Month: August 2013

18 to do…

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Quick blog entry in preparation for tomorrow’s 18 mile jog the last big one before the marathon! (Next week being the pedal for Scotland Sportive 110 mile cycle means I’m doing it a week early so I don’t kill myself by over training in one week..)
Pasta eaten… Cashews eaten, carbs loaded, hydration sorted and 4 bottles of carb/electrolyte juice mixed and filled… Route planned (6 laps of Pollok Park), toe nails clipped, Vaseline looked out, Lycra ready, trainers ready, phone arm band ready, iPod ready!
Weather? Cold but dry…

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Had a nice wee beach walk tonight here’s the view… Stayed dry!

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Short sharp bursts..

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Aye aye! …the eyes weren’t too bad on Thursday and no major headaches so I ventured out for a short training session to the local park with Jill and Jodi… Interval training began with a run up the hill to the goal posts but that was pretty hard going so we headed over to the vacant football pitch and started running fast on the long length and slow recoveries along the short length. On the 2nd lap I had a major twinge up the back of my right thigh so I stretched it out. Then I tried more reps but found I was pooped by the end of the long side so switched running fast to the short distance.
Winnie and Candy were loving the race but Winnie took a leaf out Zola Budds book of cheating and came at me from behind, cut across the back of my legs and side swept them from below me! In a ‘blind’ panic about not jarring my head or detaching my retina, my reflexes kicked in and my tangled legs somehow managed to get back under my flailing arms and body and I narrowly missed decking it (Mary Deckering it lol)!
Since I was in a rush to get to hospital to see my Dad after his hip replacement I only managed 35 mins training but that was good enough for me… Next up 18 miles jogging in prep for the marathon. (15 miles according to the training plan agreed with my marathon guru friend but a week on Sunday is the 110 mile sportive cycle and I’ll not manage that plus 18 miles next week). If you want to sponsor me please go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Lornawalkrunride

I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly….

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…well its been an interesting week..

Sunday was spent recovering from Saturday’s 12 mile jog, Monday bank holiday was spent weeding, cutting the grass, trimming the hedge, getting rid of back garden debris and what I thought would be a 2 hour job turned into 7 hours of gardening followed by a well earned small fish supper with my folks (my mum did an amazing job of ridding my border of all weeds)!  Tuesday back at work – meetings in Bellshill and Paisley followed by a trip straight to bed because of a monster headache and also had a jittery jiggly right eye and a twitching eye lid… not quite a migraine but enough to make me cancel my cycling trip and close the curtains to limit light in.   I wondered if this was related to a dark patch in my eye last week..    Wednesday awoke with a slight headache and decided to book myself an optician appointment for the afternoon just in case.   The optician confirmed that I’d had a bleed in my eye because of the jelly (vitreous gel) inside ripping away from the anchor point at the bottom…  it will heal up but they referred me to the Royal Alexandria Hospital in Paisley as a precaution because it may cause a retina detachment.  If they deem it necessary they can laser it in place.

And here’s the science:

The back cavity of the inner eye is filled with clear jelly called vitreous.

Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD)

Normally the jelly is only loosely adherent to the retina. However, occasionally, the vitreous jelly is so adherent to the retina and pulls so hard on it that it creates a tear. If this tear is along a blood vessel of the retina this may cause bleeding into the vitreous (called a vitreous hemorrhage) which could lead to a shower of floaters which cloud the vision. Acute retinal tears with or without flashes and floaters pose a risk because fluid can enter through the tear under the retina and lift the retina off, causing a retinal detachment, much like damp wallpaper peeling from the wall. Since Posterior Vitreous Detachments are usually the initiating event of most retinal detachments, this is why PVDs are such a concern.

Retinal “Horseshoe” Tear

Horseshoe tear with retinal vessel involvement

 

So that’s my excuse for no training Sunday to Wednesday this past week!

