The Glasgow SubRun was featured in the Sunday Mail on 31 December 2017 as something to do on New Year’s Day. Notwithstanding we don’t actually recommend doing it on New Year’s Day (there’s no trains so you can’t get a lift!), it’s a great article! 🙂
Running with an injury should just be called ‘running’. Runners are always injured.
Ask any runner and they can talk for hours about their creaky knees, dodgy ankles and wonky hips. “But it’s always been like that!” They’ll add, forgetting that it wasn’t like that before they started running.
Runners are basically the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Despite how many limbs are chopped off the knight still cries ’tis but a flesh wound!’ and battles on.
That’s why there are certain stages that runners go through when they run with injuries… sorry… when they run normally.
It Doesn’t Get Any Worse When I Run
At the moment I have a pain in my left foot. It falls into the category that I call “It Doesn’t Get Any Worse When I Run”.
This is an injury that’s just as sore when you walk as when you run. That mean, and this is logical, I can run because running doesn’t make it any worse! (Don’t think about the logic, just trust me!)
These types of injury also tend to fall into the related category of…
It Doesn’t Get Any Worse If I Run On Alternative Days
Again the logic here is sound. If the injury doesn’t get any worse because you only ran on a Monday and Wednesday then clearly you can’t be injured at all. An injury would hurt all the time so, if it only hurts on alternate days then it can’t be an injury at all. Simple.
After Five Minutes It Doesn’t Hurt When I Run
This is a tricky injury because it does hurt when you run. Usually quite painfully and in a way which suggest amputation may be in your future. However, after five minutes, all the pain goes away! (Though it does tend to return an hour after you stop – and ten times worse than it was before).
I’ve had this injury. I hurt my knee and every time I tried to run it would be very painful to put any weight on my leg for the first five minutes then everything was okay until I stopped and had to cry with the pain of it all.
However, as it wasn’t sore when I ran, or at least most of the time, it wasn’t an injury at all!
It Hurts When I Lie Down
Wimp! If it only hurts when you lie down then you know what to do – go for a run!
It Hurts All The Time
Okay, a runner may admit this may be an injury and will book an appointment to see a physio in three weeks time. In the meantime: keep running! You never know, it might heal on it’s own!
If you’re buying a Christmas present then people say it’s the thought that counts. Which is true, Â unless that thought is “this’ll do!” – then you need to think again.
A couple of years ago, at the office Christmas party I was given a book called “Hitler: His Rise To Power” as a Secret Santa present. Given I had neither expressed any previous interest in history, World War 2 or proclaimed to my colleagues that I was going to extend my desk by annexing a break out room I could only think this was some kind of message.
I started wondering if I’d displayed any Hitler like tendencies in the office and I had to admit that after some considerable soul searching and reflection of my despotic moments  I WAS NOTHING LIKE HITLER!!!! 🙂
It was only later I found out the book had come from someone who’d heard I liked reading and they had a book on their bookshelf they’d never read because THEY DIDN’T LIKE HITLER TOO!
Top tip for Christmas – if giving Hitler as a gift please make sure the recipient really, really likes Hitler first. You might be surprised at how many people don’t want Hitler as a Christmas present. (Most of them).
But Christmas isn’t just about presents. It’s also about training because nothing says “I’m a serious athlete” than training on Christmas Day! And nothing says I’m not a serious athlete than eating your weight in chocolate because “I’ve been for a run, you know!”.
Going for a run on Christmas Day is the worst day for going for a run. The 200 calories are then quashed by the 20000 calories consumed as eating’s not cheating when you’ve been sprinting!
Despite it’s lack of any physical benefits, the Christmas Day run is a good mental boost. For the last 15 years I’ve been running on Christmas Day because I remembered a quote from Daley Thomson, the Olympic gold medal winning decathlete. He said he would always train on Christmas Day because he knew his main rivals would all take the day off. He was one day better than anyone else.
So, I’d run on Christmas Day and would then be one day better than everyone else.
But, in researching this post (yes, there’s research!), I found the actual quote from Daley Thomson and it turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong. He actually said:
“Train twice on Christmas Day. Your competitors may only train once…!
Nooooooo!!!!!
Not only  have I not been better than any competitor I’ve been worse because I had two boxes of Quality Street too!
Nooooooo!!!!
No wonder I’ve never the Olympics!
They have no human rights. They run out of food. If they say the wrong thing they could be jailed or worse. They are completely and utterly isolated.
But, on the other hand…
… they’ve never heard ‘Perfect Symphony’ by Ed Sheeran and Andrea Bocelli so life’s not at all bad in Pyongyang.
