Snow again

It's been a while since my last post and the presence of white hills across Applecross have prompted me to update (briefly). Occassional sunny spells light up the hills brilliantly until the next band of showers are blown in on the strong northerly winds which have been gusting all night long. It looks as though we will have to go around the coast road to reach Lochcarron today.

Some history...I completed the Inverness half marathon in 1:53:04. It was snowing horizontally at the start line and we had drizzle, rain, snow and subshine with blustery winds throughout the race...almost four seasons in one day. My grateful thianks go to the boys and girls of the Territorial Army and Army Cadets who marshalled the course providing cheery hospitality and encouragement in what wereinhospitable conditions for standing around.

Andrew's birthday on Monday and we are hoping to get to Inverness to take him to the pictures and swimming and possibly a pizza or aomething similar. Thankfully, the weather looks like it's going to improve by then.

Anyway, just a short post this time...bye.

Worth waiting for?

Well, we did not escape the white blanket; however, we fared far better than some parts of the country, apparently! It's still not advisable to use the roads and we're hoping that they'll be clear next week. I worked an extra day Saturday so we could go to Inverness mid-week. The cats haven't had their stitches out and food supplies are running low. All status quo for the time of year.

Running is fun in the snow!

There's no snow like no snow

Well, as you've probably gathered from the post title, we haven't had any of the recent snow in Applecross yet. Which, in my humble opinion, is probably a good thing as it only means extended isolation and increased fuel costs; however, Andrew would probably not agree.




Countdown to the Inverness race: 5 weeks and counting..hopefully the weather isn't going to make the training more hard work than it needs to be, after all I'm not competing with anyone but setting myself a race benchmark for the future. At least that's my story. for now!






The kittens have had the 'snip' and are sporting bald patches on their flanks just in front of their hips; I guess this is why they're a bit reluctant to go out when there's a cold wind blowing?

Belated Happy New Year

The year is 18 days old as I write and it has snowed again. There is a good covering of the stuff down to about 1000 feet. The nights are slowly shortening, it works out as about 2 minutes a day I think; at least it's not completely dark at 5 o'clock and torches are not necessary, in good weather, just to get home.


After resting what I think was a patellar tendonitis injury over christmas (by rest I mean exchanged running for cycling and race-walking) I have run again, with no ill effect unless you count stiff quadriceps and hamstrings. Starting to think of the race in the first week of March more now.

Lovely Moonlight

This morning the frost was thick on our car and grass around the house. The thermometer read minus 5 degrees celsius, it was 05:50 and I was running!

It was absolutely beautiful. The moon was at about waxing Gibbous and 98% of it's disc was visible and was quite low in the sky. In fact, I ran in the shadow of the mountain until I got around the headland and it nearly blinded me. I left the headtorch on the doorstep there really was no need for it! A good morning, six miles in 50mins and 15 secs. There was no frost as I climbed up the coast road out of the glen, none at all. As soon as I had about fifty feet of height the frost disappeared and down came the hood and out came the hands (from my sleeves where they had been hiding).

I count myself very fortunate that a friend and colleague has left me their heart rate monitor and road bike to train with whilst they are away in the UAE on a contract. This should provide a little relief for the running muscles but still enable me to keep up the aerobic training. I found that my maximum heart rate seems to be around 193 BPM, my resting hear rate has dropped to about 50 BPM and to run six miles in fifty minutes it averages 164 BPM. All extremely interesting to you all I'm sure. I'm fascinated by it; however, I'm not going to let a sophisticated wrist computer dictate how I enjoy my running/cycling.

TTFN

Definitely Chilly!

Everything that had thawed or been pressed was frozen to ice this morning. The area in front of the house was like an ice rink! Sarah is not feeling well and I've taken the day to look after Zoe, we tried going to Lochcarron but had to turn back after several episodes of getting to fourth gear on the spot with the wheels spinning and the car began to slide backwards! Eventually, I found a place to turn and we made our way back down. The weather is beautiful - bright sunshine, blue sky etc, etc.

Slippery

The slushy, sugary snow that we finished the day with on Sunday froze in the -6 degree overnight temperatures creating amazingly slippery conditions this morning. Sarah and Zoe could not get to playgroup and they didn't get the hill open until mid-day.

Last night the slushy snow slid off the roof in mini-avalanches for an hour or so. I guess that as it froze it contracted and lost whatever adhesion it had and made a great whooshoing sound as it slid off the roof!