Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Week 22nd - 28th November

This week, 22nd - 28th November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness week
http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk/

As well as this blog being a record of adventures I get up to, I also want it to be a way of raising awareness of this terrible disease and where I can, to raise funds for the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK, for whom myself and Julia ran the Paris marathon for last year, while raising over £3000. Pancreatic cancer is the 5th most common cause of cancer death in the UK. By raising public awareness we can ensure that more research goes into improving early detection & diagnosis of this often missed cancer.

As many of you will already know, my mum has lived with pancreatic cancer and its effects for several years and has continued to impress doctors with her amazing ability to fight back! She recently described her story for the charity website which I will post up on my site once it goes live! This weekend I will be doing my weekend activities in the charity colours of purple and making my own donation to Pancreatic Cancer UK. I'd like to encourage others to visit the website, read about the disease and its symptoms, aswell as the progress which is being made in its treatment, and the stories of those who have been affected by it. If you'd like to make a donation to the charity during the awareness week, or any other time, you can do by following the link on the website. http://www.pancreaticcancer.org.uk/

I plan to do a few events for PCUK in 2011, and am currently deciding on what these might be. I would like to do a few varied events in my PCUK t-shirt while raising money and awareness.

Current ideas include:
A cycling sportive (long distance cycle event)
The Inn Pinn in the Cuillins (a rock climb to the top of Scotland's most difficult Munro, followed by an abseil over the other side)
Two Out Hebrides half marathons in a week (cycling from one to the other in between)

If you have a chance this week, check out the website, pass it on to your family and friends. Spread the word... Thanks!

Meall Ghaordaiah

So this weekend I got back out onto the hills. It feels like ages since I've been hillwalking, and it was nice to be up a Munro - number 52 this time. With my fellow Mountain Adventurer away working in France, I signed up for this walk with EYW, led by Richard. This hill is just a few miles from Killin, so not too long a drive to get to. We could see a few bits of snow higher up on the hills as we approached, though the tops were covered in cloud, so couldn't see too high.

This hike was a chance to try out my new walking poles and super duper mittens which I'd been given for my birthday the week before. They were great!! The walk up was fairly straightforward, with a path to follow up most of the way. This then disappeared nearer to the top and there was more and more snow. Some of the snow was covering rather large holes, so on many occassions I'd find myself up to my knees in snow with my foot in a puddle below. Thank goodness for the waterproof boots and gaiters, haha!

The summit (1039m) was pretty cold, so lunch was a quick affair. The sun did try and break through though and the clouds blew past on occassions to give us some spectacular views. The descent was great fun in the snow and we could look out onto the snowy mountains ahead. A post walk hot chocolate was had in the Killin Hotel to round off a great day. I really enjoyed being back in the hills and am hungry for more this winter!

At the summit of Meall Ghaordaiah (1039m) - check out the snow!

National XC Relay Champs, 2010

This is my third write up of the National XC Relay Champs since starting my blog in 2008. This year, my team was the same as 2009 - myself, Megan and Susan. After 24 hours of non-stop rain before the race, I thought it was going to turn into a bit of a misery fest! However, the sun came out, and although cold and 'slushy' underfoot, it made for perfect XC conditions. I was on first leg, so got to start in the stampede. As usual we headed up the hill and started the ups and downs of this course. It never gets any easier! BC's tactical cheering along the course was very welcome! I felt I kept up fairly well up the pack for the first part of the race, and although the leaders stretched out more, I was pleased to bring the first leg in in 26th place, and I was especially pleased to have run 17:04, taking just under 2 mins off last year's time. Megan took over and ran really well, she managed to take another 2 girls and moved us up to 24th. The anchor leg was taken over by Susan. I'd got up enough energy to run around the course and cheer her on at this point and was pleased to see her taking over even more girls! We finished in 22nd place, in a time of 53:21. That smashed our time of 56:51 from last year!

We could then relax and watch the guys run their race! And what a race it was! Silver medal for the Vets, 5th place for the CAAC A team! And so many great performances by everyone, not to mention all the juniors at the start of the afternoon. This tough course is always so much fun with the CAAC team spirit throughout the day! Will next year manage to be a rain free day too...we shall have to wait and see!

