Okay, so 20 miles is a long way to run for fish and chips. But then, these aren’t just any fish and chips. These are multiple award-winning fish and chips. The only slightly odd thing about our running 20 miles from St Andrews to Anstruther for lunch was that the direct route was only about 8/9 miles...
I had planned the 20-mile route meticulously and uploaded it to my Garmin. The night before I had prepared my kit; filled my ‘Camelback’ with water, slotted gels into my gel belt...
I got up at 7am had breakfast, then watched Match of the Day with my mini lop rabbit Will Shakespeare. At 10am Nikki arrived at my door. No water, no gels... I decided that she was either superhuman or had no idea what she was about to undertake. I opened my cupboard, which Nikki declared to be a mini running store (a crate of Lucozade sport, another of Taut, a box of gels...), and stocked her up.
I had run further than this on only one occasion: the Loch Ness Marathon. Nikki had never run this far before.
We set off up the first of several hills. Fife is a pretty hilly place, but the route I had chosen turned out to be far hillier than the profile suggested. However, it was true to its claim that most of the climbs occurred in the first 10 miles, after which it was a steady descent to the sea.
All was going very well until, 3.5 miles from our destination, and as we approached what appeared to be a private estate, the battery went on my Garmin. The sheer horror of this moment will serve as a reminder to charge it overnight the night before a long run regardless of how much battery it claims to have. If we had to back track, we could have been looking at an extra 4-5 miles on top of the scheduled 20.
Nikki chose this moment to disabuse me of any previous water-and-gel-related doubts by hailing the gate keeper who showed us how to open the electric gates. I resisted the temptation to ask why he was holding a pine cone dangling from a piece of garden wire. He pronounced our mission mad. I managed not to point out that we were, at that moment, in good company. We did however decide that he was ‘a very nice man’. He had, after all, saved us from a pre-marathon marathon.
The gated estate was gloriously manicured with fabulous stone houses and mansions dotted at intervals between the trees, as if designed by Capability Brown. As we left the estate a small boy ran to open the gate for us, his mother smiled and greeted us. Had the death-of-the-Garmin sent us back in time to an age when people were pleased to see two strangers on their land? Thinking about, I’m not quite sure when sure an innocent age prevailed...
Ahead we could see two coastal villages, Pittenweem and Anstruther. The first was miserable simply because it wasn’t the latter and promised us no fish-shaped nourishment. Finally we entered Anstruther, and staggered through the village on heavy, unresponsive legs.
No fish and chips have ever tasted so good.
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