Yesterday's runniness was a run round Aberlady and all that. There was a very stiff westerly wind which would have been quite good for the Edinburgh to North Berwick racers. The tide was getting surprisingly far out by the time we got to the shore next to Archerfields so running on this stretch of sand seemed extra good. It's usually under the sea. Inspired by this and the wild west wind I tried to jump quite a wide stream that was coming down the beach. I had new shoes on and was trying to keep them out the sea as I think the sea-water is the reason that all my trainers for the last 3 years have ended up absolutely minging. Too much vertical height and getting blown sideways by the wind led to failure however, and one very wet foot.
Over the weekend, Ian Campbell of HBT has been doing a self-set challenge he has called "An Everest of Allermuirs". The aim was to do the same amount of ascent as the height of Everest (29,029ft) but by doing 29 reps of Allermuir Hill at the edge of the Pentlands. He'd given himself 3 days to do it in, which was just as well. Because all the focus was on the height he was climbing I never really thought about what that would mean in terms of distance, but after we'd been up and down twice today we had covered just over 5 miles. Someone with more patience than me can do the maths. If it was 30 reps then that would be 15 X 5 = 75 miles, so I guess he ran about 73 miles over the course of the weekend.
We knew he'd be finishing up today although we didn't know when would be a good time to arrive. We just arrived when we were ready and in 5 minutes Ian and an entourage arrived back down the hill at Swanston car park with just 3 more to do. In a nice overlap of worlds, Bruce Mathieson aka CoastKid, who we usually see on the beach was there on his bike supporting, because he is Ian's brother-in-law.
There was a good and changing band of runners running, people dropping in and out. Ian must have had quite a weekend. He said Friday night was particularly hard going. Today, he was in good spirits and even managed a sprint up the last steep climb on the last summit...
On arriving back at the car park, he and some of his HBT people went off to the pub to get some restorative brown beer. We headed for home (no white, yellow and blue drinks to be had) and gave Maggie Spalding a lift home as she stays on our side of town. Maggie's had a cardiac catheter ablation too so I was able to talk about all that with her. That was a treat. It's kind of a niche market, being a runner/heart patient. It can be a lonely place.
Ian's Everest of Allermuirs was to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK because his dad died from prostate cancer last year. You can sponsor him here.
No comments:
Post a Comment