East District XC Relay Champs, Prestonpans

The first XC of the season kicked off at the weekend with the East District XC Relay Champs in Prestonpans last Saturday. We had a record number of CAACers taking part this year with loads of juniors, 2 womens teams and 8 mens teams. I was in a team with Gillian and Megan.

Gillian headed off with the stampede (sporting her new "go-faster" socks) to bring us in well up the field. I was on second - I started off fast in the excitement, and then realised I probably wouldn't be able to maintain the 5:45 min/mile average my Garmin was displaying, so I slowed it down after the first couple hundered metres!?! This was my first run of this course, and although not the most inspiring of routes, I quite liked it for it's flat, ankle friendly nature. I treaded carefully in the ploughed field out towards the far end of the course as to keep both ankles intact, but felt I could push out along the other sections. I managed to overtake a couple of girls, though one Gala girl got past me too. I handed over to Megan for the final leg. She ran a strong race and we finished in 13th position out of 31 teams, so we were pleased with that! Not quite the bronze medal of the senior men or the Vets gold, but we'll work on it for next year ;-).

13th Corstorphine AAC "A"
Gillian Carr 13 15:57 15:57
Jo Kirby 11 31:58 16:01
Megan Smith 13 49:13 17:15

Really enjoy the CAAC team spirit for these types of events, and I'm looking forward to the Nationals in Cumbernauld in a fortnight's time!

5km / 10km Challenge

In January of this year I set out a few aims, one of which was to run sub 19 minutes for the 5km, the other was to run sub 40 1okm. Things have come together and I'm pleased to say that I can cross these two aims off the list with 18:58 at the recent Edinburgh parkrun, and 39:16 at Inverness half! Neil had a great run in Inverness too, chopping another 30 seconds off his time, and is now down to 43:03. Looking at the rest of my 2010 aims, I'm still not as close to the half marathon time I would have liked, so may try and get another half in before the year is out. Now, I've just got to get those extra 24 Munros I'd planned...!?!

I'm looking forward to a few cross countries over the next few months - starting with the East District XC Relays in Prestonpans this weekend. CAAC will be out in force!

Pedal for Scotland 2010

On September 12^th, myself, Neil, Dean and Gillian (aka Springvalley Riders) and fellow CAACer Susan, cycled the 51 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh – otherwise known as Pedal for Scotland. This would be the second time I had done this event and was looking forward to it! The neighbours of Springvalley got a rude awakening as we got bikes ready and left at 6:30am on the Sunday morning. We pedalled the 5 miles down to Victoria Park to join the queue for our bus to Glasgow. We could already see that there were many more cyclists than in previous years, as we waited for about an hour just to get on. Plenty of time for Dean to cover his new baby in bubble wrap though! Once at the other end, we eagerly waited for our bikes and joined another queue to get across the start line. This one was much quicker and before we knew it we were off!! We started on Glasgow Green and overtook a few people on Penny Farthings in the first few miles – rather them than me! Once out of the hustle of the city we were onto quieter roads. We were disappointed by the fact the first feed station had run out of food, and the home baking station had a queue a mile long! We decided to push on through to Linlithgow Palace for our lunch, were we would be over half way. We were really lucky with the weather which was sunny most of the way. Neil was enjoying his new road tyres which he’d put on his bike the night before and was cruising along. Unfortunately the two of us got separated from the others at one point and missed out on the giant chocolate muffins at Kirklingston! However, we made up for it with a nice drink at the Cramond Brigg pub with only 6 miles to go. As you can tell, speed was not the aim of the game on this occasion! The last push to the finish line was good, and I for one felt the 51 miles as being much easier than two years ago. We all enjoyed receiving our Pedal for Scotland medal and goody bag at the finish. However, the 5 miles cycling back home were still tough!

There is now a 100 mile Sportive running on the same day, dare we enter this one next year….time will tell.

Final Meadows 2 miler

The final Meadows 2 miler took place a couple of weeks ago so I was keen to improve on my time, which had remained unchanged since last year. I was pleased to knock off around 15 seconds to come in second at 12:18. Next year I’ll definitely be aiming for that elusive sub 12 minutes!