3 PBs, 2 new DOTH applicants, 1 new dress - a great day!

Today I ran a new PB in the Half Marathon at the Great Scottish Run in Glasgow! It was not only a PB, but I managed to get under the (for me) magical 2 hours on a rather hilly course. I finished in 1:55:21 and took 7 min of last year's time. And for the 1st time in my life I ran with mile splits instead of Km splits - what a revelation! Instead of counting to 21 and working out if you will make your target time, you only have to count to 13 and you are there! Psychologically it worked really well for me. Maybe it just means that I have been in Britain too long!

There was a PB for Thomas (1:21) - very well done! He is in great shape and preparing to beat his Marathon PB in Cologne and get under his magical time of 2:50. The 3rd PB came from our friend Andreas who now lives in England and runs with Kennilworth Running Club (1:56). For him it was also the 1st time under 2:00. He is preparing for Chicago and hopes to get under 4:00 there. We run similar times, the only difference is that he is at least 3 stones overweight and used to be a very fit Munro bagger when he was still living in Scotland a few years ago. Thomas keeps pushing him to loose weight and to try and chase him as his fitness is actually quite good (better than mine). But he still manages fairly good times for his weight, I think.

As we were all on a high after the run, Thomas brought up the subject of the DOTH 2009 (Devil o' the Highlands) again. He has been trying to get me to send off my application for at least 2 weeks now. He who never likes to do any admin work, form filling etc actually printed out an application form for me, filled it in as much as he could, put the address and stamp on the envelope and presented it to me. Well after I hadn't done anything with it he finally sent off his application last week. I secretly thought to wait and see what the HM would be like, maybe even wait for the 1st training run on the WHW. I did enjoy my little run from Kingshouse to KLL a few weeks ago and kept thinking about it. As we were relaxing in Starbucks after the HM and celebrating our new PBs I had a brilliant idea. We have now presented Andreas with his 40th birthday present (which we were still looking for until today). It will be a weekend at the Kingshouse Hotel next August and (hopefully) the entry to the DOTH 2009! Before he left up north today to bag 4 Munros tomorrow he was presented with his application form and just had to sign it. The plan is for the two of us to run and finish it together!

On our way back to the car park at Cambridge Street, conveniently at the opposite side of the city, where we wanted to get changed before heading to Starbucks I even managed to drag Thomas into a shop! He normally resists all my attempts of getting him to go shopping unless the shop is a running or an outdoors shop. Well, as we had to walk up Buchanan Street anyway and I had done so well (!!), he did not have the heart to resist a little detour into Karen Millen. I had seen and tried a really nice purple cocktail dress last week that I wanted him to "see". The shop assistant looked a bit worried as we walked in with our foils wrapped around us, but luckily my size was still there and Thomas liked the initial look, so she put it away for me to try it after I got changed and cleaned up. After the coffee we went back and I paraded the dress which Thomas agreed was a perfect fit and looked really nice. So out I came with a new dress, which will have its premiere at my grandmother's 90th birthday party in 3 weeks. I can't wait!