On the way up Arthur's seat, Edinburgh

Day 89 Thursday 29th March 3 miles : Miles to date 575.8

Having had three wonderful days in Edinburgh, my original plan of running up Arthur's seat had to be shelved. There is so much to see and do, the family had to come first again and we did the tourist thing again. That included a guided tour of the almost underground streets of the town hidden beneath eight story high tenement's, another wander up the royal mile and a coffee in the rather unusual Scottish Parliament building. My lad and I climbed 1/3rd of Arthur's seat which gave us magnificent views of the town. All of this added to the difficulties with tonight's run. There were several reasons why it was a blooming hard one, including the following;-  

1. Three days of very full Scottish breakfasts;

2. Two days of very full Scottish dinners (well, one Scottish Chinese);

3. A full day of walking everywhere, including part of Arthur's seat;

4. Blisters and very smelly feet;

5. 3 hour drive to Georgieland arriving at 8.12pm;

6. Father in law waiting with G&T in hand and piping hot chillie on the stove:

7. Wife laughing and saying, its your fault you idiot as she pushed me out the door;

8. The family wanting to eat straight away;

It would be fair to see, that I wasn't that keen to go, but as always it wasn't a question of should I or not. It was just a question of how quickly I could get it done, despite being so tired, very chubby and in need of a hot bath. The bags were thrown in the house, the garmin charged and I shot out the door just wanting to do it. I found myself running quite quick early, on an undulating and uninspiring public highway, dodging discarded chip packets and dog presents. I knocked out just over three miles at an average pace of 7 min 15 second pace, but I wasn't comfortable and puffed too hard most of the way. The simple fact is that a hedonistic lifestyle just does not go hand in hand with a full on training plan. Still, as I'm not aiming for the Olympics, a few days partying might in fact re-charge the running batteries and provide renewed vigour for the various tasks ahead. Great, just made myself feel better for running so badly earlier and topping up the vino just now.