Icy cold long run!

Poor Mr Foxy.

Peter's photos below

Today was a work-free day in a busy week and was relatively clear of snow and ice so it seemed a necessity to get out and do a long run with the hope of maybe recovering for the cross-country on Sunday.

We kicked around the notion of getting up at dawn - not as impressive as it sounds as it was only scheduled for 8.40am today but the BBC weather website's prediction that there would be heavy rain at 9am put paid to that. I slept til I woke up at 10.30am when I could no longer ignore the fact that my bladder was going to ACTUALLY burst if I didn't do something about it. Was there rain at 9am? Who knows.

Peter slept a bit longer and then acquiesced with remarkably little argument to my desire to make a clean easy straightforward long run. Run out the door and down the coast to North Berwick as the wind would be more supportive of this than the other way and take whatever route seemed appropriate based on the weather and the light.

Our legs were a bit achy from running club last night although it was a much reduced session due to it being the awards ceremony. The wind was cuttingly cold and we both secretly doubted whether we'd really do it or bail out on a bus along the way. I was flagging quite early on so we determined to make a food and coffee stop in Prestonpans. This was remarkably successful - rocky road cake and coffee at the filling station. The woman behind the counter laughed at us and complained that our money was very cold - but was basically kind and offered to get some seats out so we could eat in the warmth of the shop. Fearing that comfort would 'unman' us we chose instead to eat our provisions outside, rigid with cold and in silence as the wind froze us to the core.

We were both much improved shortly after however and as some off-road and beach routes became available the improvement in surroundings and view also cheered us up. There was quite a stormy choppy sea crashing savagely into shore. We couldn't stop for long so all photos were taken hastily.

At Aberlady 'someone' was beginning to get 'bag-rub' so we stopped at the shop in the centre of town for some emergency Vaseline.
Then at the turn off for the wild-life sanctuary the sun had been down for a while and the light was fading a lot so regretfully we went the more sheltered, more inland, more roady route.

Nothing much more to tell. It got properly dark and we put our head-torches on so we wouldn't trip on roots in the pavement. Minutes after we got to North Berwick station the train arrived off-loading a large batch of commuters in winter coats. We were a little under-dressed and shivered our way home but the train was pretty toasty and the journey was short. We were dreading the last mile down the road to our flat but actually it was fine once we got moving again. Feel quite Gordon Ramsay about the whole thing. 24 miles (23 + 1 from the station). Job done!!!