Week 16
On Sunday I went out on my first 3.5 hour run. The route I followed encompasses the seven hills upon which Edinburgh was built on. I decided to do this seven hills run without a map (intentionally) to make me run around for longer finding the best route rather than sticking to the most direct possible.
It was a lot harder than I expected. The distance I covered was 18 miles which in itself isn't too bad, the only killer was that as the name describes were the seven hills that must be summited to complete the loop.
My GoPro arrived yesterday so it was the perfect chance to take it for a spin and take a photo on top of each of the hills although weather was particularly gloomy today.
0600: Wake up with a dead expression. Why am I doing this again?
0645: After light breakfast begin the seven hills run. Initially running along the water of leith which for those of you unfamiliar to Edinburgh is a river/stream that runs through the city and out to sea. If you have a look at the map above then you can make out a snake of green to the left of the castle which is the water of leith.
A small bald man tries to ruin my picture
0715: Arrive at first checkpoint, corstorphine hill upon which the Zoo is situated. The trail actually runs along the zoo perimeter fence. No escaped animals to view unfortunately. Awful picture but I promise that it is on top of a hill.
Then began my trial and error-strewn navigation towards Craiglockhart hill which as you can see is south-east of corstorphine. This looks easy enough but tested my directional sense to the full. I ended up stumbling upon the water of leith along which I wound away until it threw me up just opposite the sign for craiglockhart, which was a bonus.
0800: Steep shortcut-ascent to the top of craiglockhart felt great but probably was the root of my fatigue later on in the run, will definitely take it easy on early climbs in future! Second checkpoint reached with the the next checkpoint of Braid hills in not-so-clear view now.
0830: Braid hills summited, at this point I am still feeling quite good and get a wave of energy to push me on down the valley, across the golf course and steeply up to the Blackford hill viewpoint. Starting to feel some effect of cramp in my left leg now, continue to press on.
The view from the top of Braid hills couldn't be much worse compared to the glory of last week, cramp dies away as I run down into the valley towards Blackford hill.
0845: Blackford, hill number 4. The sun creeps through the low hanging cloud for an instant. A lonely man cuts a dejected figure against the misty Edinburgh backdrop. Also notice the second time my fingers are wreaking havoc on the aesthetics of my picture.
Cheer up matey
9:30: Suffocating in cloud I summit Arthurs seat, hill number 5. The only human being stupid enough to go running up there on a Sunday morning. The climb was a real energy-sapper, especially seeing as though I took a wrong turn through the mist. I'm looking slightly hagged now as my sugar levels hit a new low. Still 2 more hills before I can get back to my revision, what a treat.
Get a haircut, just do it.
As I began to wind may down the seat and towards Holyrood palace I started to hear a voice in my head shouting in a thick unapologetic Scottish accent. Considering I had been on the road a while now and had just run out of water I began to think that it could be a hallucination This is obviously a huge exaggeration, although I did read about a man who ran for 24 hours straight and did actually hallucinate. It all became clear however as I burst out of the mist opposite Holyrood palace. Sunday held the annual 'Great Edinburgh Run', a renowned half marathon through the streets of the city. I had emerged on the start line almost immediately after the run had started and the voices in my head were in fact the race announcer issuing motivational rallying calls to all the competitors. Today of all days they had decided to organise the event. It was almost as though they didn't even know that I was training that day. Since I wasn't displaying my race number (silly me) I wasn't allowed to take one of the thousands of lucozade drinks that they had out for the runners who by that point had already left. Sometimes you're too tired to argue, I could have really done with a drink at this point though as I had finally earned the much coveted 'fatigued' Frostie's badge and beginning to flag only 1 mile or so from the end of my run.
Don't you know who I am?
Still it was quite enjoyable overtaking a few of the late starters. Many of whom I'm sure were given quite a fright when they turned around to see a sweaty, wild-eyed youth hobbling his way towards them. If only those watching knew how long I had been running for, most of the spectators would have assumed that I was just one of those characters in incredibly bad shape, after all the start was only a few hundred metres back.
Burning up the elite runner group
Carlton hill and the castle mound were the final two hills and I managed to get up and down them without too much trouble, mainly due to the excitement that was building up inside me about getting my neuroscience books open again. It's these little pleasures that really give you the edge when the going gets tough.
Apologies for the poor quality of writing that you may have had to endure in this post, my brain is just a bit burnt out from revising about spatial cognition. Some neural route learning mechanisms actually apply to all the running I'm doing. Who said learning wasn't fun?
All the support I am getting is phenomenal so thank you again to those who have been donating. Vincent from KIMTA is constantly sending me messages about progress being made at the charity and where money that we raise will be going. So please keep donating!
justgiving.com/fireandicekibera
