easter beasting

Religion is a great thing. You only need to turn the news on to see what happiness it is spreading throughout the world. Easter is a great thing, especially the 2 hour tv special on the queen at 90, that is probably my favourite bit. 

Sometimes the idealised and the actual don't match up.
Although the icing like bird shit might be a nest reference.

Saw those bakeries (did NOT buy any, has anyone noticed that 1 in 4 adults are OBESE and are not only killing themselves (which I don't really mind) but the NHS as well?) (and yet we celebrate this with Bake Off and other how-to-cook-rich-food-programmes, someone should have a word with that Nigella) at the end of the run I did with Mary on Saturday, a wee 5 mile recovery run, having done 22 in the Lammermuirs on Friday. We were both a bit hysterical: I think M was amped up on coffee as she was being pretty badly behaved...

And she refused to listen my complaints about who was doing what on facebook and why they were definitely in the wrong and why I should be letting them know. And there was singing. (Who do you think you are kidding Pontius Pilate, If you think old Jesus' dead.) 

Here is some art. 

It's really just my lunchbox from last week (on a tablecloth curated by the Hardies) but since it is WAY more beautiful than anything that the Fruitmarket Gallery have exhibited in the last year I thought I'd post it here. Maybe they could look and learn. Or they could just stick to poorly fashioned random lumps of wood and scruffily painted shite in crappy colours, hung poorly, which has become their modus operandi.

dirty crack of dawn

Sunday Run:

I decided to rise to the twin challenges of clocks-go-forward (what a BST) and Bert's Sunday Run. After being up late sorting out folk on facebook I had about 4 hrs sleep before the alarm went off in the middle of the night and I got up and ran up the road to meet Bert's gang at Gilmore Place. (I had passed up the opportunity to run 42 miles up north with Graham only reluctantly because the forecast for there was cold wet and blowy whereas locally it was allegedly better. Too far to go for a long day in harsh condition.) 

Pilrig St Church clock reading 2.18 about 6hrs slow
obviously the trauma of BST was too much for it as well.

The radiant baby Jesus barges onto the canal

I mis-timed the run up to Gilmore Place arriving a bit early. I was sure Bert had posted 9.15 as kick-off, so I did a wee tour of the area and took some photos but when there was no sign of anyone by 9.08 I just started running, thinking I'd got the venue wrong. In fact Bert had said 9.15 for a 9.30 start and so I was never going to catch up with them chasing them up the canal 20 mins early. Oh dear.

Cormorant.
(Post your early morning shag jokes here.)

I hadn't taken a phone with me so couldn't phone Steve to see what my mistake was. He was busy phoning me to ask if I'd like a lift up the road. Anyway a run is a run. I ran up the canal to this bridge where I had the prospect of a run further out the canal (a bit samey) or head up the Water of Leith to the Pentlands. I thought I'd do the latter and the Harrison Park Sunday run seemed a good challenge. About marathon distance in total, running home afterwards. That'll do pig.

In the voice of Loyd Grossman "whose house is this?"

(Well the bit on the right at the end)

Breaking from the Harrison Pk route I decided to go up Poet's Glen - a far nicer option than Kirk Brae. There was a large pond I hadn't remembered and I wondered if it was a new edition or maybe just bigger with the winter rains. There was also this unfortunate frog. 

Splendid views from the top road of the Pentlands and the vistas down to the coast. However it wasn't weather for hanging around - very blowy and chilly and with lots of looming grey clouds. I ran up the road to the Rangers' lodge at Harlaw and along the trails to Red Moss where I did a ciruit of the raised boardwalk. Even in this drab weather it was pretty splendid. I was glad I hadn't committed to the run up North as the higher ground was very chilly and I didn't hang around before descending into Balerno and onto the WoL cycle path.

The dude on the left is thinking "I know him with the camera."
We have run E2NB and a couple of other races together although he was about half an hour ahead at Alloa.

more runners incl. Kenny G-R who said hello.

white chocolate caramel shortbread from Scotmid,
highly recommended, but only if you're doing more than 10 miles

Back onto the Water of Leith.
The magpie threw an Easter party for the mallards but only the pigeons turned up

The council will have to re-think their shoddy landslip repairs for the Dean Village.

I think some of the fuelling (Mrs.Tilly's orange fudge) worked magic as I picked up the pace towards the finish line, (as the small figures on the elevation map show,) the last 2.5 miles were 8 m/m, 7.27 and 7.14. To round it off nicely Mary cooked up some venison burgers and fried eggs.