Or, welcome new readers.
Of whom, hopefully, there will be a few this week after I mail-bombed the office with an appeal for sponsorship. A lot of very generous donations, and if any of you have made it here, Thank You again for your support.
It's fairly relaxed here, you'll find. I babble on for a while about dull running stuff (it's a blog about running and training for a marathon, what else did you expect to see from your Torquay hotel room window?) and then lob in a random selection from one of the playlists that drive me around the highways and byways of South Lanarkshire. Abide by these few simple rules, and we'll get along just fine.
To matters. A new term for the non-running-obsessed this week - The Tempo Run. Essentially a warm-up and cool-down sandwiching a few miles run at a set and moderately challenging pace - 4.5 at 7:10/mile. Other than that it was standard Recovery on Monday and Pace on Thursday.
The Long Slow Run this week was an extension of my "other" Helensburgh standard, the Glen Fruin loop, now extended to 15.6 miles by taking in the end of "high" road through the Glen - the one built to take the nuclear missiles to Coulport, and voted one of the top driving roads in Britain by Top Gear.
Weather was odd. Standing at the front of the house waiting for the loan Garmin (thanks Paul) to acquire satellites (which needs to be read in a Bond-villain accent, I feel), down to the river and off to the left was foggy and 100 yard visibility but right was clear. Once into the Glen, the mist passed and it was glorious. Breaking out onto the new bit of the run, there's a viewpoint overlooking Faslane, and the majesty of the temperature inversion was clear. A low ribbon of mist hung over the water with the surrounding hills clear. Even the cranes and sheds at the base looked eerie, wrapped in the mist.
Having the Garmin was a real boon. Last week, I got a bit of a tweeting-off from @Sall_y and @IanM1963 because my Long Slow was too fast (insert your own entendre here), but this week I was able to pace it better at between 8:35 to 8:40 all the way round. Worked, too, as I even had some energy left not to die in the last uphill 2 miles. I also discovered a new technique for working out if you're running slowly enough. Can you sing along (out loud, of course) to Incident on 57th Street.
Been wrestling with the musical theme. In further twitterings with Sally and Ian this week, an appreciation of "Emergency" Andy Williams was uncovered, and it set me thinking. My Dad, who I've been talking about quite a bit this week, wasn't really bothered about music - to the extent that I can only really remember him playing 2 songs - Solitaire by Andy and Rhinestone Cowboy by Glenn Campbell, both of which mean quite a lot to me as a result.
I was going to put these 2 together, but then something happened. As I approached Rhu today, I rounded a corner and had caught the mist up. The low sun backlit the jetties of the Rosslea hotel thought the mist, and the Rosneath peninsula shimmered elusively through it across the Gare Loch. A real "feck-me" moment. Then the first bars of this started:
This is simply one of my favourite songs ever. Atmospheric, uplifting and another brilliant use of Rob Harvey's voice. I know I used The Music last week too, but it just had to be. Know the quality on this YouTube embed's not great, so here's the Spotify link too. Not got Spotify for all this week's links? - I still have invites if anyone wants one.
Week's summary: 4 runs, 35 miles: Long Run 15.6m
Miles since acceptance: 362
