Well that was a fun way to celebrate St Patrick’s Day!
Nine of us started on a surprisingly snowy Calton Hill setting off in search of stout. It must have been a big one in Finnegan’s Wake the night before as they hadn’t reopened (nothing to do with my organisation skills, honest) but thankfully Ensign Ewart had and the first round of half pints of Guinness were ordered. From there it was a short jog to the castle and down the road to Malones, picking up Alice on the way (Alloa half marathon had been cancelled). Malones is definitely quite a change from Diane’s Pool Hall that was there formerly and nobody was offered drugs or chased out with a pool cue. They even sorted us all out with Guinness hats to wear for the rest of the run. These certainly drew attention and there were plenty of toots and waves from passing cars for the rest of the afternoon.
Corstorphine was next, then a different route from the race across to Luckies at Balgreen. I’d reccied this during the week to see if it was better than The Pub, which is less of a detour, but a pretty terrible pub from my memory of 7 Hills 7 Beers. After another half of Guinness here we were back on the road towards Craiglockhart. The steep route up through the trees – that I’d skied down 2 weeks previously – was tricky with a couple of inches of snow on it, especially for those who had opted for trail/road shoes, but we all made it up and across to the Buckstone. Well Google might suggest the Buckstone is open again but it’s not. Thankfully we could still get a round of Guinness in the Braid Hills Hotel and be on our way, leaving some bemused guests to their Sunday afternoon. There was still a cold stiff breeze so we didn’t hang around for long on the summit after the obligatory photo, and made our way down to The Hermitage in Morningside. Here I handed round some Irish Fifteens (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/fifteens) to give us a boost for the next hill. Highly recommend making some if you’ve never tried them before, and there are plenty of tasty variations you can make to the classic recipe.
After this stop Mike and Neil headed home and 8 of us continued on to Blackford and then Leslie’s for our 6th half of Guinness. We avoided the temptation to sit by the fire (sorry Gio) and got on the go again before muscles started tightening up too much. It was a fun climb up Arthur’s Seat with the snow making rocky section a little treacherous. We didn’t hang around to enjoy the view for long and picked our way down to the Dry Damn and stayed high on the windswept ridge. On the way down here we met Tom from http://www.weephotos.co.uk/ who I’d spoken to on Allermuir while skiing the week before. He kindly agreed (was bullied) to take our photo and gave as good as he got from Mark… https://www.facebook.com/Weephotos.co.uk/ Our final half in the Kilderkin was Murphy’s and required our Guinness hats to be temporarily removed. All that was left to do after this was make our way back up to Calton Hill, pose for a photo, and retire to Salt Horse for burgers, and maybe a beer other than stout.
Thanks to those who came out for all or part of it. Chris, Fraser, Ken, Lucus and myself completed the route with a half in each pub. Alice should probably get an honorary mention for going via the castle on her way home to complete the challenge, and Mark had run a marathon in total by the time he got home with only a couple of Stouts missed.
Jeff