Nuevo Leon State Highway 1 Spur

Ten years ago, I still dreamed of being a rock star. I was playing guitar for a Birmingham-based indie band, and we were in the process of recording a demo CD. It was a very exciting time.

Fast forward five years, and I was barely playing music at all. I hardly ever picked up my guitar, and while I once had been writing virtually a song a week at university (they weren’t great songs, but that’s not the point), I was experiencing a long fallow period.

In addition, I was struggling to get used to the recording software I was using. It all seemed to complicated, compared to my trusty technique of using two tape cassette recorders to create multi-track demos of the song ideas I was coming up with.

And then, on one of the social media platforms I’m a member of, someone alerted me to the Wikipedia album game. The premise was simple; you navigated to the Wikipedia homepage, pressed the ‘random article’ button 13 times, and this gave you your album title and a dozen track titles. At a loose end, as I regularly am, I dutifully did as instructed, and then a thought occurred to me: why don’t I actually record the album?

My thought process was thus; if I kept the songs simple, and avoided instruments that were difficult to record, such as electric guitar, bass and drums, and I came up with songs quickly and instinctively, like Paul McCartney did with his Flaming Pie album, I could have the album recorded in double time. Lyrics, arrangements, recordings; all should be done promptly, without getting bogged down in thinking too much. I should keep things fresh.

That was four years ago…needless to say life got in the way a little. But I now have a decent recording set up, and the band I’m a part of ebbs and flows a little, so I’m ready to embark on the process of getting these songs finished and into the world. I don’t have set rules as such, but I am following the ethos of mainly using acoustic instruments, while I grow more experienced at engineering and mixing, but that’s not to say a full band sound is completely verboten. I should improve enough to give it a go.

I will be creating a bespoke illustration for each song. I’ve long neglected my drawing and painting skills (a ‘D’ in A Level art, I’ll have you know.) I’ve felt somewhat guilty about that, so it’s a good excuse to blow the dust off my art materials. With practise, the illustrations should improve as well.

So that’s it. Without any further ado, I present the first track from ‘Nuevo Leon State Highway 1 Spur’, Sixth Street Historic District. I hope you enjoy it.

Edinburgh Half Marathon

I’m not exactly sure who it was that talked me into entering this year’s Edinburgh half-marathon, part of a weekend devoted to running events in Scotland’s capital. It was either Jude, or Faye from work, or a combination of the two. Nevertheless, on the 19th January I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for a race that was twice the distance of anything I’d ever attempted before.

Of course, entering a race four months in advance allows plenty of time for things to go wrong, in a musculoskeletal sense. While my knees aren’t currently giving me the bother they had been for a while, the gremlin of shin splints always appears to be lurking. As mentioned in my last blog, a few weeks ago I decided to take up the offer of a second game of 5-a-side football in a week. Since then, my shins just haven’t felt right. They haven’t been painful as much as threatened to down tools. As such, I’ve been resting as much as I can, playing one game of football a week and doing lower impact activities such as spin.

This was my fourth running race, and fifth race overall, including last year’s cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I don’t sleep well before such things anyway, and I found myself up most of the night worrying about how my shins would react. I had to get up at 4:30am in order to have breakfast and drive to Edinburgh, to make the 8am start, and as a result I only mustered four hours’ sleep at most.

The drive to Edinburgh was quiet and straight-forward, despite the haar, and before too long I had reached my starting pen on Regent Road, where I stripped out of my tracksuit and deposited my belongings on the truck that would carry them down to the finishing line in Musselburgh. I had made a loose arrangement to meet Jude at the starting line, but I couldn’t find her and I’d left my phone in the car. As I stood in the cold Edinburgh morning, wearing just a running vest, rain began to fall on the massed runners and once again I began to wonder if all this was worth it. It had just dawned on me that the truck with my gear would have already left by the time Jude appeared out of nowhere, having accidentally gone to the other starting line on London Road. Feeling a little more invigorated, and with our cohort starting much later than 8am, we finally set off on our 13.1 mile journey.

