Faslane. The Outs And The Backs!

I’ve maintained a pretty reasonable mileage over the last few weeks, and am steadily building back up to where I used to be. I may be shy of a little speed, but first things first, let’s get the mileage back up.

The problem with running from Faslane is that you only have two choices. Turn left out of the gate and risk a near death experience on fast, busy, country roads with no lights or footpaths, or turn right towards Helensburgh, with the safety of street lights, pavement and the added security of the Faslane Peace Camp. Call me boring, but I always choose the latter! The added downside to this however, is that however far you run away from Faslane, you’ll have to run the exact same distance, on the exact same roads, on the way back… I hate this!

The first time I did 10 miles from base, I enjoyed a nice, mostly flat path, all the way to Helensburgh, using the Commodore Public House car park as a turning circle, as I nicely attained the 5 mile mark. Then came the run back… nice, flat path my arse! The path was now a hugely undulating rollercoaster of a route with 95% of it going uphill, and there were pot holes all over the place just waiting for me to break my ankle… One was not amused! On top of all this, I turned left too early, found myself on the beach, which then became someone’s back garden, and I had to let myself out of their lovely wrought iron garden gate! Going through said gate, I came face to face with another runner that I had just spent ages catching up with and overtaking. The look of confusion on his face, and my slight embarrassment, saw me sprinting away from him back towards base, hoping that by some strange wonder, he wouldn’t be a fellow Faslaner, but a member of the Peace Camp or a lost Helensburgh resident!

I’ve also been playing a bit of 5-aside football, netball, and badminton whilst on base… they ask, “do you want to work or play sport?” Well, it’s a tough one; let me get back to you on that! I enjoyed the badminton so much (and having been asked to by some high-ranking officer) I was considering playing twice a week with the base club. I still might, but I worry about my knees during such sports… I think if I’m going to keep being a runner, then that’s all I need to be. Besides, I’ve lost my racquet and can’t face splashing out on a new one! I also passed my annual RN fitness test, putting lads half my age to shame! I opted for the bleep test over the mile and a half run… both are equally invaluable when onboard a submarine, but the bleep test is indoors, and doesn’t involve 10, yes 10, cold laps of the Astroturf!   

Saturday 22^nd January, saw me back on the WHW, running the 34 miles (the path was closed from Lundavra, and we had to take the road) from Bridge of Orchy to Fort William with Ian K, Jamie A, and Shettleston Bob. Mrs p (or Caroline as her new look blog refers to her), with other things on her mind, decided on alternative arrangements. This meant that she ran/walked a lot of uphill, some on her own, some with us, and was also able to provide a taxi service back to Bridge of Orchy. She was also able to join us for soup and a coke in the Trailrace Inn in Kinlochleven. Well the four of us had soup and a coke, Caroline had some strange herbal tea thingy that only she and JK could possibly extract any satisfaction from! The company was great, the weather was even better, and a great day out was had by all!

Back to Faslane, and back to the out and back crap! Monday’s easy run presented another evil of the out and back route – the wind. Heading out, I was the Usain Bolt of the marathon world, International superstar and record breaker. Coming back, I was more like Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor on a World Darts ‘pub crawl’ Christmas night out! Still, according to SPOTY10, I was still a sporting superstar… well a runner-up to a jockey anyway!

Tuesday was as above but slower and with no excitement, then on Thursday, after a complete waste of time, Volleyball session (The girls were scared of the ball, and there was only me and another lad playing. Let’s just say that there weren’t many rally’s going on!), I forced myself to the gym for an hours cross training… yawn! yawn! yawn! 30 minutes on a bike… boring! 20 minutes on a cross trainer… weird and boring! Then 10 minutes on a rowing machine… I just don’t get it, even more boring! Worse still, the same song was on the badly tuned music channel on the big TV screen for the entire hour… well maybe not, but with the crap that’s in the charts at the minute, it might as well have been. Every song seems to be some new R&B/Rap star who is selling their records by featuring Rhianna! Still needs must, and it meant I got some CV work done and saved running on what had developed into very tired legs by Wednesday morning… hence the day off!

‘What about next week?’ you ask. Well, I’ll probably run out of Faslane, then turn around and run back to Faslane on that increasingly familiar tarmac a few times!