Samba on a Sunday!

The day of the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon dawned to clear blue skies.

No lazing around as usual in my jammies watching AM and the Big Question for me this morning. Oh no. It was on with the running shoes, a quick stretch of the old muscles, and down to the start line for me.

Aha! That got you going. 'Mmmm. I hadn't put LadyM down as fitness fanatic...'

No, though I do admire those folk who can do that. Especially the wee - shall we say, less fit - folk who struggle straggle along at the end, on their own. Good on them. I was exhausted walking from one stage to the next, around the Meadows. Had to go and have a slap-up breakfast at the wee cafe around the corner when my memory card had run out. And I'd already had my breakfast. It's tiring, watching people running.

It was called the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon because there were bands set up every mile or so round the route. Great idea. The rock band started up at 9am, near to hundreds, nay, thousands, of people snoozing off their hangovers in nearby tenements. They were LOUD! I had a quiet chuckle to myself.

They were very good. I chatted to one of the lads' fathers. No - one of the lad's father. This sounds like one of the lads has more than one father. Anyway, he was filming them and was very proud of them. All students, doing engineering degrees at Heriot Watt. Write their own music. Available for booking. He must have thought I was an entrepreneur...

Except every time I tried to get a photo, a spectator kept standing in front of me...

A quick sprint leisurely stroll to the other end of the Meadows to see the next band. You could hear them as soon as you got out of earshot of the four lads. A Samba band. With exotic dancers. They were fantastic. They must have used as much energy as any of the runners. They didn't stop for the whole 3 hours. They were still going when we came out of the breakfast cafe, and there were only a few stragglers strugglers left. The runners really appreciated them and most managed a weak smile and a wave. Except the really hauf deid ones, of course.

I took over 200 photos. It was blip heaven - being able to point your camera at folk freely. The one I chose was one of the first ones. I wonder how many blippers will blip him today (EDIT: I added this link after I'd posted. I didn't know he'd already been blipped. Anyway, he's so gorgeous, he deserves more than one blip!) ... I like him because he's colour co-ordinated, and obviously thought about what he was going to wear for the millions of photos of him. He looks pretty cool with sunnies on, and there are no cars passing on the other side. Also, it's in focus. I find I'm using the Manual setting much more on my camera now. This can be problematic with impatient pigeons etc, but I think it's better to keep trying.

Phew! What a great event. I'm exhausted with all this other people's activity! I'm off for a quick jog around the Meadows lie down.