Elvis Lives

Cometh the warmth, cometh the rain and gales.

It was all a bit unfortunate that the Edinburgh Rock'n Roll Half Marathon was scheduled for today. After all those weeks of cold windless weather when running 13+miles might have seemed a good way to warm up, today we had slanting rain borne in from the west on winds so strong that just holding the camera steady was hard enough.

I stood about the 10 mile mark and felt only pity as the runners passed me with dripping hair, clothes plastered to their bodies, and looks of total exhaustion etched on their wet faces. I can only hope that the run along the exposed Portobello Prom had the wind at their backs.

It reminds me of the time his Lordship and I travelled down to Brighton to run the Brighton and Hove half marathon and arrived in pouring rain and a gale of such magnificent proportions that the swing doors on the hotel were birling round like a windmill blades.

In our innocence we thought the weather was so bad the race would be cancelled. How wrong we were, and with His Lordship's running number #1, it was hard to live up to expectations when it was difficult enough to stand upright. The pleasure of the bath at the end lives with me still.

I didn't wait around long enough this morning to see if this was the only reincarnated Elvis.