The weather forecast was pretty appalling and we had planned to catch a train to Dunbar and run back 26 or so miles. This morning, looking out the window my first thoughts were that there was no point. It looked horrible. Arthur's seat was clagged in. Being out in this for hours and hours would just be miserable. But I hadn't run since Tuesday so as not to jump my weekly mileage up too quickly. And if we didn't go we'd have to run somewhere in Edinburgh. I thought about running up the Water of Leith and into the Pentlands. Or just not running and giving up on the whole thing...Thank goodness for coffee. In about 10 minutes I was thinking its better to die somewhere interesting than somewhere you're tired of...and that if the worst came to the worst it was only 12 or so miles from Sunny Dunny to North Berwick and we could bail there. (It was more like 15 from the train station.)
So off we went and caught the Dunbar train, an experience in itself with someone apparently dying of the whooping cough in the seat in front and 2 guys behind us breathing stale beer and talking about how they were going to give their friend "a doing". "I don't know how many doings I've saved him from!" exclaimed one. "I've saved him from lots of doings by just not giving him one" exclaimed the other. They both laughed.
There were bored children on the train...the train to Taunton. Thank God we weren't going to Taunton.
Dunbar was only 19 minutes away and cost us £6.10 each. Bargain.
At Dunbar it was drizzling a little bit but it wasn't really windy and what wind there was was behind us. Things were looking up! I also like a point to point. As this route was untried I wasn't sure just where we'd be ending up. Its the third weekend in a row we've been in Dunbar, by some weird happenstance. The route to East Linton is now starting to seem quite familiar. We're big fans of the estuary and the peeping birds (Curlews? Peewits?). The llamas were looking a bit unimpressed with the weather but they've got nice woolly coats.
At East Linton we stopped off at the Co-op again. Damn their re-ordering of stock is a bit slow! We finished off their stock of Fairtrade chocolate brownies last time we were there (last Sunday) and the shelves were still empty! So we had to settle for flapjacks. Flapjacks and fudge. Oh and a cream egg. I was actually a little disappointed with the architecture of the egg. It was a praline egg and instead of the usual thin chocolate giving way onto an uber-sweet filling it was a thick old chocolate shell with quite a small amount of chocolate tasting sauce in the middle...
So on to North Berwick. Having done this stretch in the gathering gloom and darkness last time it was good to do it during daylight. It was a bit less sinister. By the time we drew close to the Law we were both getting sore and slowing down but enjoying ourselves and certainly not needing to get on the next train home. Instead we went down town and had a short stop off to see the budgies and then went to the chip shop to get coffees and a packet of crisps. Another exotic picnic in the drizzle outside the toilets. We drank our coffee, ate our crisps and finished off our fudge and flapjacks and moved on...
The beach was wonderfully deserted. We were running really slowly but there was no-one to laugh or point. The colours of the beach were pleasing after the rather battered looking landscape we'd been running through. We ran together and apart. Got lost in thought. I forgot I was running for a while. I was thinking back to when I finally managed to crack 3.30 for a marathon in 2008. There was a strong wind but my training had gone pretty much perfectly so I really didn't want to let it go. It was such a nice quiet feeling to finally do what I set out to do.
All those miles and all that fresh air spaces you out a bit. Can you see in the photos the shark and the turtle for instance?
We saw a dead mole at Gullane but it was too sad to photograph. It had cute little claws. I'd been wondering what size they were because there seem to have been dozens of molehills popping up everywhere since it was very wet earlier in the year. So I got to see...
Then at last we were arriving in Aberlady and we were just short of our target 26.2 miles so we ran to the other side of town and then back to the shop and stocked up on things to eat on the bus...which arrived about a minute after we crossed the road to the bus-stop. All in all a lucky day.
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