Well timed neuroticism on a wet day

It was forecast to rain hard pretty much all day until 6pm or so, so I thought I might as well get out a run early and get it over with. But in the meantime I'd put a wash on and started to worry about leaving it on and leaving the house. "What if it floods the neighbours and I'm out and they have to break the door down and we have to pay out from our insurance again" I thought to myself, and realised I was trapped indoors until pretty much noon. This doesn't work well for me because I'm starving hungry by noon, but I staved it off with some rice-cakes and went out after my wash was done and hung up.

As it happened, that was the end of the rain. I was overdressed, as I had a long sleeve top and a waterproof layer on. The top layer had to come off pretty quick and for most of my run it was too warm. I'd taken the old camera thinking I might get some nice watery shots but it wouldn't be great for the camera.

Nothing much to say about it. The water of Leith was very high. I stopped to take pictures and perfect strangers came up to remark to me just how high the water was. "Isn't it high!" I agreed, "Amazing!". I felt like I was trapped in some slow sit-com set in the 50s. But what can you do. Actually you can run off. Which I did.

12 and a half miles. Nice easy slow run. Vegetarians look away now. By the time I got home I could have eaten a sheep's internal organs. So that's what I did. I'd been reading about how good liver is for you and I thought fondly of having a big fry up of liver and onions with my dad when I was a little'un. That would have been the last time I ate liver, apart from in a Fray Bentos pie. I mentioned this to Peter and he made choking, vomiting noises, so I thought since he was away at the Dunbar 10 miler I would have a secret liver dinner. But he got in 2 minutes after me. And after calling me a werewolf as I threw the bloody organs into a smoking pan, he had some too. Delicious.

That'll be the rain on.

I really hoped to get out a longer run today. 18 miles or something like that. But things were stacking up against me from the start. First of all I had a work's night out last night. I thought I wouldn't drink - but you know what it's like. You find yourself thinking "I can't actually stand this unless I drink". Not that they're not nice people. It's just kind of awkward when you're not at work with your workmates and it's so late at night (7pm) you'd normally be thinking about getting your jammies on and turning in, and you're so hungry you could actually eat your arm but it's not time to eat yet. Plus -  nurses can get pretty scornful if you don't drink.

I don't think I've drunk anything since about February. I can vaguely remember blogging about it. It was that much of a novelty. So I had a couple of glasses of Prosecco on an empty stomach and my face went numb and it was difficult to speak.

I had maybe a glass of wine with a meal too and then scurried down the road before I turned into a pumpkin. Peter was at home just getting himself organised for the Glenogle 33, as he was getting picked up at 5.30 this morning for it,  so the living room was festooned with running things and he was haring around packing things for all eventualities

I got off to bed way past my bedtime but had a reasonable night's sleep.

This morning one of the forecasts was saying it was going to start peeing down at 11am and the other was giving me until noon. I hoped they were both wrong and set off at about 9.30am from Gullane for North Berwick via the road with a plan to come back by the beach with the wind behind. In Gullane I stopped to get some pastry and a coffee. Well come on I was tired and a bit hungover, what was I meant to do?

While I was standing at the head of the beach eating pastry and drinking delicious coffee a young gull came over and asked where Peter was. It kept eyeing me. I knew what it was getting at. The sub-text was "If Peter was here he would give us some bread in return for a photo." "Well I'm not Peter" I retorted. In the end I did shake a few crumbs out of the bottom of the bag, but it walked away without taking them, shaking its head. "The hell with you" I said. We parted company.

The sky was lowering and dark but I kept just hoping that the forecast was wrong and maybe it wouldn't rain.
The sand was in good condition -flat and firm to run on. And the dark gloominess was  quite atmospheric. There's a very subtle shading of colour that goes on on a day like today that the camera never seems to capture. The sea was a very precise blue-grey and contrasted  nicely with the warmer pinky-brown sand. The people that were out were bundled up in lots of clothes and they made satisfying dark shapes, walking along the beach, throwing things for dogs.
My rucksack was keeping my back warm, which was a good thing. It was chilly out but I had the wind behind me and I didn't feel it once I'd got moving.

Just as I was drawing close to Gullane the rain started. At first I thought I would run on, via Aberlady and back the road, adding about 6 miles to my total, but the rain kept getting heavier and in the end it seemed fool-hardy to stay out and get totally soaked on a cold day when I was less than a mile from the car.

So I ran just shy of 12 miles. I was pretty wet by the time I got to the car and I think I probably did the right thing. I'll live to run long another day.