The mirk cleared and the sky lightened, so I took the opportunity to get out for a run. I was only intending to do the same as last week, but I decided to take a slightly different path, going down the next valley over.
En route the path went through a mud trap… a ten metre stretch of well-trodden, watery cow-patted mud between two gates… I laughed every step of the way through!
The route then took me down to the village of Ovingdean, where there’s a dirty BIG hill to climb to get back up to the path I ran down last week… Daren would be proud that I ran all the way up, albeit very slowly!
The path back up the ridge seemed steeper than it did last week, at least until my legs got over the steep hill! I glanced over my shoulder to see another runner catching me up… I was grateful to be pushed and ran a little harder to delay the inevitable, but he reeled me in and then ran on ahead as if I was standing still!
4 miles in 45 minutes across the rolling Downs… not bad going Foster!
Back might be a stronger word than I intended, but it was certainly a second run this year! I took the same route as two weeks ago, mainly so that knew how far I’d run. It was hard work, but there was less of a direct wind against me and I felt as if I made better progress overall. I also wasn’t quite so exhausted afterwards, such that I walked down the garden, watered the plants in the greenhouse and raked leaves from all the different lawns.
It was a glorious afternoon… though rain is forecast for the next couple of weeks by all accounts! 2.5 miles in 27 minutes is not bad going 🙂
Inspired by one of my Mum’s amazing carers, and four months on from my last run with Daren (which was my only proper run in 2025!), I finally made it out the door for a run.
I ran up across the field, down the path to the top of Ovingdean, and then back.
It was hard work running down the hill as there was a fairly strong headwind blowing directly against me… but that made the return leg a little easier, despite the gradient.
Who am I kidding… the whole thing was super hard work for my poor legs!
The path across the field currently has a single electric fence at each end that you have to duck under… tired legs on the return journey meant that I lost my balance and ended up with a nice gentle roll in the mud!
Whilst Strava didn’t capture the return leg, I reckon it was around 2.5 miles in maybe 30 minutes or so.
I really didn’t feel much like a run this morning, not least because it was chucking it down with rain! However, as Daren often says, “rain before seven, clear by eleven”, and so it was today.
I met Daren and Lyra at Jack & Jill windmills and whilst Jack was still missing it’s sails, Jill’s sails were merrily turning in the wind… I can’t remember the last time that I saw that!
We walked to the top of Home Hill and then jogged down into the dip and to the top of the next rise. Then we resumed walking until we got to Ditchling Beacon. .. whilst Lyra quite literally ran circles around us, and around one or two dogs that she encountered on the way. There were occasional flurries of light rain, but nothing to really dampen the experience.
We decided to drop down the scarp slope and walk along the underhill lane. The going as we descended was slippery, and at one point I ended on the ground, propped up with my hand in a bramble bush… ouch!
We chose one of the borstals to get back up to the top… the view to the north was amazing!
From the top of Home Hill, we gently jogged down to the car park. Just under 5 miles, according to Daren’s app, in just under 100 minutes. .. mainly walking, though we may well have run a mile in total.
I’m curious to see how effective my coffee runs have been for my recovery… I’ll let you know next time I post… hopefully you won’t have another 10-month wait this time!
I feel compelled to add a postscript: I put my running kit on to wash, and at the last minute added my Gore running jacket, as it had mud down one sleeve after my slip. The jacket is more than 15 years old, but is branded FosterRuns.com and is super-comfortable, so I’ve never felt the need to replace it. Midway through the washing cycle I realised that my car keys were in the zip pocket 🙁
I stopped the cycle and removed the totally sodden jacket… which had a perfectly dry set of keys zipped in the pocket. That speaks volumes about the quality of Gore jackets! Phew!
A year ago, I started running on the spot each time that brewed coffee… that is, after my initial quadspresso of the day.
It is clear from my detailed record keeping that I stopped counting around a month ago, though I’m still maintaining what has now become a well-worn habit.
There are more than 320 runs recorded here for 11 months, so I reckon that the tally for the year is in excess of 350…. approaching 24 hours of running, or almost 2 hours each month.
Across that time I have also been turning the temperature to cold for about 90 seconds at the end of my morning showers.
These low-friction experiments have left me feeling at least a little more alive than I did this time last year. 🙂
After weeks of micro-training (if we can agree to call it that for ease?) I finally got out for a run with Daren this morning.
It almost didn’t happen, because one of us had a moment of reluctance yesterday! This could have easily been either of us, but fortunately the other one had been looking forward to the run sufficiently to be able to tip the balance of the decision.
We decided not to do the loop, but rather to simply go from the Windmills to Ditchling Beacon (and on to the bottom of the next hill), and back… walking the ups and only running the downs.