 

 

A cool dozen

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I’ll keep this brief! After 6 hrs painting voluntary work I knew that Saturday also had to include a 12 mile jog since Sunday was a planned cycling day.
I organised to go a jog accompanied by Lynn from lifeline on her cool blue retro bike avec basket! 1 lap of Pollok park is 3.1 miles so theoretically 4 laps should have done it… I did a solo lap while Lynn went round to get her bike and cycle to the park to meet me. I felt good and the dogs were reasonably well behaved! 1/4 of the way round lap 2 passing Pollok house I got the call from Lynn to say that she had arrived in the Park and while she cycled round to meet us, I threw the tennis ball into the river a few times for the dogs both to help improve Winnie’s swimming and to insure they had a drink and were cool!
When Lynn arrived she pointed out her soft rear tyre and half way round we realised it had deflated more. Add to that 1000 people descending on us to do a charity walk and I think you’ll agree we took the right decision to abandon Pollok park and to head to Bellahouston! (Candy ran off after the smells of a BBQ so that was another delay and distraction recapturing her!)
I parked the car at bellahouston park and did 2 laps and hoped that was enough but alas a lap is only 2.2 miles so I was a fair bit short! I did another 2 shorter laps and was delighted to have done my full 12 miles as I’d planned. My right leg at the back of my thigh had been sore to begin with so by the end of the run the side of my left knee paid the price in pain! Uch well lesson learned and lots of stretching has really helped!

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Head Wind, Heavy Rain Heaven!

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“Fancy a 60+ miles cycle Lorna?” my brother asked me on Saturday.  So it was agreed that we would have an 8am pedal-off from his house on Sunday morning. (Weather forecast was great – white clouds and sunshine all day).

Intent on being on time, I packed the bike and my accoutrements into the car and arrived dead on 8a.m. ! Well done me!  However, in my haste I’d put on my trainers to drive and had left my cycling shoes avec cleats back at my house along with my sunglasses… Fail!

David had breakfast and then did a quick check on my tyres.. both front and rear wheels were low on pressure so he pumped them up to 100 psi as recommended.

Both bikes packed into the car and back over to my house we had a quick pit stop then headed off up the Rollercoaster road in a head wind i.e Kingston Road out of Neilston past fields, the Commore Dam and out past the motorcycle trails academy.   As we pedalled down towards the turn off for Fullwood, the dark clouds brought a quick shower so we headed for the cover of the trees by the side of the road and took the opportunity to plan the amended route in a bit more detail.

Phone, safely stashed into the plastic zip-lock bag along with the Wiseman Dairies poncho and then stuffed back into my rear pocket for dry keeping and we were off again.  We turned right along a hedge lined road and into Dunlop, wet road, slick tyres and tight bends meant we went at a slower pace than normal.  We went over the Railway bridge through the roundabout then turned right towards the A736 and Burnhouse.  When we met the main road we turned left and followed it for a couple of miles to the Blair restaurant, Auchentiber then turned right and headed to Kilwinning.

The headwind was brutal so we agreed to just stay in our middle gear ring and pedal it out… after all there was no point exhausting ourselves only 10 miles in with 50 – 60 to go!

We reached Kilwinning and followed the signs for Ardrossan which led us through Stevenston, round the back of Saltcoats and passed the turn off for the Arran ferry from Ardrossan.  Out of the town we were now cycling along the coastal cycle path and on through West Kilbride where we rejoined the road again.

This stretch of road was very busy with fast cars so it was a welcome sight to turn left off the main road and on to the cycle path past Hunterston Castle: 20130819-181713.jpgand through the estate passing the access road for Hunterston B nuclear power station.  The quality of the path was a bit more suited to a mountain bike than road bike for this section and the knobbly pavement from there to Fairly where we rejoined the road.

As we came in to Largs, we turned left and went over the humpback bridge over the railway line and into the Largs Marina.  Here we turned right and followed the park path  alongside the rocky outcrops then the beach before rejoining the main road and turning right up past Nardini’s.

The next section of the route from Largs to Kilbarchan was exactly as we had done on our ‘3 Peaks Loop’ a couple of weeks ago on the 6th August however, the main differences were firstly that David was on his new Specialized Allez road bike and so we went faster and secondly that it bucketed down with rain as soon as we got 3/4 of the way up the Loch Thom road!   David choose the moment we reached the top to stop for 3 minutes to stop his app because his phone was nearly out of power and to stash his phone in a dry part of his ‘fanny pack’ as the American’s would call it.. we call it the essential tools and spare tube pack! honest!