Here’s some better songs.
STAR WARS THE LAST JEDI
What a cool planet! It’s all white but, but, when the spaceships fly over it, it turns RED!
WHOOAH!
AWESOME!
But…
What this?
It’s a random soldier in a trench.
Eff off!
That’s right. Eff the Eff Off.
We’ve already got too many characters! I don’t need another one! Especially not at the end of the movie! I mean, I still don’t even know why Rose is in the film?!?!? More Patrick Swayze/Poe having supercool space adventures with his best bud, spacebro Johny Utah/Finn. Less “Miss Obligatory Character For the Chinese Film Market” please!
But, oh well, here we go. What do you have to say for yourself random rebel squaddie?
“It’s salt!” he says.
And this is the crucial bit.
“It’s salt!” he says AFTER he’s dipped his finger in the ground and licked the soil!!!!
Who does that?!?!?
Who licks soil?
I’ve never gone on holiday. Popped down to the beach at Blackpool and thought: “I wonder what the ground’s made from?”
Then scooped up the sand and tasted it like a fine wine!
“Mmmmmm, sandy with a touch of sand! This is the real Blackpool rock!”
So who goes to another planet and thinks: “This brand new world is the right place to find a condiment!”
If anything, going to a new planet is the last place you should be tasting the ground. It’s alien. It’s unlikely to contain any compound or molecule or matter that will have any connection with you. He should be dead! Or at the very least his commanding officer should be questioning the wisdom of letting this salt-licking squaddie have a gun and live ammunition.
So, basically, what I’m saying is that in a film where the best character is still a man who looks like he’s rolled around a barbers floor while covered in superglue, that was the point I had to say:”Bring back Jar Jar Binks, this is just NONSENSE!”
(Film’s pretty decent though)
The Marcothon is a 31 day challenge to run 5km or 25 minutes every day in December.
Day One
Bugger. I forgot today was day one. I’m sitting on my turbo trainer halfway through a 45 minute session when I remember that today’s the first day of December and I was going to attempt the Marcothon. Bugger.
I debate for 25 minutes whether I should go for a run after I finish the bike. It’s dark. It’s cold. I don’t want to but…
… isn’t that the point?
You have to go out no matter what, even if you’ve stupidly started riding when you could have been running.
I go out. It’s dark. It’s cold. I plod round a circle of street round the house until my watch says I’ve run 3 miles then I stop.
Then I remember I promised to go mountain biking in the morning. Bugger.
Day Two
After two hours of mountain biking round Whitelee wind farm I debate going for a run straight after or leaving it to later in the day when I’ll be at Turnberry for the night. Having checked out Google maps I can see there’s a nice 1.5 mile run to the Turnberry lighthouse which means an out and back run will at least give me something to aim at as, while it’ll be dark, you can’t miss a bright white lighthouse.
My legs are heavy but running in the dark keeps me distracted as I look out for cars driving on the main road, then look out for potholes in the ground while running on a closed road to the lighthouse. There’s a Land Rover outside the lighthouse and lights in the house below. It’s only the next day I find out that you can hire the lighthouse and I was standing outside, breathing heavily, sweating profusely, trying to stare in the windows…. at hotel guests who were not expecting a red-faced stranger to be standing outside!
Day Three
Run in the morning? Yes. Definitely. Back to the lighthouse! But first, a spa! Then breakfast! A buffet? Don’t mind if I do? Run now? No chance…
Back to Glasgow. Run at lunchtime? Definitely. Wait. Is that Rangers v Aberdeen? I should watch that first…
Run after the game? Okay. Wait. The dog needs walked.
Run after the walk. Legs heavy. Body sore after yesterday’s ride and run. Still thinking of breakfast. Okay! But it wasn’t fast and it wasn’t pleasant.
Day three done.
Day Four
Stress injury in left foot. Bit of a niggle but I decide that the Marcothon is a stupid idea. Day off.
Marcothon done – I can now enjoy the rest of the month! 🙂
A lethal game of chance in which a cyclist decides to go for a ride without a spare inner tube. Frequently involve rushing to leave and forgetting to replace the flat tube in your saddle bag that you absolutely meant to replace the night before. Also involves the phrase “I’m sure I’ll be alright – what’s the chances of getting a puncture?”. Phrase frequently uttered 10 miles from civilisation and 30 seconds before puncture.
Usage: “I had to walk home after a game of rushing roulette!“
Triathlon and running magazines will tell you that Autumn is a time to relax. The race season is over. The nights are drawing in. It’s time to let injuries heal and training decrease because, damn it, you deserve it, you magnificent athlete, you!
