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| Not Cannes, but the Fife Riviera |
I am going to ignore the convention of chronology, and tell you about
the good run of my weekend first. For
those of you desperate to hear about my outing at the Scottish National XC
Championships, you’ll need to wait until the end. Although I must warn you that that segment
contains scenes that some readers may find disturbing.
The benefit of having the race on the Saturday was that Sunday was wide
open for a long run. It also had a
favourable weather forecast, which got steadily better the closer it came. A couple of ideas coalesced into a plan. The
first is that I enjoyed the recent expedition along the Berwickshire coastal
Path, so fancied another Coastal trip.
And, secondly, I’ve been taking the train to work recently as my car is
goosed. Walking along Princes Street I
spotted the statue of Wojtek the Bear.
I’m not sure how (perhaps simply because I don’t go to Princes Street
very often), but I had missed his installation last November. He is fantastic and the story of his life is
like something from a Disney movie.
He was adopted as a cub (his mother having been killed by local hunters)
by the Polish Army in Iran during the Second World War. Travelling with them through the Middle East,
he learned how to carry heavy mortar shells during battle. As well as developing a fondness for a drink
and a smoke. When the Poles were due to
be shipped out of Syria on a British transport, they were initially refused
permission to bring Wojtek. So they
enlisted him as a private in the Polish Army (he was later promoted to
corporal!), and the British were forced to let him on board. After the war ended, he demobbed out and spent
the rest of his days in Edinburgh Zoo, where he would be visited regularly by
Polish expats who would throw him bottles of beer and cigarettes (which he was
forced to eat as he didn’t have a pocket in which to store his lighter), much
to the chagrin of the keepers. He died
in 1963 at the age of 21.
So I decided that I’d do my Tynecastle Bronze (or Tynecastle Brązowy) run for March – a
minimum of 30 miles which must take in a war memorial – from Kirkcaldy to
Edinburgh, along the Fife Coastal Path, finishing at Wojtek.
Having tried to drum up business on
Facebook and via email to little effect, I was resigned to the likelihood of
flying solo. But a combination of
spectacular weather (if we get a better day in the rest of 2016 then we’ll be
doing very well) and concern for my well-being saw Steve join me shortly before
9am at Waverley, to catch the 9:10am to the “Lang Toun”. Which was a most welcome surprise – his
company improved the day still further.
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| Steve, looking ready for business |
We started off by visiting Volunteers Green
in Kirkcaldy, which I’m afraid to say was actually rather underwhelming – a
pretty unappealing metal plaque on brutal concrete our only reward.
But the path itself was mainly stunning. With the tremendous light really bringing out
the colour in its eyes. We made our way
through Kinghorn, Burntisland and Aberdour, which included sections that we
recognised from the Black Rock 5 race, and which Steve recognised from the
Donkey Brae race. But most of it was new
to me.
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| Seafield Tower |
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| THAT hill from the finish of the Black Rock 5 |
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| Steve trying to set off the speed camera on the approach to Burntisland |
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| Not sure if this is Starley Burn, or just a waterfall nearby |
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| Silversands Bay, Aberdour |
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| St Bridget's Kirk, Dalgety Bay |
As well as St Bridget’s Kirk, Dalgety Bay has
some pretty scary signs warning about radiation, instructing you that it is an
offense to remove seafood or bait from below the high water mark. We thumbed our nose to the authorities by
flagrantly having a sandwich and a pork pie in the immediate vicinity. Steve reckons it isn’t that contaminated
anyway – there were some aircraft control panels dumped in the sea there at the
end of the Second World War, and the stuff they used to make the dials luminous
is (mildly) radioactive. So Steve and I
weren’t exactly glowing like Ready Brek kids after passing by.
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| Danger Danger! |
Getting close to the M90 was less
fantastic, given the noise and fumes from traffic, but the views out over the
Forth were some compensation.
After a further war memorial in South
Queensferry, we returned to the trails, making our way through the Dalmeny
Estate to Cramond Brig.
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| Dalmeny House |
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| Cramond Island |
With our 30 miles not in doubt and
tiredness setting in, we took the shortest route through Barnton and Blackhall,
along Queensferry Road towards the West End.
The Garmin signaled the 30 just before we got to Dean Bridge, so we
congratulated each other then and took a selfie, before walking on to visit
Wojtek. We weren’t the only ones – we
had to wait our turn to have our pictures taken with him.
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| Wojtek! (Polish soldiers are all 8 foot tall) |
Big thanks to Steve for coming out. Ditto to the sun!
(For those tempted to do some or all of
this run, I can confirm that the path is predominantly flat, well-marked, and
easy to follow. More information,
including maps, is available HERE)
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And now a flashback to Saturday and to the nightmare that was the
Nationals at Callendar Park in Falkirk.
Although that is slightly unfair.
It was a nice enough day out, save for a period of approximately 90
minutes commencing at around 2:20pm. The
drive through with Anne and Stuart, the weather (cool, dry and largely bright),
wandering through the nice grounds, taking up station in the TEL gazebo,
recce-ing the course, and watching the other races was all perfectly
pleasant. And my fears about the course
being a muddy quagmire were ill-founded.
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| (photo: Stuart H) |
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| Good to see Alex (photo: Stuart H) |
Ready and raring to go (I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol at the Club’s
annual dinner the night before, and took the veggie option so that I wasn’t
weighted down by half a pound of red meat sitting in my colon), I was having a
trot to keep warm ahead of the 2:30pm start.
When suddenly something urgent caught my attention. You know that bit in "Dumb and Dumber" when
Lloyd doses Harry with laxative and it starts to kick in? That.
Except 10 minutes before a race.
With a snaking queue for the portaloos.
At 2:25 I got into one. And at
2:27 discovered that there was no bogroll.
It is best to gloss over the two minutes which followed. Suffice it to say that I arrived at the line
with seconds to spare, extremely rattled, and towards the very rear of the
pack.
Now I don’t know what your mental approach is during a race. Maybe some of you have a mantra that you
repeat. Maybe some focus on specific
instructions from your coach. Or perhaps
you just zone out a bit and try to concentrate on your breathing. Whatever works for you. I can advise however that reminding yourself
over and over again not to wipe sweat out of your eyes with your right hand is
not conducive to a stellar performance.
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| Enjoying myself (photo: Anne H) |
Post-race you may have wondered why I was shaking hands with my
left. Now you know. At a conservative estimate I must have washed
my hands at least 4,368,942 times since then.
For at least three of those washes I even went so far as to use soap.
You can find the results below, although you are guaranteed to lose the
will to live long before you have scrolled down to my name. If you must try to find me, I’d suggest
starting from the end and working forward.
It’ll be far quicker.
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