At the start: spot the marathon runner and the 10k runner…

The last distance run I’d been on, around Paisley, I’d struggled to reach 3km before my lower legs started to cramp up, but with the first half of the Half being mostly downhill, and with some raceday adrenalin to thank, we were at mile 1 before I knew it. It hadn’t occurred to me that the distance markers would be in miles and not kilometres, so this gave me a further little confidence fillip; after all, 13 is less than 21.

Falling into something of a groove, and with Jude keeping the pace, we passed Holyrood and Meadowbank Stadium, and made our way down through Leith towards the sea front at Portobello. Having just about reached halfway, Jude offered me a gel. I’d never tried one before, and was a little reluctant to introduce something new and untested, but I accepted, mainly due to memories of last year’s glycogen collapse during the cycle. It was a very odd experience, and my mouth just couldn’t get used to the texture and consistency of the gel. Still, I managed to ingest most of it, and we continued on our way. By this stage, I’d not only run the furthest I’d ever run in one go, I’d also set a new personal best for a 10k. My confidence continued to grow, but I set myself a plan, and a contingency. Plan A was to run for as long as possible. Plan B was to run until the 10 mile mark, walk a couple of miles, then run the last little segment.

New Street, Musselburgh

However, we seemed to miss the 9 mile marker, at Portobello racecourse, so by the time we hit 10 miles, I got an added boost by being further ahead than I thought I was. We carried on into what was the worst section of the course, and the worst part of the day, for me. The majority of miles 11 to 13 involved heading down one side of the road to Prestonpans, and then doubling back towards the race course on the other. I loathe running laps of this nature anyway, but as we continued down the Ravensheugh Road, with no sign of the turn, and knowing we had to cover the same distance back, I began to despair a little. The wall was coming for me. Eventually, at 12.75 miles, I paused, exhausted.

My break lasted little more than a stride before Jude politely informed me that I was not stopping there. We were nearly at the finish line. I was to pump my scrawny chicken legs, like the stuporous funker I was. So I did. I kept going, cramp and all, and within a few minutes Jude pointed out the 13 mile marker.

As we rounded the corner into Pinkie Playing Fields, I could see the finish line a few dozen yards ahead. I hurpled towards it, not so glad to see anything since the finish line of the Pedal for Scotland cycle the previous year (there must be something about Edinburgh).

Somehow (although probably 40% thanks to Jude) I had managed to run 21 kilometres in a little over 2 hours. I’d never run farther than 6km in one go before. Somehow I’d fallen into an automatic process of putting one foot in front of the other, and as soon as I stopped, various body parts rushed their damage reports to my brain and I had to have a little bit of a lie down.

I know what it looks like, but I don’t think I had enough blood left for that.

After the race we collected our belongings, made our way back into town, and ate and drank carbs while trying to work out how to get back to Straiton. The Edinburgh bus network isn’t as effective on a Sunday, I’ve learned. Eventually we made our way back to my car, and stopping off for donuts at Hermiston, headed back to Glasgow, tired but happy.

It’s been two days since the run, and my body still aches, notably the calves, quads and nipples (friction, you see). I don’t think that’s unusual, and I’m happy to take a week or so to rest before I start to worry about anything being untoward.

While the pain in my body (hopefully) recedes, I can reflect more on what an achievement Sunday was for me, and how much I’ve improved as a runner over the last couple of years. I’m also acutely aware that I have to up my game again, with a marathon booked for April of next year.

Next up: a mini-triathlon thing in four weeks, and a 10k at the end of August. Then…we shall see.

May 2014 Update

Human beings are a very subjective bunch, and our memories are particularly subjective. I’ve found this blog has been very helpful in allowing me to look back at the state of my health and fitness over the last two years and assess where I’ve improved and what elements I’ve let slip more objectively.

Therefore, it’s more important that I record how I’m feeling more often than I have been. I won’t be able to draw comparisons if I don’t. So, without further ado…

As I write this, the Edinburgh Half Marathon, which I’ve entered, is exactly 3 weeks away. While I’d like to be better prepared than I am, I think I’m doing okay. I’ve been running every Sunday for the last few weeks, steadily increasing the distance I’ve covered. Hopefully by the 18th, I’ll have reached 75% of the race day distance. I’m not too far off.

