Evening run

Shock horror - I actually did one of those run things that are supposedly the subject of this blog last night. Was meeting Al and friends for dinner at 7.30 so Pathetic Ruth thought 'Oh, there's no time for a run between work and dinner.' But Annoyingly Righteous Ruth pointed out that when I'm training I think nothing of knocking off a quick 10k after work and still turning up at a restaurant on time, so the patheticness was brought to heel.

It was a gorgeous clear day with the views from my window at work even better than usual, so I found myself actually looking forward to getting out. Especially as this is the last week I'll be able to run after work in daylight. So I speed-walked home and got my kit on, unearthing a sports bra from the bottom of the heap. Took gloves because it's gone very cold lately, in a lovely crisp, wintery way. I decided to take it easy and do a steady anti-clockwise Queens Drive loop, not taking a watch or timing anything but not stopping to walk.

I'd been expecting a great sunset and I wasn't disappointed. First, as I reached the last evil steep stretch, a huge lemon yellow moon appeared, reflected in Duddingston Loch below. It was so arresting that it quite took my mind off the last of the climb. Then I had the flat to recover into a steady three-paces-to-a-breath, whilst admiring the cygnets in the top loch which are almost grown up. There were two big flocks of geese: one lot of big ones with black heads and necks and some smaller brown ones. Coming downhill, there was the sort of ridiculously beautiful and lurid sunset that, if you painted it, would look really tacky. The tourist-perfect silhouette of the Edinburgh skyline in dove grey (complete with the Balmoral clock, Calton Hill and St Giles) sat in front of a sky striped bright pink, yellow and baby blue. As soon as that slipped behind the equally glorious autumnal trees, I was treated to the ruins of St Anthony's chapel silhouetted in front of the moon.

All in all, well worth the exertion. I had no trouble keeping up a slow, steady jog. It's probably about three and a half miles, maybe just under four, from door to door. If it's still dry, I'll go again on Friday, maybe up to the trig point.