Club training reports…
Wed training
Hi, I’m Rachael, a newbie to the Carnethy Hill Running Club. I joined my first club run on Wednesday evening, a loop from Boghall around the tops of Castlelaw, Allermuir and Caerketton hills, with superb views over Edinburgh. Mark lead us up through the fields, over a tussocky bog, and up a sheep track through the heather, before following the main paths between the summits. We found a last bit of bog on the way down for good measure. It was really enjoyable to be out with such a friendly group, and this definitely gave me a bit more confidence running in the hills at night, aswell as the extra motivation needed to push a bit harder up the hills! I look forward to joining another session soon.
Rachael Hall
Moon Rising Over Arthur’s Seat
On a chilly, but clear, night fifteen people came out of the woodwork, although just one was brave enough to be wearing shorts. Actually, it was sixteen including Amber, seemingly getting almost sensible now, and keeping her counsel. She did get a bit narked when we were clearly just hanging around blethering at the trig point on the Braid Hills – which we learnt from our Edinburgh oracle, aka Mike, is not the highest point and called Buckstone Snab (It’s 5m short).
The social runs continue to allow catching up on news, and a gradual putting of names to faces. For example, I now know Morven isn’t Linsey & vice versa. They’ve probably known this for quite a while.
Doing things the Carnethy way
On a recent Wednesday night run with Fiona, who’s been doing run leader training, there was a joke about a requirement for any proper Carnethy run to not only involve the clambering over of a wall, but of sneaking in something unexpected just as people thought they were on the home straight. On this occasion Ken wimped out of fence hurdling (forgivably so since it had impressively pointy rusty bits), but there was the gradual realisation his way of getting home was going to involve Blackford Steps.
Ken made up for it, presumably having spent hours, if not days, poring over an Almanac to get the timing right for us to witness a very orange moon rising over the right hand edge of Arthurs seat. In an astronomical coincidence, we were right next to the old observatory! In keeping with that realisation, and courtesy of this website https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/night/ I think the two upper white blobs right of the moon are Castor & Pollox.
Run Stats: 5 miles. 70 minutes.
Pete Cain
Tuesday Intervals – Swanston
A rain shower as I left home nearly, just nearly, gave an excuse to eat my stir fried rice instead. The sun came out though and apart from the rapid growth of nettles in Erraid Wood, the route to Swanston was pleasant.
A good turn out in crystal clear air and we warmed up on the trail towards Allermuir. There followed 2 x 2 mins uphill through the Heeland Cooos to our triangular 2 x 8 min loops up, along and back down. Joy.
I ran back with Dorethy, Billy, Angus and thingy and found a bench I had never noticed before. Great. We split and headed home thinking Intervals are good even if I hate them.
Mark Hartree
Tuesday Intervals
Despite the return to a more normal April after the last two weeks of cobalt skies, tonight’s Swanston interval group headed into the cloud and mirk.
This session’s pain was 2 mins uphill segments heading up Caerketton with leaders returning to the 3rd last person for recoveries. A few of us took turns with this position. At the top, with 7 mins left, we ran triangles for a longer set, trying not to be lapped too many time by those fast buggers. Fun fun fun.
Shame the Steading is still shut, but then it is a bit cool and their beer garden is the car park.
Mark Hartree
Carnethy ‘Slower’ Social Run: Whinny Hill for Sunset
Unlike two weeks’ previously, when a sudden deterioration in the weather led to a sudden deterioration in participation, last night both the weather and runners turned up in fine form for the evening social run. Lots of other people were out. Many faces look somewhere between confused and annoyed to see larger groups of people running around now. Arthur’s Seat is at its best at this time of year with the gorse flowers out in bloom and aroma.
The paths have dried up incredibly quickly after the wet start to the year. We meandered up and down Salisbury Crags, took a steepish route up Arthur’s Seat, and then aimed to follow the second half of Eóin’s second pandemicap route although on Gio’s recommendation we diverted through an apple orchard to avoid the Duddingston steps.
We arrived at ‘The-Top-of-Whinny Hill-with-a-Single-Gorse-Bush’ just as the sun was setting behind the city, and then enjoyed a swift dry grassy descent down to the car park. It’s so good to be back to these evening social runs. Distance: 4 miles, Elevation: 440 metres
Ken Fordyce
Training restarts – yippee!
Unbridled joy was written all over the faces of the eager runners tonight. Right up until the point where Ken led us up another of his “interesting” routes up Arthur’s Seat. Great to see some new faces out and thanks to Ken for leading. I have no idea how long the route was as I accidentally stopped strava while trying to take artistic cityscape photos with my fancy new iPhone.
Nicola Dunn