Our accompanying conversation typically has the essence of a game about it, which reminds me of squash. In squash it’s important to dominate the T, in the centre of the court, in order to make your opponent (actually, it always used to be me) run round more and tire themselves out, while you’re able to serenely pick your shots and think about what’s going on. In our conversational game there is no opponent, but a well-timed open question means that you get to be pulled up the hill by the other’s answer, rather than gasping for breath and cognitive bandwidth yourself.
There was a slight disagreement about the distance. Daren’s watch claimed 4.5 miles, whereas Strava reckoned it was 4.99 miles, and dropping pins onto Google maps suggests maybe 4.8 miles. Whatever the number, we were moving for 84 minutes… so we’re well into the super-slow category in either case, which suggests that we need to do more running!
While I’m on the subject of running more, whilst the conversation only had two participants, we did actually have a third compatriot with us…. little Lyra. She ran circles around us the whole way (easily twice our distance), and looked like she was ready to go again when we returned!
On 14sep, Daren called to invite me to do the double downhill loop, after a long absence. I did actually have a plausible reason for not being able to go, but what terrified me was that I was so out of shape, given a decline in motivation to even climb aboard the running machine, that the loop might actually have finished me off!
When we’re completely stuck like that, it pays to find a way to do something rather than nothing, and something which is simple enough that you can do it regularly.
My simple something was essentially ‘running for coffee’.
My hob-top quadspresso machine takes just under 4 minutes to brew and for many years I have used that time in the morning to do some simple qigong breathing and stretching exercises, along with a tiny bit of yoga, before sitting to enjoy the coffee.
But I often have one or two more cups when I’m working at home, and it struck me that I could use that time to gently run on the spot. I reasoned that this was about as friction-free as it’s possible to get, in terms of exercise… and that if I couldn’t manage something this simple, then there was likely to be a more fundamental problem!
I started that day with two cups of coffee, and have managed to keep it up across the intervening 7 weeks, sometimes setting a timer for four minutes when I didn’t fancy a coffee. However, I’ve not been slavish about doing it every day as, for example, it’s not so easy to do in front of other people when I’m on campus.
Using my dodgy mental arithmetic, I reckon that 63 stationary runs equates to around 3 hours of running… not bad considering that I would otherwise simply be waiting for my coffee!
It’s been a while, but house guests often stimulate the neural links to spark new ideas, or forgotten habits. So, with thanks to my temporary house guests Nigel and particularly Kristin, I have done both yoga and a one-mile run on the machine this morning.
Regular readers will already know that running tends to lower my resting heart rate and help me think more clearly, both of which would be useful at the moment given a range of really interesting cognitive challenges… ones which are largely positive in nature, but gnarly nevertheless 🙂
While I have your attention, I’d also like to report that I had a short mental break last night. It had been raining most of the day, and I’d had my head buried in my work, so I stuck my head out of the window to get some fresh air before bed and realised that it was really calm and warm outside.
So I went to sit in the teahouse for a while, with the sweet fragrance of the honeysuckle drifting across from time to time, and a short rain shower pattering gently on the roof for added effect. The photo below makes it look quite light, but by the time I headed back to the house it was difficult to see in the darkness. Overall, very calming 🙂
I feel sure that you know the kind of night that I woke up from… one where your mind has been whirring clunkily and your body seems incapable of settling into a comfortable position… it has become a regular occurrence for me, and almost always on a Monday night.
It’s little comfort that the person who provokes this regular storm in my mind is probably also having a sleepless night. I think that we’re both good at our jobs (although on a Monday night I generally end up reasoning that I’m really not), but we somehow find it impossible to work constructively together… and trust me, it’s not for the want of trying over the last year and a half.
If you are experiencing something analogous to this in your own life, then I send you positive vibes 🙂 Most times it’s worth pushing through the pain in order to find a solution, and we generally grow as humans through the process, irrespective of the outcome.
However, sometimes we need to know when to move on… as the running machine keeps subtly telling me.
My work is about crafting solutions to human problems, so it’s doubly frustrating that I can’t solve my own challenge, but what keeps me going is the belief that relief is just around the corner.
I took a run on the machine this morning (under duress, from the perspective of mind and body) with the aim of getting to that mythical corner a little faster. Of course, you will immediately spot the irony here, given that I’m effectively running on the spot, and thus going nowhere!
Happy running… and keep pushing on through the pain 🙂
Recently I’ve been experiencing the Monday night blues due to a meeting that I regularly have at the start of the week. The effect of this has lessened over time, and yet it still surprises me when I reflect back on a Tuesday morning.
Exercise is often an antidote to low moods and my hope was that by having a run this morning I would get my mojo back for the rest of the week… we’ll see if it works.
In the meantime I feel happy that I’ve managed a run each week this month. albeit short and on the machine.
Sending you positive vibes to help you get past your low points 🙂