I’m playing 5-a-side football once a week, and feel that I’ve hit a reasonably consistent level of performance. That’s probably mostly due to my increased fitness and stamina, so it’s good that my hard work is having a result. I’m trying to fit in visits to the gym, and I’ve also started going back to Spin the last few weeks, in lieu of my bicycle having a puncture, again.

In terms of aches and pains, both knees like to moan, but they’re not able to hamper my activities much. I’ve got a bit of a tight muscle in my left arse cheek, which I actually had a few massages to try and address, but it’s still lingering a little. I’ve perhaps neglected my core in recent months, but it’s been almost impossible to get booked into the Pilates class I like. Perhaps I need to find a new one.

The shin splints have been acting up a bit this year, mainly when I try and run uphill. In order to address this, I’ve been avoiding hills. Thankfully, the Edinburgh Half is mostly downhill. I jest, and it’s something that concerns me, but it’s just something else I have to manage.

I have agreed to play football on Tuesday lunchtime at work. This could be interesting, and I’m interested to see how my body holds up. Shona always said that I have to have more confidence in my knee, but I guess I’m a worrier by nature. Next Sunday will be telling.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to track my progress as I slowly nursed my body towards and through my first 10k. I achieved that in August of last year, and so in the sprit of continuous improvement (which is the one thing humans do well), I decided to enter a half-marathon this year. As if to highlight my improvement, I’m now doing training runs that are slightly longer than 10k.

I’m confident about completing the half, if nothing else. So what’s my next target after that? Yup. I’ve entered the 2015 Paris Marathon. I could barely dream of even considering such a thing two years ago, and I have a year to go before it happens, but as the Japanese say, kaizen.

February 2014 Update

Well, it’s been four months since I last posted something on here. That was an account of the 80km Pedal for Scotland cycle ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh I took part in last September. Since then…I’ll be honest. I have perhaps let the fitness regime slide a little. In my defence, winter arrived, completely unexpectedly…

Following a festive period where I took a couple of weeks off from watching what I ate and exercising, I put on a little weight (around a stone, or 5kg). However, as I’d signed up for my friend Graham’s 28-day personal training course, I wasn’t too concerned.  And while, after 11 circuit training classes and 3 personal training sessions, I’ve only lost a little weight (currently I’m at 88kgs, ish), I am slimmer and empirically fitter.

The fitness goals for the next few months are fairly simple; I’ve entered the Edinburgh Marathon Festival half-marathon in May, and I want to develop a more nutritious and varied diet. Both represent fairly large challenges for me though. I’m still not brilliant at running long distances, although I think improvement there is simply a matter of perseverance. I’ve got three Parkruns under my belt already this year, and I’m looking to add a second running session per week to my training schedule, where I may concentrate on speed work.

As far as eating goes, I’ve been concerned about my diet for many years, and it first came to a head when I hit 17 and a quarter stones a couple of years ago. However, I’m also acutely aware that I completely ran out of energy towards the end of Pedal for Scotland, and that was most likely due to my poor understanding of nutrition. I have come to broadly understand how calories work, but the finer points of sports nutrition escape me, so that’s something I have to work on. I have been experimenting with protein shakes, and trying to eat a lot more clean than I ever have before, but I’m wary about making wholesale changes to my diet at any one time. It’s more difficult to sustain.

As far as other sports go, I’ve decided to stop playing five-a-side football for a while; not because of injury thankfully, but because I simply wasn’t enjoying it very much, for reasons I can’t delineate. I’d also planned on entering a triathlon this year, but that notion has been stymied for various reasons, not least because of the fact that I can’t swim very well. I’ve read a book on swimming techniques, but I think I need some advice from a coach. As for cycling, the bike is in hibernation, and will be until the clocks go forward again. I just don’t feel safe cycling on the local streets in this light and this weather.

And the knee, the main reason I started this blog? It’s okay. I don’t think it’ll ever be 100% again, but apart from a slight pain when I climb stairs, it’s as good as I could expect it to be. How it will feel after a half-marathon is another story…