Some beauties in the hills

The summer has come and its time to get off the roads and back out on the hills. The whole world was out in the sunshine this weekend but I was at work. I had a good time at work but I felt left out. Last night I hatched a plan to head for the hills with my camera and go a long easy run. We have the 7 hills of Edinburgh race to run next Sunday and the Lairig ghru 28 mile race at the end of the month so time to get some training in.

It was sunny today but windy too which kept me cool.

The hills were incredibly pretty. There were lots of tiny wild flowers and lovely grasses. Unlike Peter I don't like stopping so I did well to take as many pictures as I did.

Its been dry for quite a few days in a row so it was perfect underfoot. What would sometimes be boggy was springy to run on with good grip. The larks sang all the time and the wind constantly blew. I ran for a while along a slate path that made a musical kind of noise and I realised that I had turned it into some kind of Russian folk tune in my head. Why Russian? Who knows.

I saw a small figure ahead that appeared to be wearing a space suit. It made me think about a program on the first landing on the moon which we watched recently. The astronauts all seemed to have gained some kind of altered perspective on their existence from seeing the earth from such a vantage point. One said, for instance, that he never complained about the weather anymore, because he'd realised that all weather is amazing and that the earth is like an oasis in space. When I got closer it was just an old lady wearing pale clothes walking up the hill. The mind is a funny thing.

I ran all the hills from Turnhouse, over West Kip then turned back down the Drove road and when I got to Black Hill decided to cheat and take the low road that skirts down the side. This was a good decision as my legs were getting pretty tired and it was nice runnable track rather than deep heather.

I skirted round the side of Bell's Hill and then went over Harbour Hill and then took the track to the road and back down to Flotterstone. c. 13.5 miles in 2hrs40mins.