Tuesday Best – Battle of the Bridges

Posted by littlehappyl

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:

Real Toy Stories and Tantrums

Posted by littlehappyl

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!

Roller Coaster 36 miler

Posted by littlehappyl

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: Its actually a pretty good saddle for the money – check out the spec:

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:

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

10K School Run

Posted by littlehappyl

UPDATE – typo fixed – 58 mins 33 seconds!

Ah what a relief it was only a 2 day work week and by 5pm I was ready for the weekend although completely zonked! I have to admit if Irene hadn’t agreed to go running or had said ‘lets just give it a miss’ when she arrived I might not have done any training on Friday night!

Irene and I have been friends since primary school and we used to do running training together in the past although Irene has significantly improved her performance since then and has done some excellent 10K races.

It was a simple ‘Out and back’ course tonight – another one that I’d planned on walkjogrun.net in advance.

We headed out, Irene with Winnie (long legs) and Candy with me (short legs)! First things first, dog toilet stop as usual…! Then headed down the hill out of Neilston at a fair pace feeling pretty fresh. It was dry and reasonably warm. Irene and I caught up on our news as drivers went past smiling and laughing at us 2 ladies in lycra and 2 trotting dogs!

It was reasonably straight forward, jogging through Barrhead and there was enough space on the pavement for us to jog close by however, as we headed out past Cowan Park and then along the road towards Darnley, the path became significantly slimmer and we had to go almost single file as the rapid traffic roared past. I checked the mileage had reached the 3.1 minimum before we turned around and jogged back.

Irene and I agreed we were both finding it pretty tough as we headed back through the town and that became harder as we passed Tesco on the first ascent out of Barrhead. I I have to admit I had to catch my breath a moment at the junction for Neilston so we had a brief walk!

The hill was hard, there was little chat as we carried on up the next gradual hill then we we spoke some more on the relatively flat stretch of path before we jogged continually up the steep slope until we’d reached the very welcome 6.2 miles (10 Kilometres).

Before long we were home and I looked up the results. Yipee! We were both delighted to find out we’d done a tough hilly 10K in 58m 33s and I’d earned some Strava cups!! After a quick shower and some preparation we were enjoying the culinary masterpiece that I made, Chicken and Vegetable stir fry followed by melon and finally a strong coffee and some lovely chocolates courtesy of Irene… the best bit was it was all with no guilt! =)

Life’s a beach!

Posted by littlehappyl

After Tuesday’s 45 mile cycle with David I was a bit tired and had a number of things to get done on Wednesday before heading back to work. Believe me it was not a rest day! I cleaned the whole house and then was delighted to get help from Claire to clean out the Audi after our camping trip and walking the Great Glen Way plus numerous trips to the beach… the car was covered in sand and dog hair and we had to take it in turns to hoover, use rubber gloves and even use tweezers to clean up the boot before washing and rinsing it to prepare for another spell of advertising it on line. Audi A3 1.9 TDI Sportback 45,000 miles

Thanks to Claire we had it cleaned in a couple of hours and earned a nice dinner at ‘The Bungo’ in Strathbungo near Shawlands, Glasgow. Yum!

Thursday after a long and tiring first day back at work trying to get through all my e-mails, I met up with my neighbour Jill and we headed to Irvine beach for a walk and a bit of a jog with the dogs. Jill is determined to get fit and she did fantastically well and got to the end despite a new blister on her heel!

Jill already has 2 kids and 2 adorable cats but she’s soon to get a new ginger kitten and when I saw this I thought of him! =) CUTE! (he’s due to arrive in 5 weeks and I’ll be sure to get some photos!)

Here’s the detail of the walk/jog we did.. well done Jill!

3 Peaks Loop

Posted by littlehappyl

It felt like ages since I was last out on my bike and so when my brother called to see if I’d like to try his 45 mile hilly route I was really looking forward to it. I’d rested for a few days after the Great Glen Way 79 mile walk and was ready to face my next training challenge.

Challenge 1… waiting for my brothers mattress delivery! Due by 1.30 p.m. we’d had time to catch up and make chilli for dinner before it arrived at 4 p.m. which meant we were heading out on our 3 – 4 hour cycle amidst rush hour. Thankfully some of the route was to be on cycle paths or quiet roads.

I borrowed David’s Black & Decker safety specs as the next best thing to clear cycling sunglasses and we headed off down through the village of Kilbarchan along its fantastic newly surfaced tarmac (last time I took this route my water bottle ricocheted out of the bracket after going over some uneven road surface whilst being overtaken by a car and thankfully it didn’t do any damage when it bounced off little car parked at the side of the road!).

