30

The mileage needs to go up up up! So to celebrate having a day off work I set off to actually do 30 miles this time. Peter was working so it was to be a solo trip. Just after the garage on seafield road I saw Johnny Lawson again so that was a good omen. (In the green car in the last blog. If you see Johnny Lawson that means you're going to have a good run.) He was on his bike though so I wasn't quick enough to get a photo.

There was a west wind so I set off down the coast again. To make up extra miles I did the less rewarding stretch of the John Muir Way through the post-apocalyptic landscape of the new lagoons. Slaaaag heaps! Then onto the Pans. A pigeon with no head lay on the weedy stones next to a pile of dog crap. The Damien Hirst in me wanted to take a photograph but I didn't.

As I went further it got nicer again. It was supposed to be a bit sunny today but it wasn't at all. It was warm and quite close and the colours were subtle. The tide was right in by the time I was rounding the headland to Gullane so I headed inland. It gets a bit tricky between there and Yellowcraigs if there's no beach. I did from Gullane to Archerfield back on the road and then back down to Yellowcraigs and got to the end of the golf course having covered a bit more than 27 miles. Once again the thought of trying to make up distance on small North Berwick streets was unappealing so I went to the Co-op instead for a chocolate twist and a can of Coke and walked up the hill to the train station.

At the station the train was going to be another 20 mins so I went for a jog up the road and back to take me a bit over 28 miles. I had satisfied myself with this but on the train on the way home I started devising a longer route from the train station that would take around another 2 miles. Last time Peter and I got off the train we initially felt terrible and then started to feel alright again and had found it easy to run home. So I came out of Waverley in the wrong direction and headed up Regent Road and then back down Royal Terrace, onto Leith Walk and down to the Scotmid. At the Scotmid I had .14 of a mile to go so I ran past it and then turned back on myself. YES! 30.06 miles. Job done.

I should probably be running 10 tomorrow but we'll worry about that tomorrow.