great fun, Anna with a little more work in her legs was less pleased.
Having ran so often in Tentsmuir I felt I needed some photos so took along my camera and here are the results..
Tomorrow we are off to Dunkeld for a trail run and Sunday it's the bike with Steve. So maybe another blog soon.
Dont forget Le Tour starts this weekend
Woop Woop.
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