I decided it was a good time to put on my free ‘Pedal for Scotland’ Wiseman’s Dairies Poncho… yes I looked like a plastic black and white Holstein-Friesia cow flapping in the wind but it did help to keep me slightly warmer than the cold rain would allow.  It did however make an incredibly loud flappity flap noise and acted like an air brake so I had to stop at a layby to tuck it in under my top!   As we descended down towards Loch Thom we passed a couple cycling uphill in their rain jackets and they did make me think maybe I shouldn’t have travelled so lightly!

Down by the loch side it was a relief there weren’t as many flies as last time but we did spot a steamed up car just before the police passed us in the opposite direction so if there was anything untoward going on I’m sure the law enforcers were about to sort it out!

There was another short climb before the rain went off again, we stopped and I folded my poncho badly before tucking it under my back to look like a hunchback (thanks David for your description) and then deciding it needed putting away properly in the small pocket, we wolfed down our last mars bars and had a quick drink before we descended down the slippery steep road into Greenock.  We were doing a lot of braking before the bends this time – David especially has realised that versus his mountain bike disc brakes, the road bike is like a 1960’s mini versus a new one!!  In fact he had a couple of stories of the lucky escapes he’s had in the last week since he has been out on his new bike, misjudging the braking distances!

We went the naughty ‘Road Closed for maintenance’ way round the road works then up to the start of Auchmountain whereupon my poncho leapt from my back pocket and I thought I’d lost my phone too.  Safely stowed we granny wheeled it up the 2 mile very steep hill and then on to the great fun back road and on to the cycle path outside Kilmacolm.  It was evident the road bike was a great purchase when David was able to zoom along all the way through Kilmacolm, Bridge of Weir and on to Brookfield where he said his farewells, 59.7 miles clocked with another half a mile to go.

I carried on along the cycle path to Paisley, left it at the Paisley Canal train Station and cycled to Barrhead, where I couldn’t be bothered waiting on lights so went via Tesco car park.  I was dreading the hill climb home so I stopped to make a call to my mum to pick me up!  Plan foiled!  Sadly my phone had died and I had to spend the next final 8 minutes of the ride cycling up the big hill and back to my house.

Safely in the door I had a few air punches and a few muted ‘YEAH I’ve done it!’s before stripping off and finding I’d lost my bank card!  Showered and dressed I headed back to Tesco car park where I found the bank card! YASSS!  Here’s the proof of the ride up to the point where i last checked my phone successfully at Brookfield.  The phone died and it missed out the Paisley, Barrhead, Neilston part of my journey so I estimate it was 70 miles in total:

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Friday’s 43

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I had a very busy diary last week so it was Friday before I got back in the saddle with an old colleague of mine, Stuart. He’d been working to 6pm so that gave me a few minutes after getting off the train to fill up on a Mars bar and a bottle of lucozade sport.

We met at Bothwell Street next to the phone boxes and headed down onto Waterloo Street after agreeing it would be good to go on the “Bridge to Everywhere” that used to be the “Bridge to nowhere” and here it is!

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And very smooth and pleasant it was on the under-tyre too!  (and more importantly gentle on the saddle bottom)!  After the excitement and joy of going up and over and down and round and round we headed to another, but not so smooth, curly footpath over the Clydeside expressway and headed towards the River to join the Forth And Clyde National Route 7 cycle path from Glasgow to Loch Lomond.
We were on a mission to cycle between 15 – 20 mph the whole way which, in theory, would allow us to get to Loch Lomond and back to Glasgow in 3 hours and thus still in the hours of light!

The path along the Clyde leads up to the road past the transport museum, along past the old River Clyde docks and then up onto the old train line which has a tarmac surface.

Before we knew it we’d reached Clydebank and we stopped to pump up my rear tyre which Stuart had observed had almost hit the rim when I was going over kerb stones.  The next section was along the canal to Bowling.  Then we left the water edge and went up into a railway cutting which takes you along a very smooth path past Milton then on to Dumbarton amongst trees.

Through Dumbarton town centre, over a bridge then back out to more countryside and even through a field of cows before joining a river side path that takes you all the way to Balloch and was smelling sweet with lots of flowers.

