Mousie the conqueror ...

In the middle of Edinburgh there is a park, which is only there because of a whopping great volcano in the middle of the city: the high point being called Arthur's Seat ... around much of the hill there is a road, conveniently measuring 5k.  Despite living next to the park for my entire running life (admittedly that's only 18 months) I have never managed to run ALL the way around this road without stopping ... that is until today!

This morning dawned with one of the pinkest skies I have seen since I was a kid -  a friend of mine took this amazing and utterly gorgeous photo of it from his house while I was still curled up under my duvet hitting the snooze button! No surprise then that it has been chucking down with rain since about 9 am ...

Edinburgh morning sky, 22 November 2012 © Rob MacKillop http://robmackillop.net/photography/

Being a brave little runner (or not wanting to face the GRW peeps if I chickened out), I got my kit on and dragged myself out to our JogScotland meeting place.  Hadn't had very much sleep last night so wasn't really after too big a push - which I said to our leader.  Apparently 'not to big a push' turned out to be 4 1/2 miles around Arthur's Seat and back, but I stuck at the back of the group and it actually felt quite comfortable.

We went anti-clockwise, which meant there was a steep bit at the beginning, a reasonably flat section, and then a long slow downhill - at least that way the hill is soon out of the way! It was really nice having people to chat to along the way as it distracted me from the PAIN of that first bit of hill, and then we were so far behind the 'fast' group that we just plodded a nice leisurely pace home. I'm SO pleased to finally get over that mental hurdle of being able to get round the route, rather than always thinking that it's too tough. Arthur's Seat is officially conquered!

Also quite glad that I took a nice nibble of sugar in the form of a fun-size mars bar so I could get a jolt of something before walking back to the office ... had planned to run parkrun again this weekend, but as this run was much longer than we have done before I might do a slightly shorter run on Saturday so as not to try and push myself too far.

Stats from GRG site here: I did cut out our stops - but they were all roads/waiting on people so I figured I could allow myself the theoretical run-through this time ... now sitting in my office huddled in many layers trying to warm up again!