Back to Running and a Thank You

My life runs a little bit different to yours (unless you happen to be employed by one of the Brigades of the British Fire Service). It goes: two days on duty, followed by two nights on duty, followed by four days off.

The paid employment gets done in the four duty days and the shopping/housework/gardening(??) and running gets done in the four days off. That period of stand down time is a kind of elongated weekend and it's not unusual for me to forget which day of the week it is. The manic consumption of red wine if I'm indoors or Guinness if I'm out kinda slots in wherever it feels the need to- like after 19:00 hours.

Since becoming involved in the West Highland Way Race my year has changed too: Five months of training followed by the race, followed by weeks of sloth and laziness and then a spurt in the gym in an attempt to replace the muscle lost in the final few weeks leading up to, and including, the race.

A quick check back to last year shows very little running being undertaken at this time and a very sore knee limiting whatever actually took place (I'd forgotten how historical that knee injury was).

Well, yesterday I made the first step to changing my year. I met my mate and 2007 WHW Race finisher, Jon Vann, for a slack eight mile run over Epsom Downs Race Course. And a very enjoyable run it was too- no fights with the Tadworth Taliban onboard their expensive race-horses and no signs of any lingering damage from last week's endeavour bar some tightness in the tendons.

This has motivated me to keep the train rollin' and look for a distance race to supplement the planned River Ayr Way in September (Mrs Mac and I are running together-aren't we, Lee??).

I've got application forms for the Self Transcendence 24 hour track race in Tooting in October (my pal Ian Beattie is running and I've offered him a subversive bed, so if I can get a place it'll give him the opportunity to laugh at me and throw grapes at my head each time he laps me); and for the Caesar's Camp at the beginning of October- 30, 50 or 100 miles.

Today's post is gonna be short because I've got to lay my head down, sans vino, in order to get it off the pillow at 05:00 to do another day of 'other-jobbing.' I suppose Tom Jones will have left now, but who knows who else might take up residence in the suite next door? At eight-grand a night I doubt it will be someone known personally to me, although I have heard that the cost of a night at Her Majesty's pleasure is close to that, so while my compatriots may not be residing in comparable style, it's costing us just as much, Dear Reader!!

Before I go I'd just like to publicly thank Eddie and Linda Welsh, the parents of Mrs Mac. I know what you're thinking:

You're thinking that I'm gonna comment on how accepting they've been of a tattooed ne'er-do-well with a number of failed relationships behind him; of a person that, if he moved in next door to you, you'd groan as you caught the first glimpse while peeking behind your net curtains; of a person who comes from the Lofty Wiseman school of gardening (I'm sure I saw a Japanese soldier who ain't aware the war's over squatting beside my nettle bush); of an Englishman.......

Well, you're right, I am. But I'm also gonna tell you that two nights before the West Highland Way Race I was in a pub in Strathaven with Mrs Mac, Eddie and Linda. There were a collection of Strathaven Striders present including Tom Wilson who was regaling me with the history of various parts of the West Highland Way.

When I asked him how he'd gained such an insight into the route he told me it was from a book now long out of print. Drat, I thought. I'd really like to read that.

Fast forward to last Sunday. I'm happy to have finished the race, exhilarated that the DNF is slain, and chuffed that in the eyes of Mrs Mac's parents, the tattooed, English, crap-gardening neighbour from hell ain't a quitter too.

Then Linda hands me a package. What can it be? It's too public to remove me from her daughter's life with an improvised explosive device (yet!). I open the package and my heart melts- I'm the owner of a copy of the long out of print Tom Weir's Scotland.

My heart melts further when I open it and Eddie has created a poem for me. He says I need to read in in Burns fashion.

I'm working on it.

Some hae pole and cannae dance,

and some hae pole and vault it.

But whit you pirate did the day,

ye simply cannae fault it.

People say and people dae,

and others cannae hack it.

Oor admiration kens nae bounds,

ye simply cannae whack it.