A quick Mars bar and a drink then we headed back the way we came.  Sadly Stuart got a puncture at Dalmuir next to the canal and while he was changing his tyre (lucky he had 3 inner tubes as one spare was faulty) I was attacked by swarms of horse flies and I now have about 10 bites all over the backs of my legs and my arms!

Despite this, we achieved our goal of 3 hours cycling before we got our respective trains home to avoid cycling in the dark! (apologies for lack of photos but I’ve been this route before – see blog entry Braw Bike to Balloch

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Tuesday Best – Battle of the Bridges

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After the success of our last outing on Friday, Irene and I agreed to meet regularly and on Tuesday we met at Lancefield Quay after work and set about achieving another 10K training session.

Dogs in tow (or really towing us) we headed off along north Clydeside past the Kingston Bridge and then along the lovely newly developed footpath passing the Broomielaw-Tradeston Bridge (aka the ‘Squiggly Bridge’) at quite a pace. We went down behind the casino under the George the Fifth Bridge and up the steps (where my heart rate hit 211bpm!) then along the river under the 1st and very quickly the 2nd Caledonian Railway Bridges, through the tunnel below Glasgow Bridge and out along the riverside next to where I used to go clubbing in my youth! Only young goths or emo’s to be seen here at night now!

Following this we jogged on past the red South Portland Street Suspension Bridge, up on to the roadside path and over the Victoria Bridge with the pedestrian lights at green. Then we jogged under the city Union Railway Bridge and agreed this was a fast pace! We were delighted to be able to let the dogs off the lead when we got across the Albert Bridge and into Glasgow Green where there was some filming going on… nothing like an audience of extras on an open top bus to up your pace!

The path takes you away from the water here and I didn’t notice the Tidal and Weir Pipe Bridge but next it was the blue St Andrew’s Suspension Bridge to our right as we pushed on. We jogged under King’s Bridge, Polmadie Bridge and Rutherglen bridge before the path was closed for refurbishment ahead of us so we turned around and headed back slightly slower.

Upon reaching Irene’s place we hadn’t done the full 6.2 miles so we did a fast wee loop and got back to her apartment in a record breaking (PB for me) 56 min 01 s. (I’ve knocked 5 seconds off my best ever time achieved back in 2005!) All that effort certainly took it out of me… in more ways than one! nuff said!

Tonight I was going to go cycling but with skinny slicks in the rain I didn’t fancy my chances so I’m having an impromptu night off and will make up for it over the next few days!

No photos tonight but you can get your fill of Glasgow bridges online and even do the Heritage trail walk for yourself!

Here’s the Strava results:

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Real Toy Stories and Tantrums

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This will be brief because I can’t relive the grief!

Monday night I scheduled my second outing with Jill back down at Irvine beach – see “Life’s a Beach”. Sadly her hubby had forgotten to tell her that he was playing football and therefore she’d have to stay home and watch the kids. ‘Aye Right! – You aren’t getting off that easy!’ said and so I invited her to bring the kids so we could all have fun and a jog together!

Well, all the signs looked good – Jodie turned up to make sure I was coming and within a few minutes we were all loaded into the car heading down to Irvine.

It started off great, Jill and I jogging with the kids behind catching up and throwing the ball for the dogs…  but very quickly “are we nearly there yet” and “I’ve got sore feet can you carry me?”.

Thank goodness Jill was there and her training as a nursery teacher became evident as she got the kids to do a treasure hunt to find things to take to the recycling area or ‘art installation’ as I call it!

Jodie found a massive post that looked like a yellow pencil and amazingly she managed to carry it all the way along.  Robbie found a large yellow welly which I helped carry as it was almost as big as him!

When we reached the recycling the kids found lots of interesting things to fill their pockets with!

Then began the 1.5 miles of tantrum back to the car as Robbie got colder, the sun started to go down and we had to carry them part of the way back.

Thank the Lord for McDonalds hot chocolate which I used as a bribe to get back before darkness fell and helped thaw us out!

Very well done to Jill who’s sore blistered heel got worse because she managed to do 70% of the distance carrying Robbie as her weight training and she also managed jogging when she wasn’t carrying him.  Outstanding effort!

