Saturday Run

Not the luckiest day or the day of best decision-making....I thought I'd go and do a long run round the beach again. It looked like it was going to be a pretty stiff wind coming from something like SSW. (I can't remember just how this goes but more south than west is what I'm getting at.) It seemed like a good idea to start in North Berwick and run back into the teeth of the wind and then get the wind at my back for the beach. But as I was heading along Seafield Road, all the flags outside the big car shops were blowing towards me, so it looked like it was more of an easterly....so I decided to park up in Gullane, run to NB and run back the beach with this easterly at my back. It was always going to be a bit of a difficult weather day. Strong winds and stronger gusts were predicted, and heavy downpours of rain. As I was getting near to Gullane I did think the grass seemed to blowing the other way now, but I was tired of shilly-shallying so just went ahead with my plan. It started pissing down about the time I arrived.

Running along the side of the road to North Berwick was fine, but I could tell by the faces of the cyclists coming in the opposite direction that the wind was now decisively blowing from the west and I was, in fact, in for it when I turned around. But once a unit of mass is in motion it takes more energy to change its direction than just to let it carry on...so I barrelled on to North Berwick. I was thinking more about having a "second breakfast" in North Berwick really than anything else. In North Berwick, disappointingly, there were pas de pain au chocolats dans le coop. However, there was one pain au raisin (with a small cloud of fruit flies round it), that looked like it might be an adequate substitute, and I went and got a take away coffee out of one of the many thousands of coffee shops on North Berwick High Street. I poured half of it away right away, as the "small" was about a mug and half's worth. And then I drank about half of what was left. And that was plenty.

At the beach, things were as predicted. A head-wind and the sand had gone all sinky. There were periods of respite when pieces of coast provided a wind-break and sometimes the sand flattened out - but mostly it was super-hard going. Super hard-going but kind of pretty though. I was enjoying being out in the weather - some other weather rather than just sun - but it was a shame it was all against me. When I got to Gullane beach I toyed with the idea of going round Aberlady bay and getting a 17 miler in but my legs more or less refused and I headed back into Gullane to make just 12 miles. 12 slow miles at that. Barely enough to justify second breakfasts etc. but I wasn't to know!

When I got back to the van I'd covered 11.63 miles so I did that Garmin thing of running around the putting green there to nudge it up to 12 miles exactly. As I did so I spotted the familiar sight of Chris from club and then Karen Munro, Margaret Sandeman and Cath Webster all arriving round the corner and finishing up what I think was a 20 miler. I was invited for shortbread and a cup of tea back at Chris's car but I declined as I in fact had to go and whip myself with a birch twig.

As I arrived back in Leith my heart sank to see a sea of pasty-faced people with green and white scarves shoving pasties in their mouths. Yep, a Hibs game. So I had to park a good half mile from the house.