LE JOG

[Nigel]

Time to catch up on August: a solid month of northward progress, spent running mostly through the wilds of the Scottish Southern Uplands.

A couple of excursions along the way -- firstly to the magnificent Southerness golf links on the shores of the Solway Firth, opposite Silloth where I played last month. The course is a McKenzie Ross 1947 design and a rare modern linksland classic. It was grey, cool and windy on the day -- just perfect for the task.

After a long couple of weeks running through the middle of nowhere, finally I reached the sea at Girvan, famous to geologists worldwide for the obducted ophiolite complex exposed along the Scottish west coast.

Between Girvan and Ballantrae the seashore outcrops reveal a piece of ancient uplifted oceanic crust, complete with spectacular pillow basalts, representing a fragment of the long-dead Iapetus Ocean. This ancient seaway between the palaeocontinents of Laurentia, Baltica and Avalonia once separated Scotland and England, some half a billion years before Scottish Nationalism was invented and at least 250 million years before the Atlantic Ocean was even thought of.

The last days of August took me northwards along the Firth of Clyde. I ended the month a dozen miles north of Turnberry, in the pretty seaside village of Dunure, an undiscovered Scottish gem complete with its fine pub and perfect ruined castle.

As I loped towards the harbour on the 31st August for my much-deserved pint of Tennents' lager, the sun was shining, the air clear and the view across the blue Firth towards Ailsa Craig and the Isle of Arran as brae and bonny as any tired rockhound of a runner could possibly wish for.

August 2010 distance run: 120 miles
August 2010 days run: 19

2010 to date: 826 miles
2010 days run: 140

Weight at 01 Jan 2010: 95 kg
Weight at end of July: 89.8 kg
Weight at end of August: 90.2 kg (it's all solid muscle, though).

Current route to JOG: 419 miles remaining

LeJog 2010 -- A year of running