20 miles/1000 feet/6 hours/6 pints
This year's ultra running and drinking epic was from Pittenweem to St Andrews along the Fife Coastal Path. Alan's report is here =
Once again Pat managed to astound us with his 'out of this world' dress sense and front pocket bulging with 'goodies'. We took the bus to Pittenweem where we started off proceedings with an early pint in the Larachmhor and were joined by Gordon (whose attempt to dodge a pint was easily overcome) and John Donnelly. By the time we emerged the heavy rain has gone and there was the promise of better weather creeping across the Forth. A short trot to Anstruther gave us the chance to enjoy another pint in the Ship Inn. We had a longer run now to Crail with a chance to enjoy the huge waves and some of the interesting rock formations. In this section we first came across incredible build ups of seething foam driven ashore by the waves. At Crail soup and bread washed down by another pint set us up for the run out to Fife Ness. In this section the build up of foam was mindboggling, like something from a Dr Who script, and in places threatened to submerge us. Alan had already had the thumbs down from the Crail golf club house for a pint but thought he would try to blagg it anyway. We managed to get the bar staff pouring pints before some committee members appeared and spluttered into their G&T's about 'questions will asked at the AGM'. We even managed to somehow win them round and parted on the best of terms. It was now a race against time and some pleasant running along beaches and the coastal paths led us to an impassable torrent at Boarhills where darkness fell and we had a 1 mile diversion to the nearest bridge. We got a bit muddled trying to find the clubhouse at the Fairmount with a promised pint and ended up splitting for the last section. David, Robert, John and Derek went off to the clubhouse to find it closed and then ran down the road. The others had a nightmare several miles of wading though muddy path churned up by cattle. All was forgotten as we reunited for a meal and a few more jars in St Andrews.