Up the short hill and on to the cycle path (Sustrans Route 7 Lochwinnoch Loop Line ) we headed towards Irvine at a steady pace on the flat surface and agreed that we’d stick to our middle wheel as David told me this 3 hour 45 minute route is pretty hilly later on and we’d need our strength and stamina.

We quickly passed the folly and the bike with stone wheels I took a photos of back in “Saturday in a Spin”. We exited the path and cycled through Kilbirnie and up a long hill on the A760 Largs Road. It was a granny wheel extravaganza and we both felt the burn as we made our way up to our first real summit. Happy Days! It really makes a difference sharing the pain with someone else and we took it in turns to “break wind” at the front… if you know my brother you will understand the poor air quality I experienced!

Keen to smash David’s route record, we didn’t let the roadworks slow us down and seeing it was safe, we sped over to the wrong direction of the road while the cars growled at us from behind as they waited on a long stream of traffic passing. This gave us a good clear road for a little time and enabled us to do a wee bit more climbing before we went down the steep gradient in to Largs on the Haylie Brae… WOooooah there cowboy slow down dear brother! He must have been doing 40 mph around the hairpin bend while I struggled to get any leverage on my breaks and mistook my rear brake for my front brake and nearly went over the handlebars!

We zoomed through Largs town but I still had braking issues as we went through the roundabout like a chicane! Then we took a right at the famous Nardini’s Ice Cream Shop and headed up to the little shop on Brisbane Road for a little refreshment (Lucozade sport and a Yorkie).

Largs’ famous ice cream parlour

The Old Largs back road (Brisbane Glen Road) was lovely to cycle – very few cars passed us during our ascent up to Loch Thom which was just as well as we looked a bit red faced due to all the effort of our aching legs! As we passed side of the Loch there were millions of midgies and we had to breath through our noses to avoid inhaling them!

It was such a relief getting to the top of the 2nd of our 3 peaks and we hurried down towards Greenock passing another cyclist going the opposite way. The descent was really steep and I still didn’t realise that if I dropped my hands onto the lower handlebar position I had more leverage on the breaks DOH! However, by the point we were passing the old sugar factory I’d finally got to grips with that and was subsequently a lot less out of control – doing 35 miles an hour… in fact I felt confident that I would be able to go a lot faster.. =)

The last serious climb on the Auchmountain Road (yes this is a real name!) (5.1% average grade 2.2 miles of pain) was a nightmare – we both had sore legs by this point and it was a struggle making it up past the cemetery – I briefly thought we might need to reserve 2 plots!.

We paused to take a photo at the top before pushing on hard to the turn off for Kilmacolm on the Auchentiber Road :

Both of us were feeling tired but elated as we pedaled on spotting Kilmacolm over the hill meaning only a few more miles til we were home. I captured a picture of David proving we do have sunshine in Scotland:

We joined the cycle track (Sustrans Route 75 Forth and Clyde) and pedaled on through Kilmacolm, then Bridge of Weir and we exited the path at the Burndale Kitchen workshop at the Brookfield end of Bridge of Weir before spinning along the road and back up to David’s house in Kilbarchan. Yeeha! We’d made it!

Thanks to David for his company, his wind breaking skills and the awesome chilli that awaited us! 45 miles… DONE!

Driving miss lazy

Posted by littlehappyl

After last weeks Great Glen walk I went to Glencoe to stay for the weekend as a base for some mountain biking. However Saturday was very wet and windy and when we arrived at the chair lift for the Nevis Range (near fort William) it wasn’t open at the top and the route was damaged! Not only that, a lady reversed her big Volvo and tow bar into my friends car doing some serious damage!
Hoping for an improved day we headed to the indoor climbing and ice climbing centre at Kinlochleven -the ice factor and got an hour and a half lesson along with 3 fearless kids! First we learned to get roped up properly and how to belay. Then we climbed up in the smaller route area using any holds or features of the wall to get to the top so we could get a feeling for what we were doing. The next climb was more challenging… Only using the yellow holds. It was rated a 4 and I found myself having to do more balancing on my feet and plan the next couple of moves. Being only 5’2″ this tactic worked a treat and I got up to the top 🙂
Over the next 3 climbs we got up to level 5+ and went into the much higher route in the bigger room up to 50 ft (shakes and vertigo at the top with sweaty hands meant I wasn’t hanging around to look at the view!).
I came home for my dads birthday yesterday and after a nice dog walk hampered by cleggs (horse flies) spent most of Monday catching up on sleep after spending the previous night camped out my neighbours back garden with her daughter as I promised her we would before the school holidays were finished!
Back to the training plan tomorrow! Cycling it is!

