In 2002, ex-fireman Lloyd Scott took over five days to complete the London Marathon wearing a deep sea diving suit weighing an incredible 130lbs. I used to think he was crazy for taking on the marathon while dressed like a submarine but, after running the Kirkintilloch 12.5k on Sunday 13 February 2022, I’m just jealous.  I wish I I’d worn a diving suit while running through some of the puddles/newly formed lochs on the course.  The race was held in Marti Pellow weather: wet, wet, wet.

About the race:

The Kirkintilooch 12.5k is a hilly loop around the northern edge of Kirkintilloch. It’s held on quiet country roads except for one small section through a housing estate. Even though the roads are open, it feels like a closed road race, you only see a handful of cars.

This year was the fifteenth anniversary of the race, though only the 14^th time it’s been held. That’s what a global pandemic does to anniversaries – it makes years disappear. The race number were also confused. The numbers had “2020” printed on them. So, the 15th anniversary was the 14th race run under the banner of 2020 in 2022.

About the course: 

The course is a loop with a challenging up and down profile of 12 hills in 12 kms.  You can find out more about the route here from our previous reports: here, here and here. 

How was it?

Did I mention it was wet? 

The problem with 12 hills is that you also have 12 ‘valleys’ and those valleys quickly filled with puddles so deep they could have been French philosophers. The rain didn’t stop, the water flowed down every hill and it was difficult to avoid the thought that there must be better ways to spend a Sunday morning than running outside in Kirkintilloch: maybe diving into a pit of snakes or brushing your teeth with a brillo pad or running a marathon while wearing a diving suit… all would be better options.

The other side to the rain was the cold that starts to seep through your body unless you keep your legs and arms pumping. All my fastest times in races have happened while it’s been raining. I think rain makes you run faster. Usain Bolt may have run the fastest time ever for the 100 metres but I bet you that Noah was a pretty decent sprinter too when the rain started to fall.

Should I run it?

Absolutely. It’s a great race, very well organised and, most years, relatively dry. But if it does rain then just bring your flippers and a snorkel.

Hello Western Samoa!!!!

We had one reader of one article on one day of the blog from one of the smallest countries of the world. All I can say is that I hope you found the review of the White Loch in Newton Mearns useful as you contemplated the c20,000 mile round trip it would take to get there. Good luck – and welcome!

For everyone else, we had another successful year of the blog with more readers, more views and more jokes that ever (regular readers may disagree). Thank you very much for reading, it means a lot that anyone would read any of our posts. That nearly 20,000 people read this last year is amazing as that’s almost 1 in 10 of the population of Western Samoa!

Some might say that the ’31 day challenge’ was to read every daily blog I wrote throughout January. I would say that’s not a challenge, that would be the ’31 day pleasure’! However, if you don’t have time to read all 31 blogs then here’s what I learned after 31 days of running, cycling and swimming.

• You need luck: Whether it’s avoiding injury, illness or getting pinged to self-isolate because you met someone with COVID, it’s very difficult to do anything for any length of time without a bit of luck that conditions will be favourable. I was lucky because I didn’t get ill until day 32, the day after the challenge was over. I had a couple of days with a heavy cold. I could probably have continued through it, but it wouldn’t have been good for me. Instead, I had 31 clear days.
• You need a plan: Life gets in the way of doing something everyday. Most weeks I knew which days would be difficult: whether through work, travel, family or other commitments. For those days you need a plan in advance and you need to stick to it. You can’t think, like I did, that time will suddenly make itself free. that way leads to exercising at 9:30 at night and trying not to do too much so that you can still sleep at 11.
• You need to think about the start: I didn’t. I started on the first of January but hadn’t thought that I should maybe have rested on the 31st December (or the 30th or 29th…). Tyson Fury doesn’t box for an hour before he enters the ring, he has a happy meal and a milkshake (probably!). So should you.
• You need to make it tough enough to be a challenge: I aimed to run or cycle for at least 30 minutes and to swim for at least 15 minutes. Over the month I averaged one hour a day (though that included some commuting time). That felt enough for me. Just long enough to make it a challenge, not so long it became a chore each day. However, everyone is different, and you should set a time that works best for you.
• You will push yourself in unexpected ways: You will end up running when the weather is crap, cycling indoors when you’d rather watch TV and getting to the swimming pool when you wouldn’t even have got out of bed. The challenge does make you think about how much time you have each day to swim, run and cycle and that it’s possible to fit this in without sacrificing anything else.
• You will get fitter: By the end I improved both my lap times for swimming and my average speed for running. Consistant training does work except…
• You won’t get slimmer: But that may just be the cake! By the end I was the same weight as when I started. Maybe 31 days without a Mars Bar would be a better challenge?
• You will be tired at the end: I was happy to finish!

What the biggest thing I’ve learned from the challenge? Probably that it’s possible to do some form of exercise each day and still get the benefit of a rest day. A swim, an easy cycle or gentle jog can be just as relaxing as doing nothing. I bet no one else in the world knows this so I hereby can confirm that I have invented a new form of exercise! I shall call it ‘Active Recovery’. No one has thought of that before!

Now, how do I claim my Nobel Prize for Science for inventing it?