how to get a good night's sleep

What with a race on Saturday I hadn't had a chance to let my thinning hair down on (birthday) Friday evening. I slightly overcompensated on Sunday evening at Amanda and Scott's consuming (team prize) beers, (birthday) wine and lemoncello, which is a lemony sugary drink (21%) as well as a skinny dude in a Fife vest.

When I got home there was a message from Fergus saying he had the following day off and wondered if I was interested in a run. Feeling that might be a great way to offset the overindulgence of the evening before (starters, main AND dessert - the running club is fast becoming a dining club) - I said yes. The weather was looking better in the afternoon and I reckoned so would I, so we agreed to the 11.43 train to N Berwick and possibly the approx 20 miler I have done a couple times - JMW - Binning Wood - Tyninghame - Peffer Burn - NB.

We started by hiking up the Law. It was still a bit overcast, however we could see some breaks in the cloud looking west. It was quite cool hanging around but once running I felt the t-shirt over the long sleeved shirt was overkill. I was happy to wear the gloves though.

Round the pond and up by the big house has now become the standard route.

In my childhood the conker season was an important part of Autumn. I feel sorry for the current generation whose lives are full of hand held texting and gaming but empty of seasonal treasures. I still find it hard to run past a large shiny conker just out it's shell and not pick it up.

Shortly before stink farm (and they were cooking today) we turned left off the John Muir Way and headed across to Binning Wood. Even though it was still a bit grey Fergus expressed appreciation for the woods. 

Then down Limetrees Walk and into the woods at the bottom taking a straight line towards the coastal path.

The tide was in forcing us to climb the headland, from where you get a better view up and down the beach.

Nobody camping here today. And the waves were small to medium: in just 24hrs the wind would whip them up to large and stormy.

The wind had been in our faces for a fair bit of the first half so was behind us on the return along the beach and road.

The sand was quite soft and heavy going.

Gulls at the mouth of the Peffer Burn. Since the beach running deteriorates from here round to Sea Cliff I generally follow the side of the burn up to the first bridge then take the concrete road up past the back of Sea Cliff  and onto the main road back to North Berwick. I must pick Coastkid's brains for a more trail friendly back road way to cover the last half dozen miles. There was nothing for it but to raise the pace and grit our teeth. There has to be a better option.

As we sped up the colour drained away.

The last few miles were 7½ min/mile pace. Normally I would take around 4 hrs to cover this cicuit. And last time I measured it at 19.72miles. This time a pretty much identical route, but the Garmin said 19.22 - maybe we dropped half a mile with less walking about taking photos. (Most of the photos were taken on the hoof.) It was also 2hrs51 rather than 4hrs. Which possibly reflects that when Fergus and I normally run together it is either in a race or on Thursday evenings at Hill Reps. Great run, however the workout didn't stop there. On Monday evenings during term time I do a fitness class at Leith Academy - 90mins of circuits and boxercise. I have to admit it seemed a bit longer than the usual 90mins but I certainly did sleep well on Monday night.