Canadian Thanksgiving

Two of the girls in the MSc Archaeology are Canadian and had us over for Canadian Thanksgiving even if it was a day late. It was really tasty! We had chicken (turkeys are hard to come by,) stuffing, salad, and real pumpkin pie! It's amazing what a little home cooked comfort food will do.

New Libraries... How I Loath Thee

I don't like having to learn new libraries and their policies! Especially reserved sections... If it's on reserve it shouldn't be able to leave the reserve section so EVERYONE needing to use the book can find it!!! After my VERY stressful to multiple libraries on campus I rushed back out to meet Laura for dinner. We were going to order from our favorite delivery place only to discover that they ceased being open on Mondays and Tuesdays! So off we went to Pizza Hut! I forgot how nice that place is over here! I felt a bit better after good ol' greasy food and unlimited Coke refills. I also found out which family and theme I'm in for the fancy dress party Thursdays night for the EUBC: The Beckhams!

The LONG Trek to Auchinstarry, NOT Amused!

It took me over 3 hours to get to training this morning, not cool! It really shouldn't take 3 hours to get most of the way to Glasgow, just 45 min. should do it. But because it was Sunday the bus to the train station wasn't running, so I had to walk 45 min. to Waverly Station, to get on a bus to Falkirk becasue there were engineering works on the rail line, to catch the train one station, and finally walk 30 min. to Auchinstarry from Croy. Needless to say I left my flat around 6am and got to Auchinstarry around 9:15 already tired and bothered. I did end up going out in a 4 today which was a first in 4ish years. I thought it was a rather good practice in the pretty countryside with some good coaching advice. Thankfully I got a lift in a car back to Edinburgh :) Then I got to watch the final conclusion to my new favorite show: Charlie Boorman's By Any Means!

Head of the Forth Regatta

Edinburgh University Boat Club and St. Andrew's Boat Club are hosting the first Head of the Forth Regatta at the Stirling Rowing Club in Stirling, Scotland, today. It turned into a lovely sunny day even though it was horribly windy. The location was absolutely beautiful down along the river between Stirling Castle (left) and the Wallace Monument (right)! I went along to check out a British regatta and see if it's anything like American ones and to just be an extra set of hands. It was a lot of fun despite the mud and wind.

3rd Week of School

This week was about recovering from the marathon and getting into a proper routine between schoolwork and sports.

Cheerleading is going really well. I can't believe how much I've missed it! My stunt group is shaping up to be one of, if not thee, best groups, which makes me really happy. It's really fun to be able to have a really rough day of classes all day and then get to cheerleading practice and forget all about it.

Tuesday night the Edinburgh University Boat Club had a Senior Women's Squad dinner at this really nice restaurant called Le Monde. This was really nice since none of us really knew each other. Something that is still dumbfounding me is that 1st and 2nd year university students can legally, opening drink here. I've always known that drinking age is 18 in the United Kingdom, but I guess I've never been so close to it before. Especially since my only reference point was university in the United States where freshmen and sophomores run around with fake ids and drink at house parties. Seeing 18 year olds drink glasses of wine at a nice dinner in a posh restaurant still baffles me.

Wednesday I went running for the first time after the marathon. Slightly awkward but not really that bad. I've never run this soon after a race before, but can see the benefits in it. I went around Aurthur's Seat, which actually is a great run too bad I did most of it in the dark...

Thursday saw my first tutorial (small group converstation with the professor.) In my case this happened to be the head of the archaeology department, yikes! It also means that you can't just faff your way through a 4 person discussion! Sort of intimidating considering who the professor was, but I survived and actually kinda enjoyed it!

Friday was a bit of a quite day since my Tuesdays-Thursdays are so full and busy that Friday is a recovery day! Granted we had a triathlon-esque (erg, bicycling, & treadmill) rowing workout this afternoon. Tomorrow I'm going along to the Head of the Forth Regatta in Stirling.

Loch Ness Marathon Weekend

Saturday morning I boarded a train for northern Scotland and the city of Inverness, the capital of the Highlands. I really forgot how much I love traveling by train! Nothing like sitting there reading a great book, eating snacks, and watching the beautiful scenery go by! Granted it was horribly rainy out, but still there were brief moments of beauty. Especially coming into the Highlands where there was a bit of snow on the tops of some of them. The entire hostel was full of people doing the marathon, 10K, and 5K! It wasn't young people either, loads of people my parents age as well, sort of weird for a youth hostel but I suppose they just wanted to save money too. 3 of the 4 people in my room where running so we headed down to the expo which was held at the finish line at Queen's Stadium. It was the smallest "expo" I'd ever been at for a major race. I'm really glad I brought everything I needed from the US because I wouldn't have been able to get it there. Very different than both Grandma's and Rock 'n' Roll. Although there was an amazing dinner for us which included: soup, roll, salad, pasta, baked potato, and a pudding with custard! Then it was time to get my kit together for the next day and watch X Factor (British American Idol-esque show) before early to bed. But not before speaking with both of my running mentors: Chris & Chad. Words of Wisdom Version #3 "Don't let your feet run faster than your shoes" - old Scottish saying and "Some things have to be believed to be seen." If I was going to succeed tomorrow I was going to need both of these to get me through.

