Saturday Run

It's been a good week for running, things continue to improve. I had a new post-op pb for my Arthur's Seat 10 miler on Wednesday, despite it being swelteringly hot. Having imagined that I had reached some zen like non-competitive peace within, on Wednesday I found I suddenly had the urge to beat other people again. There were plenty people out running round the seat so I worked hard to over-take everybody that I could, and came home melted, but happy.

Today Peter was heading for the Haddington half. He is in pretty close to best ever form so is keen to capitalise on it while he can. I thought I'd go and do 16-18 miles round the coast - you know the route by now. Since it was a Westerly wind the plan was to start in North Berwick - run the road, into the wind, to Aberlady, and then get blown down the coast for the good bit. However, before you accuse me of always doing the same thing I'll have you know I varied it a bit.

The only time I let myself have a second cup of coffee for the day these sad days is when I go a longish run. The last 2 or 3 times we've arrived at the Londis shop in Aberlady, however, and wanted a rubbishy but rather enjoyable coffee out of their machine, the machine has been broken and we have gone away disappointed. All they really need is a kettle and they could charge us a pound for a teaspoon of instant coffee granules. Oh well.

So today I decided to switch my allegiances and stop in Gullane instead. I got a coffee at Falkos - a brisk, no nonsense German one. But I didn't want any of their cakes, I wanted a pain au chocolate, which I procured from the Co-op down the road. They went together very well. Kind of an entente cordiale, except with the wrong countries. I didn't actually finish all my coffee as I realised it was going to push my mood up a little too high. I stopped about 2/3rds of the way down the cup and threw the rest of it away. Just as well.

I must have blacked out for a while and came to running naked in the long grasses...

Well not really. But I was pretty high. Everything looked perfect for a while and running was easy. I think in reality everything was pretty perfect anyway. Although my photos show it wasn't as sunny as I thought it was. Still, there were big billowy clouds in the sky and the long grasses were waving in the breezes. Down at the shore, the tide was a long, long way out, so I knew I'd be able to run below the rock-line at Gullane rather than going over the cliffs. This is always a treat. The sand was mostly nice and smooth and I was making good time along the beach. I didn't even really feel tired until at about 13 miles. And even then I think it was because I hadn't had any water to drink, just 2/3rds of a cup of strong German coffee, 4 miles into the run.

I had been following the tyre marks of a fat-bike for some time so it wasn't a huge surprise to happen upon Bruce Mathieson of Coastrider fame and a bunch of buddies. Bruce said this terrible thing to me. He said "Are you walking or running?" To be fair to him, I was standing still at the time. It reminded me of a time on Leith Links when a couple of school boys asked me if I was a prostitute. Did I look like I was hanging around at street corners? I was running quite fast! Stupid school boys!

Anyway, the only other thing that happened of note on the run, apart from me enjoying myself, was
 a woman picking up a big piece of driftwood with lots of spikey branches and throwing it behind her for her dog without looking. She in fact threw it right hard at me and it stuck me in the chest and bashed me on the hip. She looked like a nice lady though and she was so thoroughly appalled at what she had done I couldn't really bear to make her feel any worse, so I pretended it didn't hurt, which it bloody did, and I have a big bruise on my hip.

Her husband was looking on from about 30 feet away and looking kind of amused and kind of ready to run. Maybe she does that kind of shit all the time.

Then I was back in North Berwick. End of. I wonder how Buchanan did in his race.