Turbo x magic

Had a few good runs this week. Notably Wednesday evening I had a wee 5m saunter around Mugdock with Karen and her neighbour Mike...whom she has convinced to run the turbo x too. We did a recce of some of the course, it was pretty boggy due to the huge amount of rain, but then that's the idea I think!

Thursday and Friday slipped by with work and suddenly I found myself waking up on Saturday morning to a beautiful blue sky and blazing sun. Turbo x day!

So I zipped up to Karens where our team of two had grown to 5, Mike the aforementioned neighbour, Sharon and Carrie more friends of Karens, they were set to do the Monster this weekend but were let down by two of their team mates and so differred to the x instead!

We dumped clothes and piled into Mikes car. Drove the mile down the road to the visitor centre which was already buzzing with pre race vibes.

After collecting our chips we chatted to a few familiar faces including Robert McFarlane (who had a great first off road run), did a small warm up and joined the start queue!! As we lined up I was tapped on the shoulder by a big bloke...:"are you a firefighter?"
me : "err yes!"
turned out I had been spotted at the secc the day before...the crew I was with had been sent down to the Rescue on the clyde with the MIU. Bob turned out to be a crew commander from Springbun, he and Michelle were running to raise money for Ewan Williamson the Firefighter who lost his life in Edinburgh in July. With them and also running was a member of Ewans watch from Tollcross.

So the race began, the closest thing I have done to this kind of race was the Mont Blanc Marathon, all off road, few less hills!! The mood was great and everyone seemed up for what was to follow.

Given that we had agreed to run for fun and as a 'team' we slotted in at the rear, if racing you really would need to be near the front as passing places were few in many stretches of the course.

It was suitably muddy and some areas had been dug out and replaced with peaty slurry...thighs on some, waist high on me!!

Towards the end we hit the 'turbo zone' a timed mile section that is a little extra muddy-at one point I was pulling myself free using a tree trunk such was the suction of the gloop-i think the winning time of this section was about 10 mins.

The total course length was 10.3m I did a bit of running back and forth as I just can't do down hill slow and in a neat traffic jam, but I did double back a few times so my watch read 11.5m

It was a fab morning and the goody bag was great too. A salomon tec tee shirt, water bottle (although mine was missing) drinks, shakes, munchies, facepacks, soaps etc.

It reminded me of how much fun it is to take part and now I'm just looking for the next one....definately going to do the Mighty Deerstalkeer that I pulled out of last your...meanwhile...any suggeation?Karen and Mike





Thanks to Robert for the photos.

Another week's flown by

Another week has flown in. What have I done? Few wee runs, ran 5 on tuesday, after yoga...which did nearly kill me! A wee run with Rory who did really good.

Ran a little over 4 with Karen on Saturday up and around Mugdock...we were both feeling gubbed and it was good that we had each other to get us out the door. I could have willingly not bothered. it was a wwet miserable morning. As usual felt great, after!!

Night shift went on for ever on Saturday night, didn't get home till 12 noon...making it an 18hr shift...then I volunteered to take Rory to the west distrct hockey trials. Thought I might snooze in the car while 'watching' but it didn't happen.

When the girls arrived for the ceramics in the evening I felt a little bad as I was knackered and one glass of wine just tipped the balance...so no running yesterday!

Today Karen picked me up in her brand new wheels :-) oooo yeeees the much anticipated, deep blue pristine SLK. Nice! Can I get one?

We drove down to garscube and ran along the kelvin to the Kelvin Grove and back, clocking up a sedate (trundlu=ing and slightly gasping)8 miles in 1h 11m.

All the movie catering vans were out in force...word has it that Euan McGreggor is filming his new film there K Grove), we did two laps of them but didn't lay eyes on a single celeb. Wonder if he'd remember me from the time I saw him in Guys and Dolls....???

Finally my Turbo x entry arrived just now.....number 1282. Check out this route...can't wait!

TURBO X

Ran three on Friday around Tesco and Milngavie, 4.38 with Karen on Saturday out along the west highland way and back after a pretty quiet shift.
Hit Clydebank with the watch ridiculously early..17:30 which can only lead to well I really don't know...thought I would have remembered somethin by now but no luck...will tell you when I do! Not been sacked yet so it must have been within the law!

Anyway feeling pretty delicate on Sunday, Karen was good enough to meet me for a run along the canal, towards Dunbarton taking a few little detours to the Clyde along the footpaths. We followed the cycle path from Bowling hitting the top end of the Dunbarton 10k route before turning.
We weren't aiming to run fast, Karen having an Achilles niggle still and a little indulgence of her own....(almost new SLK..ooo.eerrrr. Let me have a shot;-))causing a bit of the favoured bubbly to be drunk in Hoose de K on Sat night. We did notice however that we kept having to slow down on the way back managing the odd sub 8mm....ooo way too fast for an easy Sunday don't you think!!

So I have today entered myself for the Saab Salomon Turbo X, Mugdock

For those who can't be bothered to follow the link here's what it says..

TURBO X IS PURE FILTH! The maddest, muddiest run of the Saab Salomon Trail Running Series and will not disappoint with 10 miles of the gnarliest mix of mud, sweat and trail! Hidden within a natural assault course of water, sand, marsh and muck lurks the SAAB X ZONE.... A 1- 2 mile section of the craziest trail terrain to push your stamina, agility and perseverance to the limit! You'll wade through watery wildness, clamber through mud, sand and bog, charging your way through the roughest off road track you can imagine!


Of course I run round Mugdock ever weekend...how hard can it be??!!



BTW I have titled this post turbo x with the hope that if I say it enough my running will start to be a little more turbo loaded....andn whatever the x stands for!
8m- 1:10