Running on ice!!!!

The last few days have generally evolved around the same pattern of work then training. Tuesday and Wednesday proved a slight exception.

Tuesday I was in Fort William. The weather was fairly clear but patchy ice is still in evidence. So after some debate the shorts and T shirt were thrown into the bag. The meeting was finished by half one and I was feeling the need to break before the 2 and a half hour drive home. So Fort William leisure centre was calling me.

It's a good wee gym with the benefit of being quiet at that time with only a few others sweating off another pound of turkey. Moonwalker told me that the average weight gain over the festive period in UK is around 1 stone. I was gobsmacked by this but interestingly the Radio Forth breakfast show DJ's all did a weigh in at the start of December and then again in January and all three of them had put on more than one stone. Interesting but absolutely irrelevant fact!

So I ran in the gym. I felt tired - don't know why just a little jaded but I ploughed on and did my usual interval session.

Yesterday, Santiago came over at lunch time and we set for an hour around the west fife villages. The plan was up to Blairhall, down to the cycle track and then back to Carnock via the Col.

It was good to catch up. His Paris marathon training is in full swing and he is starting the journey to becoming a fellow Ironman in August - it's some journey and one that I don't feel the need to repeat. Anyway the craic as always with Santiago was good and we shared tales of our recent training exploits and planned race events.

The cycle path was an ice fest and we danced our way fearful of pulling a muscle on the slippy surface. Nevertheless when offered the opportunity to back on the Santiago wanted to stick it out and achieve the planned goal. So we danced on like 2 lycra clad skaters looking not disimilar to Todd Carty from last year's dancing on ice. We didn't make a graceful pair and I'm sure the judges would have given us very poor scores. (Boo as appropriate!)

After slip sliding away the nearest we were going to get to heaven was a hard surface on the Col Du Carnock. On a bike it looks imposing but on foot it's a nightmare. It's the hill that just keeps giving. The slope get steeper as you reach the top. We pushed hard in a vein effort to look comfortable and were both breathing hard by the top - it was a good effort if I say so myself and gave me a personal measure of my fitness as I remember how bad I felt last time on the same hill. There is no doubt the fitness is building.

Gym session with the Bigman in Cowdenbeath tonight with a planned meet at 7pm for anyone else wishing to join the posse for an intense work out.

Going to be a cracker!