Thank you to Jim Orr for the two photographs from the club Saturday session.
Scenes like the one above, taken from my parents' bedroom window, have been commonplace for much of the UK for the last week at the time of writing. Heavy snowfall has seen widespread disruption to public transport, school closures and caused general inconvenience to people trying to live their daily lives. It never fails to amaze how we continually come to a standstill with a bit of bad weather.
Another thing hampered, as you will see, are sporting fixtures. I went into this week winding down for the West District Cross Country Championships. Since my Glasgow University-Strathaven race double header on 6th and 7th November, I have focussed primarily on training. I upped my weekly mileage of 45-50 to 54, 57 and 51 miles in consecutive weeks comprising a diet of track sessions, tempo runs, long runs, interval sessions and easy runs. I continued on the basis I had a race to prepare for even as the week began with heavy snow.
Monday: 6 mile run- 10 minutes easy then 10 x 1 minute, 1 minute jog recoveries, easy jog of remainder after intervals, total time = 38:34.
Tuesday: 7-7.5 miles easy (48:15), mainly 6:30-6:40/mile pace.
Wednesday: 5 miles high tempo (30:04), 6 minute jog warm down.
Thursday: Intervals- 1 minute, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 1 minute, jog recovery same as the interval, e.g. 1 minute jog after each 1 minute interval, 6 miles total including warm up and warm down.
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Club session, 8 x 3 minutes, 1 minute recoveries, 7-7.5 miles total including warm up and warm down.
Above: club session at the Showground in East Kilbride on Saturday. I am at the front, (first left, white top).
Sunday: 11.8 miles very easy (1:42:42), 8:42/mile pace.
Mileage- 44
You will deduce from the above that no race took place. By Thursday afternoon, I knew that both the East and West District Championships were off. Every Scottish football match at all levels, apart from Alloa v Peterhead in Scottish Division Two, were also cancelled. I will not go into detail. Suffice to say, I disagree with the cancellation. We await the new date.
Monday's run was in place of a track session. Tuesday included three laps of Peel Park Industrial Estate in East Kilbride and was roughly equivalent of what I would have done at the club. Wednesday's run was completed in temperatures of -6 degrees celcius and thick snow, hence, my time being almost 3 minutes outside my best in training. The effort was there. Even though I had no race, I did my originally planned session for Thursday at East Kilbride's Kelvin Industrial Estate. I found it bitterly cold this time, -8 degrees celcius with a horrible wind chill which saw my fingers go numb despite wearing gloves. According to a BBC weather report, Greenland was warmer than the UK, sizzling in temperatures of 2 degrees celcius.
On Saturday, we did a session in East Kilbride in thick snow (group photo below). I was very jaded after this and needed a lie down for an hour before my dinner. My legs were heavy so I joined clubmate Kirsty for a Sunday run in Cambuslang. I inadvertently cut 0.2 miles off the route by exiting the Clydeside cycle path early. No complaints were received however. Kirsty had gone along for her first attempt at the Glasgow Parkrun 5k the day before only to have to negotiate a 3 lap cross country with the usual course icy. Such were the underfoot conditions on our route, much of our run had to be done in single file within the small patches of runnable ground available. Finishing was a good feeling.
My next target is the Cambuslang Down By The River 10k on 27th December. I'll be upping the mileage again with that in mind.
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