So today was day 300, just 65 to go and by coincidence, I also chalked up mile 1,200 of running. I’m also now averaging more than 4 miles a day and think it may be feasible with one final push to actually clock up 1,500 miles in the year. To do so, I will have to up my average run to 4.2 miles a day but given, I’m currently doing around 5 miles a day, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
As opposed to yesterday, I didn’t head down into Whitby town from our B&B in Sandsend, rather I found a nearby carpark with some steps that led on to a cliff top walk westwards towards the fishing village of Kettleness.
About a mile in, the path should have taken a tunnel under one of the cliffs but this was boarded up, presumeably due to it being dangerous but there were steps than went almost vertically upward to the next level of cliff.
From here, the landscape to my right took on a jurassic feel, all molded lava, incredibly shiny and round thanks, I presume, to erosion. Hundreds of feet below was the north sea, much calmer today thanks to the sun being out but with a biting wind coming to me from the inland side which was farmers’ fields with some sort of wheat or maize growing in them.
The scenary was gorgeous and I regreted not taking the camera with me to get some snaps to post.
It was tough going though, the wind whipping off the land made me feel as though one foul step accompanied by one foul gust would see me plummeting down to the water. The ground was also uneven and the wind was flatting the long grass at the end of the fields making it whip my legs as I ran past.
At 2.5miles I considered running on the other half mile into Kettleness itself before turning around but my right leg and left ankle have been playing up a little over the last day or so, so I turned and ran back the same path to the Woodlands where we were staying.
At the top of what I now call The Devil’s Staircase was the one thing that saddened me from the run, a poster for a missing cocker spaniel called Rosie. A 10 month old pet ‘the love of the family’s life’ who has been missing since the end of last year.
I really wanted to find her and called out her name a couple of times but knew it was completely futile more than eight months later. I do hope they found her and the poster was left up there in their joy at a reunion…
Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run
Miles today: 5
Target: 900
Miles to date: 1,203.63
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