Horror movies, the Panther and a smashed old lady

Woo

What a day. I forgot how Scotland's weather can go from one extreme to another in hours, we've just had a week or so of stunning winter weather, 15 degrees and sunny, very very rare this far north.

Weeelll this all changed today, winds picked up over night and a massive rain storm moved in. According to the met office it's due to stick around at least until early next week, but today alone we had 70mm of rain.

The rainiest place in the ENTIRE WORLD only gets an average of 32.5mm a day...so it was pretty nuts here today. Luckily my huge blue truck proved a worthy match for the weather and could be seen storming through road floods in the afternoon, sending gallons of water high into the air...and over the nice people on the pavement :)

An afternoon run/evening bike was on the cards for the day, with the evening session being my weekly indoor trainer set (so no wet riding today thankfully). I headed to the Lonehead forest at the top of Bieldside for my afternoon run set, having never ran there before I was pretty excited to see what the terrain was like.

I left the house around 4pm just as it was starting to get pretty dark and the rain was turning on the taps. I should have realised at this point that my outfit was slightly intimidating but I'll leave that description for later...

I did my best to warm up before I left so when I arrived in the car park I got straight to it, headed right into the trees. There was a pretty clear path setup so I just followed the markers and didn't pay too much attention to the surroundings. Before I knew it I was right in the centre of the forest and trust me, it was creepy. The trees were super dense so no light was being let in, both from above and around, so when you looked out into the trees it was just black, I really should have had my headlight on. It definitely resembled a horror movie forest...at one point I was a little scared, thinking a crazy dude would run out of the trees at any moment. But I would quickly find out it wasn't me that had to be scared...

I started doing the main part of my run set which involved some shorter fast efforts, the forest was pretty bumpy so some reps were uphill, some on the flat and some sent me shooting down the path on pretty slippy descents. Trust me I didn't think anyone else would be out on the trails walking today, I was pretty confident I was alone.

My outfit.

In hindsight I looked like a murderer, full black compression top with black gloves and a full winter balaclava covering my whole face...except my eyes. So here I was, shooting along at full pelt, covered in rain and mud, head to toe in black with a BALACLAVA on and I find myself starting to slip as I run down a small hill. Well just as I get to the bottom I almost lose my footing and let out a quick shout "ahhh".

I'm laughing even as I write, because then to my surprise I almost run head on into couple out walking along but frozen solid in the middle of the path looking like they are about to be killed!

Imagine the sight, they're just out for a nice walk when all of a sudden they see this maniac running at full speed down the hill with this intense look on his face wearing all black, black gloves and a balaclava...who then as he approaches proceeds to shout!

Oh dear. It took me a while to realise why they looked so scared, but once I did I had a good laugh...then got on with the rest of my run, training like a panther as usual.

Got home, a good stretch, quick snack, showered off, compression socks then ready for the trainer set. The last week in this first block of harder Wednesday night trainer efforts so was a good hour or so of work, rocking the LIVESTRONG kit too, represent :]

Once I finished I had unclipped from the Cervelo and proceeded to swing my back leg over the saddle. In a fit of joy I decided to swipe at a figurine of an old lady with my shoe and knocked her straight off the shelf ...smashing into a million bits. Let's hope my mum doesn't read my blog eh!

Mike

Muddy Muddy Muddy