The Moonwalk!
I DID IT! All 26.2 miles! It was harder than I'd expected but I'm so, so glad I managed to finish!
So ... to rewind, Gala Day was fun but hectic as always. I was on the go all day, what with one thing and another, not to mention dancing on the bandstand. By the time evening came, I was still making the red poppies to decorate my bra! We had to race through to Edinburgh in the end - we were getting a bit worried about time - but we parked in the Castle Terrace car park, because I knew exactly where it was, and jumped in a taxi to take us to the Meadows, where the big pink tent was pitched. That was a great idea! We got there around 10.30pm, just in time to wait 15 minutes or so for the toilet (with 11,000 women and 1,000 men walking, there was a great need of portable loos!) and then we went into the tent.
We'd picked up plastic rain ponchos and reflective space-blankets on the way in - the night was predicted to be cold, with potential showers, so I was wearing my Moonwalk T-shirt and old blue cotton hoodie over the decorated bra. However, I took them both off and donned the plastic poncho for the warm-up - I'd done all this training to walk in a bra, so walk in a bra I was damn well going to do! Fi and I had decided on a poppy theme - two large red crepe paper poppies on the boobs, with a green hula skirt below to cover our bellies and look like grass! (Well, that was the idea .... see what you think in the picture!)
They sent the walkers off in three groups. We were all in the yellow group, by chance - myself, my training partner Fiona and Mary-Jane, also from Strathaven, who'd trained by herself but teamed up with us for the event. And here we are, raring to go! I'm on the left.
There was a samba drum band as we approached the start line and it was all very cool, everyone bopping along to the beat. The yellow group started at 11.45pm and we cheered as we passed the start, striding out along the Meadows, heading for Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, a big hill very close to the centre of Edinburgh. I'd walked the same route two weeks previously, during the Race for Life, and now here I was back again, only this time with a much bigger challenge ahead!
The path up Salisbury Crags was reasonably steep in parts and I soon began to sweat underneath my impermeable plastic poncho! So I took it off, stuffed it under my bumbag's belt and put the hoodie on instead. It zips up the front, so I could open it up and show off the decorated bra underneath. The first three miles fairly whizzed by! Before long we were walking past Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she's in Scotland, and up the Royal Mile heading towards Edinburgh Castle, which had been floodlit in pink for the occasion of the Moonwalk. Quite a lot of buildings in the city had either lit themselves up in pink, or else used pink decorations for the event, and it was a great boost to see them as we walked along. Sorry the photo's blurry because I was walking as I took it, but the pink castle was a sight to see!
The Royal Mile, which runs from Holyrood up to the Castle, was definitely the highlight of the night! (Apart from the finish line, of course!) It was around 1am and the place was buzzing with people, all clapping and cheering and calling out good wishes. I unzipped my hoodie and let the poppies show! ;) It was just like the DragonCon parade though Atlanta, only better, because here we were being applauded for our efforts and our fundraising. I couldn't stop smiling! People were hanging out of windows in the tall, old tenement buildings and we were waving back. It was a great feeling!
Just before the castle we turned off down Castle Terrace, heading for the car park where we'd left our car. We'd spotted a load of portable loos when we'd left the car park but hadn't realised they were for US, the Full Moon walkers - there's also a Half Moon, which covers 13.1 miles, and Fiona didn't think that Castle Terrace was on the full marathon route. But it's just as well it was! As we were walking along, I noticed a car in the car park with its lights on. Mary-Jane said, "Isn't that your car?"
"No .... I wouldn't be so silly as to leave the lights on!" But just in case, I went closer and .... yes, you've guessed it. Of course, they got a good laugh at me, but I was more than pleased we'd spotted it because if we hadn't, by the time we'd finished the battery would have been dead. Can you imagine doing a walk like that, then not being able to get home afterwards? I'd have been popular!