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Roller Coaster 36 miler

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Firstly an apology… I went out a cycle on Saturday and because I was so focused on getting home (because I was not enjoying it) I didn’t take any photos! I shall try and improvise and use my linguistic skills to describe what I saw so you feel part of the picture!

After bravely asking “Anyone free for a 60 mile George Michael tomorrow?” on Facebook and no takers, I thought I’d get up early on Saturday, take the dogs out and head out for a my biggest cycle yet… ALONE!

However, given all my efforts and my late night chatting with Irene I didn’t get out my bed til 11am so those best laid plans went to waste! Nonetheless, I was delighted to find out that a long lie had meant that the postman had delivered my new saddle and therefore the pre-existing pain in the anatomy, that came with my cycle with my brother on Tuesday, would hopefully get some relief!

The arrival of the new saddle meant I had to go looking for my Allen keys which were notably missing from my tool kit. (Any excuse for me to get my dad to visit and borrow his vast toolkit, have a natter, a cake and a cuppa!)

Its white with a hole – I’ve christened it the polo mint saddle:polomintsaddle Its actually a pretty good saddle for the money – check out the spec:

Velo Senso Miles 4102

Since I’d left it so late and was putting off going out, I decided 60 miles was too much and changed it to a 36 mile loop which I mapped on walkjogrun.net first.

Then came the fantastic news from my brother that he’d just purchased a road bike and therefore might be doing the Pedal for Scotland Sportive with me in September… his bike is even smaller than mine though – 49cm (mine is 51cm)! We’re a petite family! I was hoping that meant he would come on a test run with me but sadly he was shopping in Glasgow.

Here’s his new Specialized Allez:

David's Specialized Allez (silver)

I was really struggling to motivate myself to get ready for the ride ahead partly because I was feeling tired and partly because there were passing rain showers. In the end I decided to break rule 32 and took a hydration back pack (without the hydration as I put that into a SIS sport bottle along with a sachet of Go Energy Orange drink to practice drinking from a bottle) and packed a cycling rain jacket (aka ‘the steamer’ as it makes you super sweaty!) and thought ‘Lets hope it doesn’t rain!’

Right get on with it! I hear you shout at me and I was the same I had to shout at myself to get out on my bike!

Ok so here’s the route I took – out of Neilston up over the roller coaster hills on the Stewarton Road [I was feeling seriously tired!]… turned right and went through Dunlop [grateful for some relief from the big hills] then out over the Lochlibo Road and headed through Barrmill. From there I skirted round Beith and headed down to Glengarnock where I left the roads and joined the cycle path. I pedalled towards Lochwinnoch passing the Kilbirnie turn off I’d taken with my brother on Tuesday (but in the other direction). I raced past some leisure cyclists (no lycra in sight!) and got to Lochwinnoch in good time as I was pushing myself to cycle as fast as possible to keep up my average speed to compensate for the slow hills at the start and for the ones coming towards the end!

I popped in to the Lochwinnoch visitor centre and bought some additional juice (Lucozade sport) and some jelly sweets as I was really feeling exhausted and also consumed a gel then slowly swung my leg back over and clipped in again to resume my fast pace on the cycle track. I took a detour in Kilbarchan to see my brother and his wife but alas they were still shopping so I focused on getting this painful cycle done and took the path to Paisley, turned off at the RAH and headed up the Braes and on to Sergentlaw Road which was very steep and almost backwards I was going that slow… I really felt I was hitting a wall!

Thankfully it was pretty much down hill for a bit then one last painful hill at Neilston’s Mill Brae before home.

What a relief! What an idiot…! I realised at dinner with my folks later that night that I’d had 4 chocolates and two of my mum’s cakes in the morning and hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch! So I ordered lasagne, garlic bread and chips for dinner at the Canny Man and was feeling much better.

And now for an admission… I’ve been buying a lot of cycling gear lately! This week I bought 2 tops with rear pockets to let me avoid wearing a back pack in future… I bought a new pump with a presta valve attachment and gauge as my hand pump doesn’t have a gauge… and… I bought a cycling tool kit (looks a bit like a swiss army knife) with allen keys, a screw driver, various attachments and wheel levers all in a nifty pouch!

Secondly, I’m finding myself trying to work towards adhering to the aforementioned rules!

Overnoot for this week, God bless, love Lorna x

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