Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

An Unfortunate Awakening

by Russell Turner - 13:28 on 05 April 2018

Life as a working musician doesn’t always mix well with life as a would-be marathon runner. Arranging weekends so gigs and runs don’t clash can be a problem but you’d think that mid-week would be no trouble. Not always.

Yesterday morning I made my second 50-minute easy run of the week, leading to tomorrow’s 18+mile (I hope) confidence booster and final long run before The Big One. In the evening City Limits played at an Inverness wedding reception. On odd day, maybe, but it suited the happy couple.

It turned out to be one of those events where the band is mostly ignored most of the night, which always makes time drag a little, until the dance floor fills for the last 40 minutes and the crowd yells for more. Maybe everyone who was working this morning had left by then and the don’t-care die-hards felt able to let their hair down.

We finished some time after twelve, packed up (it’s definitely time Scotland’s premier wedding band had some roadies), and I was in bed by 1.30am – quite early compared with some gigs. So it’s a shame that my slumbers were spoiled in the early morning by Willow sitting on my throat and demanding to be allowed beneath the duvet. Sleep was sporadic after that.

Today was forecast to be sunny – this proved to be the case – so I’d planned to get Kawasaki San out of hibernation and ready for his MOT next week. However, a run, a late night and an early waking have left me lethargic and in no mood to do anything, including some real work that will soon become pressing. This is not good preparation for a long-distance epic tomorrow.

I can’t reschedule the run because the band is out on Saturday night, which means running in the morning would be reckless and Sunday’s needed for recovery, and I have a pre-marathon massage booked with Adam the Physio on Monday. Next week’s taper runs are on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or Sunday – the band plays Friday and Saturday so I’ll have to be flexible. Fortunately the weekend run is only 70 minutes so I’ll squeeze it in somewhere.

Mo Farah has it easy.

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