Scarlet Runner by crooxi

Now I'm not quite sure how this happened, but in a moment of temporary insanity, I found myself agreeing to try to run 2012 km in 2012, inveigled into it by the evil Jenny C. (No, we love her really, madwoman that she is!) Moreover, there are OTHER victims of this insanity, (some of them on this very site) - in fact, not a few of them are suffering an even more advanced form of it, as they have agreed to try running 2012 MILES!!! in 2012. I could not contemplate such a massive challenge (as I commented wryly, I don't know which would crumble first: my resolution or my knees............), but have been persuaded into the lesser challenge. Not sure I've ever covered such a massive annual mileage (kilometrage?) in my entire running life - all 17 years of it now, or nearly. Luckily walking counts too (though the purists would probably turn up their nose at such wimpishness), so maybe, just maybe............ I might survive! We shall see.

Got off to a pretty good start (I thought) on New Year's Day, walking home at half past two in the morning. Walking fast - well, as fast as is possible after several sausage rolls, a mountain of potato salad, and several glasses of champagne - Garmin on wrist, and with every intention of this 2.02 km being my challenge opener. However, I thought better of it the next morning (or later the same morning, rather) and discarded this silly idea in favour of something a bit more convincing. (But if at 5 to midnight next 31st December I find myself 2 km short, I will recall it!) Alas, I made the mistake of telling J. about the challenge, and suddenly he started organizing it like a military campaign, planning what I should do when, and printing charts for me to record my efforts. (This will never work - I'm too much of a fan of spontaneity.............) Finally I prised him away from planning and into some actual running. A lovely day for it, quite mild, and halfway sunny. We got the bus to Würzenbach, and ran along the lower side of the Meggerwald, then heading up towards the little lake at Wagenmoos as usual, but turning off before we got there to follow a path signposted 'Meggen'. We'd explored the beginning of this path before, and thought it looked promising - in fact, it was one of those 'to do' things on my wish list, so I was able to tick that off too. A very nice path, directly towards a wonderful panoramic view of the mountains. (Alas, no camera.) It came out at Tschädigen, and then we were on part of the route we followed from Weggis on one of my pre-marathon long runs - the one where J. accompanied me on the bike - along the other side of the Meggerwald. At the end of the woods, we decided to go and look for the Salzfass (a ruined tower) again. For some reason, this is always rather hard to find. We did find it eventually........... but at this point things started going a bit wrong. Trying to get down to the lakeside road, we found the tunnel under the railway line - the only way to get across without a long diversion - barricaded off. I thought we should go back and find another way; J. decided we should ignore the barrier and go on. And so it was that we found ourselves traipsing around a very muddy building site with no way out. And still he wouldn't go back - oh no, we would just climb over the fence.........! (Déjà-vu?!) He found a place at one corner where the fence abutted onto a steep bank covered with brambles, and clambered round. I tried to follow, and got totally ensnared. I had thorns sticking into every part of me, and couldn't move. I asked him (really quite nicely, I thought) for help; he just stood there, mocking my predicament. Finally, painfully, I managed to free myself............ and rewarded his unhelpfulness with an almighty wallop. I was seriously p****d off with him! In fact, once we got onto the path by the lake, I ran off and left him for a while! (He stopped at a drinking fountain, and I didn't wait - I ran faster, in fact, to make it harder for him to catch up again, which he finally did somewhere along Schweizerhofquai. (Dear god, we're like Punch and Judy sometimes!) He decided to run all the way home, but at Schwanenplatz I decided I'd had enough and caught the bus back. Anyway, that was my first day's tally: 15.18 km, in 1:59:02. And as if that wasn't enough exercise for one day............... there were fireworks over the lake that evening which I planned to go to Sternegg to watch, having discovered a good vantage point there. I would have been quite happy to walk, but J. made me go on my bike, which he thinks I scandalously under-use (and I admit he does actually have a point) - he brought it to the front garden and threatened to leave it there unlocked if I didn't take it. So bike it I did. I am a very nervous cyclist (and darkness makes it worse), but made it there and back - about 3.5 km - with no problems.

Monday 2 January: the first soaking of the new year. Set off in drizzle, which became full-blown stair rods within 5 minutes. Hirtenhof, Waldrand, goats (where we found the wind and rain blasting straight at us from Pilatus, necessitating a quick about-turn and change of plan); along the top path of the Vita Parcours, where it was a bit more sheltered; 2 rounds of the Finnebahn, stopping off at the Reck for 3 pull-ups each time (I was only planning on one round, but J. set off on a 2nd, and being a good, obedient wifey (?!!), I followed); then up to the middle of the woods, and home down the zigzags. The wind was whistling past my ears, blowing rain into my left ear, and stinging my eyes. By now I was literally soaked to the skin - aagh, that chilly feeling when it starts seeping right through!.......... until you are so wet, it ceases to matter. We were not the only 'mad fools' (my brother's description of runners) out: encountered 3 other runners, a mountain biker, and 2 walkers wrestling with recalcitrant umbrellas. We all gave each other beaming smiles, as though acknowledging other members of an exclusive little club. Added on an extra little bit round the road at the end to make it up the distance, and squelched into the house with 5.33 km and 42:39 on the clock. Surprisingly, my feet were the only dry(ish) part of me, thanks to trail shoes and the wonders of gore-tex. (St Berchtold's Day, it was - is he the patron saint of rain?!) So that was another 5 km, and the 2012 was now down to 1992.

The fashionable 'drowned rat' look!

Reduced it still further (to 1978) with a 14 km walk the next day. (I wasn't actually planning on it being quite this long, but there was one of the inevitable 'short cuts' (aaaagh!) that turned out to be anything but........... well, you know the scenario by now!) We started from St Anna, and the first 10 km or so were really very enjoyable - lovely sunny day, mountain panorama (we were following part of a long-distance trail: Route 3, the 'Bergpanoramaweg), over Utenberg and Dietschiberg to Adligenswil; lunch stop at the Gasthof Rössli, then onwards to just before Udligenswil, crossing the main road, and along the edge of the Meggerwald, retracing a bit of our New Year's Day route. Just as I had been lulled into a false sense of security, marching comfortably along, assuming we were heading the usual way back to Würzenbach, J. announced that in fact we were NOT going back that way, we were going to try something new. On our run, we had noticed what looked like a bridge crossing one of the valleys - a seemingly more direct way back. We were going to check it out. Long story short: it was NOT a bridge. Not for people, anyway - just for water pipes. By the time we discovered this, we were at the far end of a boggy field, looking in vain for a footpath to the supposed bridge. There wasn't one. Now we knew why. So once again, the way out involved climbing over a fence (a luckily disconnected electric one) and cutting across someone's vegetable patch. A man in a neighbouring garden started shouting at us. Couldn't understand what he was saying, but I don't think it was an invitation to tea! We found our way up to a road, but our problems didn't end there. After navigating our way through a residential settlement, we came up against a dead end again: another steep valley with only a water pipe pseudo-bridge across it, and definitely no way across. We had to go back and find another way. It was like a maze, the solution known only to the residents................. but finally we emerged onto the main road at the top of the hillside. Ah, a bus stop.............. and yes, we had just missed one by about a minute. So we carried on walking for another rather unexciting 2 km or so down the main road until we could get a bus home. 14.03 km, and 2:39:13.

I designated the next day a rest day. And so, as it turned out, was the next: too many things to fit into too few hours; plus the arrival of storm Andrea, and some truly evil weather. Back on the case tomorrow, though, all things permitting.