This time around I had to get up at 6am not 2:30am like San Diego! It still didn't feel real, didn't feel like I was about to run another marathon. But it was time to get some food in me and get all the kit on again. The long trek to the starting line began and finally ended over 2 hours later. Entirely too long between getting up and starting the race in my opinion. Fortunately the weather held out and stopped raining! The starting line (shown on the left) was literally out in the middle of the Highlands of Scotland, like some one just plunked us down in the middle of a postcard! I knew I hadn't trained very well for this so my plan was to run a mile then walk the next one and just go from there. My only goals were to follow this plan and just to finish. They had us do a wee little warm-up before we started since it was rather cold out and we'd been sitting on a bus for over an hour. Then at 10 o'clock sharp the bagpipes started. You know you're running a marathon in Scotland when bagpipes send you off! They began at the back of the runners and then came up the middle of the 2,000 or so runners before flanking either side of the starting line. As we started there they were playing us off, of course being the sucker that I am I was balling like a baby! I really must learn to not cry every time I hear massed bagpipes if I'm going to live in Scotland for the foreseeable future... Of we went into the Scottish countryside. Within the first mile we were greeted by curious horses and little sheepies with black faces. I kept to my game plan and started walking after the first mile. This course is absolutely beautiful through the autumn countryside and up and down hills, which I was completely unprepared for! After a few miles we came up along side the shore of Loch Ness, the home of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, hence the name of the marathon. By this point the sun was out full stop and the scenery was blissfully distracting! I've been to Loch Ness once before about 4 1/2 years ago and so remembered that there is a castle along it's shores that I would get to see again, Urquhart Castle. I did, I got to watch it grower larger and larger for a few miles before seeing it clearly from just across the loch. By this point I was about 8-10 miles in and felt pretty darn good! I was also keeping a 6 hr. marathon pace which is unheard of for me since my personal best is only 6:42. My running miles were averaging about 12 mile miles again really, really good for me! Right near the castle I thought I saw something in the water, but I'm hoping it was just a convergence of currents. I now know why people think they've seen things in this lake, now that I've seen something myself. Then things headed downhill after mile 11 when one of my knees started hurting, in mile 12 the other one started as well. I had a decision to make: get through a half marathon with a great time for me or push all the way through and spend months recovering and forgo all other sports (including cheerleading and rowing) probably until Christmas and/or end up in hospital with serious injuries? I made the sensible decision of finishing a strong half marathon and then proceeding to the next medical pick-up station around mile 15. My half marathon time was 3:08 which is faster than my other two first halves of marathons, so I was happy considering I'd done all of 6 training runs since San Diego including the triathlon. The medics had a hard time understanding why I was electing to take myself out of the race since I still looked really good. As I was brought back into Inverness I noticed that I definitely ran the prettier half of the course, so really it was worth it in my book. Once I had made it back to the finish line I had my chip cut off my shoe so I didn't get fined. They noticed I didn't have my medal or goodie bag and ran off to get those things before I could protest that I hadn't actually finished. I've of course altered both the shirt and medal to reflect the new race that I created and completed, the Loch Ness "Half" Marathon. Out on the course I met a lot of really nice people both running and cheering which was really cool since there aren't many people around, very much like Grandma's Marathon. I also saw all the important key animals to Scotland: black faced sheep and highland coos (the horned, woolly cute cows.) Once I had bundled back up and gotten all the free stuff I could get, headed back to the hostel, but not before stopping by McDonald's for a post race celebratory meal for a Big Mac, Chicken Selects and fries. Ah the gloriousness of the 3-day grace period of eating whatever you want after a major endurance event!

Back at the hostel I had my supper and then spent the rest of the evening watching X Factor, Top Gear, and Charlie Borman's By Any Means (my new favorite show!) Mostly because I couldn't be bothered to haul myself up the 2 flights of stairs to my room more times than absolutely necessary and I was completely knackered! Another fairly early night for obvious exhaustion reasons and caught the first train back to Edinburgh in the morning, sleeping most of the way...


Here is the course map, I was picked up just before the Lucozade and water station just before Dores, about where the line for the picture is.

A Wee Bit of an Update

10/1 ~ My first full day of work and it went relativity quickly. I was actually productive, a huge change from Meyer & Njus where I felt like I was getting dumber by the day!!! I finished all the induction packs complete with revisions, and completely on time! I also formally joined the Edinburgh University Boat Club today which means I'm one step closer to rowing at the Royal Henley Regatta!

10/2 ~ Only thing worth noting is a cheerleading dance practice where we actually did a bit of dancing and a lot of chatting girly style, because we realized that none of us really know one another that much!

10/3 ~ Today was all about getting ready for the weekend up in Inverness! This unfortunately included a lot of erging since I'm going to be away all weekend.