Running Sunrise
My morning workout was complete, but today I fancied more. And so I ran out from the gym, up to Holyrood Park, the dark bulk of Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat looming above. My feet hit the steep path up the face of the hill and I slowed to walking pace. Approaching the top I broached the shadow, summit rocks reddened by a rising sun.
It was cold, a keen wind cutting through my shirt - is there ever *not* a keen wind on the summit of Arthur's Seat? - and a surprisingly large number of people dotted about the hill already, maybe a dozen. Last week at sunrise I'd come across a score of Chinese tourists at the very top. Perhaps they'd been attracted by the lunar eclipse an hour earlier and decided to stay till daylight to see their way down.
What a place to be at 8:20 on a clear frosty morning! I ran down senses humming with focus, an intense balance of gravity, rock, frost and running shoe. My heart bursting with thankfulness.
45 minutes later I was sitting at my office desk. I'd worked on my book and had a run up Arthur's Seat for dawn. Whatever else happened in the next few hours, the day was already won.
It was cold, a keen wind cutting through my shirt - is there ever *not* a keen wind on the summit of Arthur's Seat? - and a surprisingly large number of people dotted about the hill already, maybe a dozen. Last week at sunrise I'd come across a score of Chinese tourists at the very top. Perhaps they'd been attracted by the lunar eclipse an hour earlier and decided to stay till daylight to see their way down.
What a place to be at 8:20 on a clear frosty morning! I ran down senses humming with focus, an intense balance of gravity, rock, frost and running shoe. My heart bursting with thankfulness.
45 minutes later I was sitting at my office desk. I'd worked on my book and had a run up Arthur's Seat for dawn. Whatever else happened in the next few hours, the day was already won.
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