You did so well this year!
You smashed that A race.
You got the PB!
You ran out of acronyms to describe your achievements!
Except, what happens if you didn’t?
You got round your A race (just). Your PB stood for peanut butter and the sandwiches you ate by the dozen. And then you stopped doing anything at all for two months because you didn’t have time to train.
Do you get to relax?
Well, yes, Because it’s cold, and wet and frankly, it’s Scotland in Autumn. What other excuse do you need, you magnificent athlete, you?
And it is an excuse. Because the one thing the magazines don’t tell you is what happens when everything goes wrong, like this year for me.
The summer was a write off. A project at work meant I had very little free time for three months. And while I completed Escape From Alcatraz and IronMan 70.3 Edinburgh it was very much a case of “Thank you, Lord, for cancelling/shortening the swim and making it easier to get round!”.
So, Autumn for me is a chance now to get back to training, to start a few months earlier to be ready for next year and another attempt at Escape From Alcatraz and, as Iain’s announced, being the support for Norseman.
Because racing isn’t really about racing. And that’s something the magazines don’t get. Not some years.
This year wasn’t about racing as other things were more important and next year won’t really be about racing either, it’ll be about making sure Iain completes Norseman. Taking part and supporting others are just as, if not more important, than racing.
Though results always matter when you do race! 🙂
So, while I’ll be supporting Iain, I’ll also be secretly hoping he finishes Norseman after 111 miles on the bike so I can say I’m the best Todd at Norseman by getting to 112 miles!)
Normally you get a banana at the end of a run but, yesterday at the Antonine Trail Race, we got a big banana at the start – along with two skeletons, several witches and a Homer Simpson.
That’s what happens when you have a race on Halloween weekend.
We didn’t join in. It was tough race and the only fancy dress I wanted was a jet pack to help get up and over the two hills that made up most of the route. First up, Croy Hill, a long climb through muddy tracks and thick grass, then Bar Hill, another long climb along a forest track before, cruelly, the race finished with another climb up Croy Hill.
It was a fantastic day, sunny, bright, and with a slight chill that made it impossible to decide what to wear – assuming you were wearing running gear and not a large yellow fruit costume – as it was too cold for a t-shirt at the start but too warm to run in two t-shirts a mile after starting. I choose a single t-shirt and then stayed in the car with the heater on until the race was about to start. This is my version of warming up…!
The race was mostly off-road and on narrow tracks. While dry, the previous week’s rain had left much of it covered in thick mud. The first few miles were spent doing the bandy legged hop leap and jump of someone half runner/half frog.
The good news was that you could follow the runner in front of you and try and follow their footsteps on the basis that if they cleared a path then you would just be stepping into the hole they’ve already created in the mud. So, if you want to keep your trainers clean when running through mud just follow someone with big feet in front of you.
The race was tough, with a few steep climbs (which in this context means, ‘walks up hill’ rather than ‘gets out the rappelling gear’) but some great views across to the Trossachs and outwards Falkirk and the east coast.
You can see part of it on this short video:
I’m not competitive. I don’t feel the need to win nor do I hate losing. I like ‘taking part’.
But…
Sometimes…
I just can’t help myself.
I have to win!
But never do.
(‘Cause I’m not very good.)
Earlier this month I was taking part in a corporate bike ride. A cycle round Aberfoyle and Loch Katrine in the Trossachs. It’s a cracking route and it was a good crisp clear September day.
This wasn’t a race. Everyone taking part was separated into groups of 12 and each group rode as one with a ‘pro’ leading it to keep everyone together and safe.
It was a good set up and promised to be a good day when, after five miles, we started to climb the Dukes Pass – a steep sharp twisting climb of a mile and half. And the ‘pro’ said “Just go at your own pace”.
So I did. And it was faster than the group I was with, and faster than the group in front, and then my competitive instinct kicked in and I thought “I’ll be the first up this hill!”.
Except I wasn’t.
Because when your competitive instinct kicks in there’s also something else that happens: somebody else’s competitive instinct kicks in too! It’s contagious – and deadly. At least for me because, as I said, I’m not that good.
200 metres from the summit the first man passed me. 100 metres from the summit the second man passed me. I wasn’t first. I wasn’t second. I was third to the summit in a race that probably consisted of three men because everyone else, quite sensibly, was just enjoying the ride and going up at their own pace. I was therefore last to the summit.
But, later, first to the café stop. Now that’s a competition worth winning!
Twin brothers swimming, cycling and running in Scotland 