Holiday!

Had a lovely short break in Angus. I'd found a cottage (described as a 'bothy' but in reality much more luxurious!) with a hot tub and got it from Monday to Friday to give us some time away but still close enough for Al to work and me to look round Clackmannanshire.

Arrived around 6 on Monday after getting lost somewhere north of Dundee and ate a ready-meal curry pack for two that I had brought before trialing the hot tub. Ooh, it was great. Except the bit where you had to get out into the cold again. But you could sit back and look at the stars - fantastic. The next day Al went to Perth for a meeting and I went for a run. I discovered a disused railway track that had been turned into a walk and did 7km, measured on Al's gps thingy, staying well above the 10.2 kmph I was aiming for. Though it was interesting to see how much I slowed down at even a tiny uphill slope. Home, shower, hot tub, reading, dinner: bliss.

Wednesday we headed to Lunan Bay where the surf was forecast to be good. It didn't look huge from the beach but there must be some sort of optical illusion going on because once we got in it was massive! Seriously, I'd been expecting 3 foot and got 6 foot +. Couldn't make it out the back and was consequently very frustrated. I should have gone back to the van and got my shorter board, or tried further up the beach. The rip was full on and we ended up walking a long way back - nearly a mile. Haven't had a decent surf for ages now. Boo. On the plus side, the van was nice and warm from standing in the sun when we got back.

On Thursday I'd planned another run but it was raining really hard so I wussed out and we drove to Dollar instead. There we met up with a friend of Al's who lives there and popped in to the estate agents. Nothing to let in the area but Sean agreed to spread the word and we had dinner in a nice pub, the King's Head. Food was nothing special but it was friendly and inviting.

Back home now and yesterday I did the gym session recounted below. Seemed slightly easier than sessions at my work gym, perhaps because I'd had a couple of days off. Sweated buckets though. So unattractive.

Having missed a session due to rain, I decided to combine long run and hill work today. Gee, that was a great idea. Ran Willowbrae Road, down Queen's Drive past the lower car park and then turned up Radical Road - duh. Immediately had to slow to a walk and didn't get running again till it flattened out at the top. Lots of foreign students got in my way and annoyed me. Then round the back of Arthur's Seat on Queen's Drive and home past Meadowbank. Tried to measure this on Run Finder with limited success as it doesn't show tracks once you go cross country, and the satellite image had a shadow over most of the Radical Road. But I think it was 7.65 miles and took 1 hour 15 mins. The rising section of RR is about 15% on average for 0.8 km, I think.