Castle Terrace led onto Lothian Road, briefly, which ends at Princes Street, the main shopping street of Edinburgh. Again this was a great place to walk - lots of clapping and encouragement, and in one place a dad with two kids, both very bleary-eyed at 1.30am, obviously looking out for their mum in the throng! I hope they managed to see her! There were also some idiots, like the two drunk guys that ran the opposite way, shouting "Tickle, tickle!" as they went. They sort-of tickled me, but ran off.
After Princes Street we walked up Calton Hill, which had amazing views of the city and Salisbury Crags. It also showed how far we'd come! By now it was almost 2am and the lateness of the hour, together with the previous day's efforts, were beginning to tell. We were leaving the busy parts of Edinburgh - Leith Walk, George Street - and heading out of the city, along Queensferry Road towards Cramond. This was where things began to get tough.
From miles six to nine, I definitely had a mini-crisis. I was hurting; my thighs were tight, my right knee throbbed, the tops of my feet were sore, even lifting a foot to climb up a kerb was painful. Though it was late, the sky was never completely dark. There was a small smudge over to the east which retained a kind of coppery-blue glow but all the buzz and atmosphere of the city centre had faded. It was just one long, long, long road with little to do or to catch your attention. We stopped chatting. In all the hours of training walks I'd done with Fi, we had never once stopped chatting out of tiredness or anything like that. We'd had the occasional companionable silence for a minute or so, but nothing more. I remember thinking, "If I feel like this at nine miles, how will I ever make it through to 26?" And for a while, that was my concern.
Gradually, I remembered that duh, I'd obviously struggle because the Moonwalk isn't a simple walk in the park. It starts at midnight, for one thing, when your body's used to winding down, not striding through the streets! And I'd had a hectic day at Gala Day already - I'm used to being tired out by the end of that and here I was, piling even more exertion on top! So that helped keep me going ... and so did the move away from the bland, long miles of Queensferry Road to the dip down towards the Firth of Forth at Cramond. And there, we were almost at 13 miles, it was around 4am and sunrise was beginning to paint the sky. We were almost halfway!
I'll have to finish this off tomorrow, I'm afraid! It's late and I'm tired - the after-effects of yesterday's exertion! :D
So ... to rewind, Gala Day was fun but hectic as always. I was on the go all day, what with one thing and another, not to mention dancing on the bandstand. By the time evening came, I was still making the red poppies to decorate my bra! We had to race through to Edinburgh in the end - we were getting a bit worried about time - but we parked in the Castle Terrace car park, because I knew exactly where it was, and jumped in a taxi to take us to the Meadows, where the big pink tent was pitched. That was a great idea! We got there around 10.30pm, just in time to wait 15 minutes or so for the toilet (with 11,000 women and 1,000 men walking, there was a great need of portable loos!) and then we went into the tent.
We'd picked up plastic rain ponchos and reflective space-blankets on the way in - the night was predicted to be cold, with potential showers, so I was wearing my Moonwalk T-shirt and old blue cotton hoodie over the decorated bra. However, I took them both off and donned the plastic poncho for the warm-up - I'd done all this training to walk in a bra, so walk in a bra I was damn well going to do! Fi and I had decided on a poppy theme - two large red crepe paper poppies on the boobs, with a green hula skirt below to cover our bellies and look like grass! (Well, that was the idea .... see what you think in the picture!)
They sent the walkers off in three groups. We were all in the yellow group, by chance - myself, my training partner Fiona and Mary-Jane, also from Strathaven, who'd trained by herself but teamed up with us for the event. And here we are, raring to go! I'm on the left.
There was a samba drum band as we approached the start line and it was all very cool, everyone bopping along to the beat. The yellow group started at 11.45pm and we cheered as we passed the start, striding out along the Meadows, heading for Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, a big hill very close to the centre of Edinburgh. I'd walked the same route two weeks previously, during the Race for Life, and now here I was back again, only this time with a much bigger challenge ahead!
