Back in the saddle

View from near Sgurr Thuilm, Scotland.

Cantabloggia has returned from holidays in Scotland, of which a few more photos can be seen here. I took it pretty easy on the running, but did manage to run every day that I was in Edinburgh, the place where I really became a running addict thanks to the excellent routes available. I managed a run along the lower edge of Salisbury Crags, which happens to be the location in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddell says "I believe God made me for a purpose...but he also made me fast." Another run took us past the Sheep Heid Inn and Duddingston Loch, scene of the famous skating vicar painting.



Much of my time was taken up with Munro-bagging. The Munros are the peaks of Scotland that exceed the apparently unchallenging height fo 3,000 feet, but having now bagged 4 of the 284 peaks in the catalog, and aborted an attempt on 2 more, I have a whole new level of respect for both the peaks and the Munroists. The photo below is not one of the ridges that I walked, but it does a decent job of capturing the seriousness of the terrain. I don't have any photos of the north ridge of Aonach air Chrith because we were inside the clouds at the time, but it was the sharpest ridge I've ever seen, and eventually we decided that zero visibility conditions were not the ones to choose for improving one's rock-hopping skills.


Photo copyright Paul Kennedy.

In Edinburgh, as well as running and attending the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we stayed in an outstanding B&B, and learned that our gracious host Erlend had worked with Tony Wilson of 24 Hour Party People and Factory Records fame. So now I can claim 3 degrees of separation from Joy Division. Here's a bit of appropriate music for hiking in the Highlands.

Isolation - Joy Division

And finally, having survived 6 days of rather strenous hiking and running on all the other days of my holiday, I decided to have my first crack at racing since the dreaded menisectomy. On a shortened course at Fresh Pond, Cambridge, I managed a 6:04 per mile average for 4.2 miles. The lack of knee pain and the fact that I came that close to 6 minute pace was a more than satisfactory return to racing.