It was the Burgess Hill Runners 4.5 mile run today and as I passed the 3 mile marker, I glanced at my watch. One hour, 54 minutes. Something wasn’t right. I squeezed past a few more people and then… I inhaled a fly. There’s nothing more embarrassing in company and for that matter, audibly disgusting, than trying to hawk up a fly when you can no longer breath, so my apologies to those of you around me at the time.
There was probably a tiny ripple of confusion when I deviated from the path at the next junction, and disappeared. What may not have been obvious from behind was the lack of a running number. And the fact that I had already run about 12 miles.
Kim dropped me at Jack and Jill again today and I ran heartily along to Blackcap, making it there in 40 minutes. Hoping that I might bump into Mark again, I ran a little further to the next gate before turning for home. The climb back to Blackcap is hard work after the easy run down and I left there the second time around the 55 minute mark.
I passed Kim five minutes later, trying to hide from me behind some boy scouts and then, leaving her to continue, dropped down the scarp slope to Westmeston. The route north from there is a Romanesque straight line with the occasional pretty house, one of which even has a ford and a small footbridge.
There was plenty of mud along the route but it still confuses me why there is always a slurry puddle on the corner where you turn left to go west into the woods.
I was running on low energy reserves by this point and I feel the same as I sit here writing! But then, as I crossed the entrance to the industrial estate, I converged with the Burgess Hill Runners route. There is nothing that peps you up more than running with other people and where the next five minutes would normally have been a stagger, I ran easily along. Even after hawking the fly!
Spat back out onto my own, the true energy situation returned and I battled across the common and back up to the house.
The route was a perfect 21 km / 13.1 mile half marathon and my time of two hours eight minutes, whilst not great at 6.14mph, reflected the fact that this was really a gentle Sunday jog.