Running the Fife Coastal Trail

Hiya Everyone!

Again, sorry for the lengthy time between posts! I had to move flats (as expected) and it was a bit more cumbersome to get on-line from my new accommodations (which is a funny story in and of itself, but we'll talk about that a different time :-). I think I will continue to blog about my summer adventures even after I return home. I have gotten so far behind in my story telling, and you all seem to enjoy reading about my adventures, that maybe I'll keep going for a bit longer? Sound OK to everyone? I return to Florida NEXT Monday already! Wow, 3 months went quick! I won't be blogging for the following 3 weeks though, because I will be traveling the East Coast for a while. So I'm sure I'll blog about that as well once I return. OK, on to my latest adventure!

With my time quickly drawing to a close here in Scotland, the pressure was on to finish running the Fife Coastal Path. I've spoken of it before, but I'll give you a quick summary. This path is over 80 miles long and reaches from North Queensferry up along the east coast of Scotland, along the North Sea and ending at Newport on Tay. http://www.fifecoastalpath.co.uk/main.asp. I had already accomplished the first 15 miles of the trail earlier in the summer, but still had the remainder to finish, so it was now or never! I decided not to run the final 19 miles from St. Andrews to Newport because it was mostly inland, and the coast is the best part of the run, so that left 45 miles on the agenda!

Sunday, after church, I hopped on a train up to Kirkcaldy and then took a bus up to Leven, where I checked into a B&B, dropped off my bag, put on my sneakers and hit the trail for 10 miles. I had to run the section backwards so I was headed back down to Kirkcaldy along the Firth of Forth. It was a beautiful day, but windy, so it was a bit more of a workout than I had anticipated. Along the way I passed ruined castles, abbeys and towers. I finally got into Kirkcaldy around 6:30, only to miss the bus back up to Leven by 1 minute! Talk about frustrating. So I just dropped into the local foodstore and picked a nice pasta meal for supper and then waited for the next bus up the coast.

Monday was the day I was most nervous about. I had scheduled to run 20 miles from Leven up to Crail. I got started right at 9 am with the cloudy sky waiting to send its rain down on me. This part of the trail runs right along the Firth of Forth on my right and then more often than not, golf courses on my left. So I was always watching out for any flying golf balls that might come out of no where and bop me on the head (thankfully that never happened, but with all the signs they had up about it, I'm sure that it has occurred to some unlucky traveler in the past!) I ended up walking a good portion of the trail, because it was directly on the beach in many places. Absolutely beautiful, but hard going when you're walking in sand. Plus, it started to rain a bit, and who wants to struggle through sand in the rain as you run? I'm not that much of a gluten for punishment :-) The trail did bring me through some really cute towns along the way. Lower Largo is the home of Alexander Selkirk, whom Daniel Defoe used as his inspiration for the character of Robinson Crusoe. I stopped here and had a nice cup of tea and lemon drizzle cake for lunch - so that sweetened my run/walk a bit more :-) From here I continued on and passed Lady's Tower, an old ruin of a tower that was built for Lady Jane Anstruther, so that she could enter the bay below without the townspeople watching her. I also passed St. Monans Windmill, which was used once upon a time to pump seawater into the salt pans. Finally around mid-afternoon I hit my stop for the day - Crail. I stayed in a lovely B&B with great people who offered to come pick me up anywhere if I ran into trouble on my future days walk. I was a bit disappointed though, there was a little shack on the harbor that sells fresh lobsters and crab right off the boat. They cook it while you wait and then you can just sit there at a picnic table on the beach, eating the freshest lobster you will ever have. Just my luck, they were closed on Monday. Oh well, I'll just have to go back :-)

Tuesday rolled around much too quickly for my weary knees, but I only had 15 miles to accomplish so I knew I could handle it. Unfortunately for me, this last leg proved to be the toughest. There are NO towns along the way - it is completely along the coast of the North Sea, so no tea breaks for me. Plus, I thought Sunday was windy, it was NOTHING compared to the wind on Tuesday. In some places I had to walk almost bent at the waist just to stay upright. The winds along the sea are simply horrendously strong. This section is Scotland's coast at its best though. It was just mile after mile of crashing surf and cliff faces. I soon discovered that the path wasn't quite complete and proved a little difficult to navigate. Some areas you have to wait to cross if the tide is in. Rocky beaches again became my path as well as ruts along a 20 foot cliff overlooking the sea. Finally after 12 miles, St. Andrews appeared on the cliffs in front of me, about 3 miles away. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, seeing the Emerald City for the first time after traveling the yellow brick road. One of my favorite memories of this leg of the journey was stopping at a particularly rocky beach and building my own little cairn. It was my memorial stone tower of thanks to God for a fantastic summer and grateful for his protection over me during this little jaunt along the coast.

The Fife Coastal Path, is actually the path that pilgrims would take to get from Edinburgh to St. Andrews, where the bones of St. Andrew are supposed to be. It is a really cute town. Lots of great little stores, restaurants and old stuff :-) too check out. St. Andrews Castle, which was built for the Bishops of the church, is built right on the cliff face. You can also check out the old Cathedral and St. Rule's tower, which was built in the 14th century and has amazing views of the coast if you climb the 108 stairs to the top (which of course, I did). The beach scene from Chariots of Fire was filmed on the East Sands beach in St. Andrews (I've never seen it, but I guess I'll have to check it out now :-) Plus, if you're a golfer, St. Andrews Old Course is there to play 18 holes of very expensive golf. (Someone told me that Golf got its name this way - G (gentlemen) O (only) L (ladies) F (forbidden). I don't know if its true, but..... Mary Queen of Scots got into a lot of trouble when she wanted to play golf...

My B&B in St. Andrews was again, wonderfully comfortable and I was thankful for a warm shower and comfy bed to rest my weary body. Of course, my running wasn't over just yet. I saw a postcard taken at sunrise and also sunset in St. Andrews and thought how fun that would be to get the same shot and how handy it would be to do during a run. So, that night at 6:30 I ran 4 miles back up the coastal path to try and get some great shots of the city in the waning light and also at 6 am the next day I was up and running again with my camera in my hand ready to take some fantastic shots. The sunset & sunrise weren't as great as the postcards, but I'm still glad that I tried, and I did get a couple good shot :-)

Another super long post I'm afraid. Sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed looking at the pics from my run and reading about the cute fishing villages I passed along the way. See you later!