Deuchary Hill Canter

A really nice race starting in Dunkeld at the Hilton hotel and enjoying some lovely mixed scenery and terrains under foot. It was a changes course from the last 2 times I'd run it but I ended up sticking to the route I knew at the end which I expect was very similar to the race route. Fabulous weather and pleased to be running strong at the end of 2 hrs and 8 minutes.

Robots

After a very busy couple of months of meetings and piles of reading I have a few quieter weeks with just a few meetings. Trying to schedule something fun to do every morning. Today was a visit to the National Museum of Scotland to see their Robots exhibition. It was pretty interesting with a bit of historical context and a range of different robots over the past 50 years.

KB 5 Mile Road Race

Woke on Saturday morning to snow in the garden and expected the race might be cancelled as there would be snow on the pavements. They must have decided they didn't want to cancel a second year in succession and the race went ahead with relatively small numbers of runners. I was running well and pleasantly surprised to do the first mile in 7 min 30 without particularly pushing. The course was quite slushy on the pavements so a bit of caution was required although I never felt any foot slippage on the way round. In spite of the cold and damp really enjoyed the race and running well the whole way round. Finished under 40 mins and my 6th best time in 7 outings in the race which was great given the conditions.

Long London Weekend

With meetings on Thursday, Friday and Monday morning Cherry decided to come to London so Colin didn't have to suffer the Friday evening / Monday morning London / Edinburgh journeys.

We arrived on Thursday following a reasonably pleasant train journey made slightly more exciting by our train being cancelled and needing to rush for the departure 30 minutes earlier. Colin went to a meeting with the PRA went to the British Library for some family history research.

In the evening we went to the Shard for a very nice dinner and night time views of the city.

Colin had more meetings on Friday and Cherry went to the National Archive near Kew. In the evening we went to see All About Eve starring Gillian Anderson and Lily James at the Noel Coward Theatre. Very good show but slightly irritated by the slightly restricted view.

On Saturday we started the morning with a walk around the newly redeveloped areas of Kings Cross and then went to the local Better swimming pool with Cherry trying to fix a sore back. In the afternoon we went to the Tate Modern Gallery on the Southbank and went to the Pierre Bonnard exhibition. We then wandered across town to the Prince of Wales Theatre to see The Book of Mormon.

Sunday started with gym/swim before we took the tube to East Acton and went to the house where Cherry's mum grew up and went to Primary School. We then went to Hollard Park and stopped in the Japanese Garden and had a quick look round the Design Museum.

We were pretty tired by Sunday evening so had a quiet night in with Cherry heading back to Edinburgh on the 8 am train on Monday morning and Colin continued with his three days of meetings.

Tweed Valley Twister - Mountain Bike Orienteering

At this time of year there starts to be a wide choice of sporting events to take part in. It was a fairly difficult choice but the MTBO event proved to be an excellent one. Three hours of riding and navigation in the Tweed Valley with clear blue skies and at times quite warm sunshine.

The plan was to stick to the easy controls and avoid the big climb over the gypsy glen route. The first few controls went to plan along the old railway line between Innerleithen and Peebles although with some pretty poor errors along the way. Just outside Peebles the choice was some very challenging navigation in Glentress or a simple but brutal climb with 120 points on offer. I went for the simple climb and in the end was pleased with the choice as it didn't feel as bad as I expected - in fact I really enjoyed it.

The last bit was a bit untidy picking up a few controls on an out and back route rather than a nice circuit but got back home in good time for no penalties.

Great event.