The path up Salisbury Crags was reasonably steep in parts and I soon began to sweat underneath my impermeable plastic poncho! So I took it off, stuffed it under my bumbag's belt and put the hoodie on instead. It zips up the front, so I could open it up and show off the decorated bra underneath. The first three miles fairly whizzed by! Before long we were walking past Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she's in Scotland, and up the Royal Mile heading towards Edinburgh Castle, which had been floodlit in pink for the occasion of the Moonwalk. Quite a lot of buildings in the city had either lit themselves up in pink, or else used pink decorations for the event, and it was a great boost to see them as we walked along. Sorry the photo's blurry because I was walking as I took it, but the pink castle was a sight to see!
The Royal Mile, which runs from Holyrood up to the Castle, was definitely the highlight of the night! (Apart from the finish line, of course!) It was around 1am and the place was buzzing with people, all clapping and cheering and calling out good wishes. I unzipped my hoodie and let the poppies show! ;) It was just like the DragonCon parade though Atlanta, only better, because here we were being applauded for our efforts and our fundraising. I couldn't stop smiling! People were hanging out of windows in the tall, old tenement buildings and we were waving back. It was a great feeling!
Just before the castle we turned off down Castle Terrace, heading for the car park where we'd left our car. We'd spotted a load of portable loos when we'd left the car park but hadn't realised they were for US, the Full Moon walkers - there's also a Half Moon, which covers 13.1 miles, and Fiona didn't think that Castle Terrace was on the full marathon route. But it's just as well it was! As we were walking along, I noticed a car in the car park with its lights on. Mary-Jane said, "Isn't that your car?"
"No .... I wouldn't be so silly as to leave the lights on!" But just in case, I went closer and .... yes, you've guessed it. Of course, they got a good laugh at me, but I was more than pleased we'd spotted it because if we hadn't, by the time we'd finished the battery would have been dead. Can you imagine doing a walk like that, then not being able to get home afterwards? I'd have been popular!
Castle Terrace led onto Lothian Road, briefly, which ends at Princes Street, the main shopping street of Edinburgh. Again this was a great place to walk - lots of clapping and encouragement, and in one place a dad with two kids, both very bleary-eyed at 1.30am, obviously looking out for their mum in the throng! I hope they managed to see her! There were also some idiots, like the two drunk guys that ran the opposite way, shouting "Tickle, tickle!" as they went. They sort-of tickled me, but ran off.
After Princes Street we walked up Calton Hill, which had amazing views of the city and Salisbury Crags. It also showed how far we'd come! By now it was almost 2am and the lateness of the hour, together with the previous day's efforts, were beginning to tell. We were leaving the busy parts of Edinburgh - Leith Walk, George Street - and heading out of the city, along Queensferry Road towards Cramond. This was where things began to get tough.
From miles six to nine, I definitely had a mini-crisis. I was hurting; my thighs were tight, my right knee throbbed, the tops of my feet were sore, even lifting a foot to climb up a kerb was painful. Though it was late, the sky was never completely dark. There was a small smudge over to the east which retained a kind of coppery-blue glow but all the buzz and atmosphere of the city centre had faded. It was just one long, long, long road with little to do or to catch your attention. We stopped chatting. In all the hours of training walks I'd done with Fi, we had never once stopped chatting out of tiredness or anything like that. We'd had the occasional companionable silence for a minute or so, but nothing more. I remember thinking, "If I feel like this at nine miles, how will I ever make it through to 26?" And for a while, that was my concern.
Gradually, I remembered that duh, I'd obviously struggle because the Moonwalk isn't a simple walk in the park. It starts at midnight, for one thing, when your body's used to winding down, not striding through the streets! And I'd had a hectic day at Gala Day already - I'm used to being tired out by the end of that and here I was, piling even more exertion on top! So that helped keep me going ... and so did the move away from the bland, long miles of Queensferry Road to the dip down towards the Firth of Forth at Cramond. And there, we were almost at 13 miles, it was around 4am and sunrise was beginning to paint the sky. We were almost halfway!
I'll have to finish this off tomorrow, I'm afraid! It's late and I'm tired - the after-effects of yesterday's exertion! :D