Wednesday 1 December 2010

The nightmare before Christmas

Planes, trains and buses have ground to a halt. Cars have been abandoned. Road, airports and schools are closed. Shops have run out of basic supplies, people have become prisoners in their own homes and the ecomony is losing millions by the day. But it would take more than freezing temperatures and white-out conditions to stop runners grinding out out the miles, eh? Tough or mentally-insane? I say a healthy serving of both. Where there's a will there's a way.

Ill-equipped and scantily-clad, snow or now snow, the show must go on. The Marcothon has now commenced. As of today (the first day) there are 267 runners on Facebook signed up to run every day in December. Plus, I know there's quite a few anti-social-networkers on board too.

Looks like it's going to be a real challenge after all. I may need an extra serving of TTFU. Apparently winter 2009/10 was the worst for 30 years. Now 2010/11 is forecast to be the earliest and worst winter conditions for some time.

Saturday brought us the first dumping of snow, which meant I missed out on the Hugh Wilson 10K in East Kilbride. After searching for webcams, we found the conditions were worse there than in Glasgow. We later heard the race went ahead, but there were too many logistical and babysitting issues to bother with a race that involved running in ankle-deep snow. I was secretly relieved.

I opted for 10 miles round the west-end. Every cloud has a silver lining, as I got to try out my lovely new Inov8 Roclites.

Great grip and much lighter than my Trabucos. Only problem is they don't go with any of my outfits. But I've got a solution for that...:-)

Over the last few days - as the snow and ice continues - I've swapped them for my x-talons. Wearing them is probably the closest I'll get to "normal" running, so I'll stick with them for the time being. Hopefully not for the next 30 days though. I don't love them that much.

It may be hard to believe, but I've actually been enjoying running this week. I've kinda got my head round the fact the snow and ice could possibly be about for the rest of the month, so best to suck it up and get on with it.

So far, I haven't slipped. Yet. And I've managed to dodge the snowballs. Thus far. On Monday night, I passed a group of local neds One of them threw a snowball, which landed about two metres from my feet. Probably not my brightest move to say: "you throw like a girl". Next thing there were six 13-year-olds tearing down the street armed with snowballs. You know the sorry state of youth today when I was running on foot-deep snow on the pavement and they were running on the road, and I'd out-ran them within 200m. Another non-smart move was to turn round and give them the two's-up, before smugly sauntering on. I don't think I'll be doing that route for a while...

12 comments:

Silke said...

Just pictured you and the local neds! :-)Should maybe not try this in Springburn if I have to resort to lunch time running. Have you tried the Kahtoolas? They are great. Safe running. Silke

Kaz said...

I love my innovates for snow running. Let's hope it doesn't get too icy!
Hilaroius image of you and the Neds - I really don't miss that - I used to live in The Merchant city and running near Glasgow Green would result in some regular Ned comments. Possibly my favourite was bottle caps being pinged at me - think I'd take the snowballs!
Kaz

Anonymous said...

Good one. It sounds like as well as the r*nning side of things, you are also getting in training to cope with the neds on Loch Lomondside @ c 06:00hrs 18 June 2011 ;-)

Murdo t M

stanb said...

Did I tell you about the runner whose street cred jumped when her GPS watch was spotted - "look she's been tagged!" She was given a wide berth from that point

Peter Duggan said...

Antisocial networkers or anti socialnetworkers? (Sure you meant the latter, but got such a lovely vision of the former!) ;-)

Anonymous said...

I saw a Haglofs rucksack that would compliment your Inov8s beautifully.

Subversive Runner said...

Methinks them Neds might have regretted catching up with you!!

"e Brutto" said...

You have shamed me into going for a run tomorrow.
"I told the Scottish ultra community (blogged) so" about the weather.
Feel free to poke the English Ned in the eye for me;-)

John Kynaston said...

I wish you had your video camera to record the six 13-year-olds chasing you!

It would have been as funny as Marco on his bike!

neets next mara said...

Lol as stanb says maybe you should wear your gamin round your ankle then they'll be too scared to say anything!

Anonymous said...

'ebrutto'
Hi Debbs
I have blogged what I think is going on with the weather in detail, QI even if I wrote it ;-)
http://slightlypreoccupied.blogspot.com/2010/12/weather-and-double-bagged-toes.html

neets next mara said...

the gadget show last night recommended the rockalites too!!