One lassie and her dug

Posted by littlehappyl

Oooft! Today was a long one! 21miles from Drumnadrochit to Invershnecky (Inverness).
It started on the main road (A82) footpath with lots of fast traffic terrifying the dog. Then as the path cut off the main road, I tripped over a step and the dog water bottle went flying out of my rucksack and ricocheting off the ground while I crumpled to heap! Poor Winnie, who was just clambering under a gate, freaked out, stood up, knock the gate off its hinges and bolted away up the path! Thankfully we were both okay! The path climbed away from the road up through a field into the forest. We climbed up 1,245 ft to the viewpoint clearing, took a photo and cruised on through the woods.
The rest of the walk took us through more woods, across a moor, through another forestry commission road then down an overgrown path, onto a road past some houses then over another moor, through a mixed forest and down into Inverness!
I passed a few people but it was a very quiet path with not many views to report. Thankfully I love trees and there was a huge variety of species, each with a different quality of light penetrating to the ground which looked like a green velvet carpet in some areas and barren rough terrain in others.
Once in Inverness we passed through a small estate, along the Caledonian Canal briefly then down to the River. The island we passed through had lamps like those in Narnia and lights strung between them. Oh the romance!
Would be nice for a romantic trip back here in the future!
The path left the River and headed up to the finish at the castle! Woop woop we made it!
Thanks to Claire for being my support vehicle and welcoming me at the end with a pear cider and a bowl of water for Winnie! Once reunited with Candy we got a team photo taken at the finish post!

ooof

Loch Ness Leviathan

Posted by littlehappyl

Day 4 at the little sister camp [in a Geordie accept](we’ve moved to the highland riding centre and Borlam campsite at Drumnadrochit and I am in my horsey element!)
Today has been more challenging I’ll not lie.
Winnie and I left the crack of early.. We arrived at the Invermorriston car park and were hoofing up the steep Great Glen path out of the village by 8.20 a.m. 3 hairpin bends and a long ascent in the first mile awoke the calves with a shock! Off the back road and into the forestry commission road the ‘talk to the hand’ sign reminded us not to climb on the log piles. Chance would be a fine thing! Winnie and I were focused on the end game of 15 miles and subsequently stomping forth!
The forest road led to a turn down to a path and a sign post indicated we could go right along the great glen way or left towards the stone chair… Against my instinct of conserving phone and leg power we headed left and up a hill to the seat and a stunning view point down to Loch Ness. A lot of today’s walk hid the view behind the trees so I’m glad we made the effort to climb up to the seat.
The path led down and joined another forestry commission road then the great glen ascent commenced up and up hairpin and more hairpins through the forest to amazing view at the top of the hill looking down to Loch Ness but no monster her just flies!
With the sun out it was taps aff and a fantastic route fit for a mountain bike descended along the loch until we reached a gate and had to ascend again through a small linear community. It was Tarmac roads along towards Drumnadrochit until the path cut away to the left and gentleman caught me belting out ‘sweet nothing’ by Florence Welch and Calvin Harris! Woops rein it in!
So nearly there but my wee left toe was yelping with a blister and I decided to head directly to the tent and not do extra milage by going to the other side of the settlement and thus I will have to complete the full nine yards tomorrow (18 miles) to complete the challenge!

Yawning in the awning

Posted by littlehappyl

The dogs are exhausted and sleeping in the tent porch after our 18 mile walk from North Laggan to Invermoriston today.
We amazed even ourselves with a 0900 start!
The fist bit was an old railway line then we walked alongside the canal until 9 miles and Fort Augustus. The weather improved from overcast to sunny and by lunch we were walking in vest and shorts!
With the heat increasing it became necessary to get Winnie to learn how to swim to keep her temperature down. By throwing sticks just beyond her reach in deeper water she gained confidence!
Meanwhile Claire’s feet were paying the price of wearing boots yesterday and were now covered in blisters. There was a lot of painful silence as she concentrated on getting back to our abode. I totally agree with her decision to call it a day, dress her feet and relax after the 9 mile point.
Me Candy and Winnie enjoyed a short lunch break, some water (coffe and millionnaires shortbread for me) then walked past the locks and on up out of Fort Augustus where a decent forestry commission road led us up and along the hillside next to Loch Ness. Only a short rainstorm caught us and we escaped the forecast thunder and lightening. It was hard dining half the walk alone with no tunes but soon we arrived back at the Audi in Invermoriston glad to have made the 18 miles! After picking up the other car and after brilliant shower, dinner was at the Lock Inn tonight- crab salad yum!
Cheers! Just enjoying a wee vino now and looking forward to day 4 and a walk to Drumnadrochit 😉