After attending Clive and Nat’s EXCELLENT party on Saturday night (the new extension is a real triumph guys!) I had only a brief window of running time yesterday morning. Cliff and I had discussed running together, but since he had wimped out of the party on account of having the sniffles (I think that he agreed he was a WUSS, although the rest of us are probably grateful that he didn’t share them with us!), I guessed he’d probably not be up to it.
More through being too lazy to devise another route than any desire to compare times (no, really!), I followed the same route that Dai, Daren & I ran last week.
It had been raining for most of the preceding 24 hours so I guessed it would be muddy, hence decided to wear the orange shoes, but I actually managed to find very little beyond surface mud… the MUD season has clearly not yet started in earnest! The shoes however, are great… go see Kurt at Run in Hove if you want to be prescribed something similar!
There are a few wooden bridges and stiles en-route and these were perilously slippery, but my ice-driving experience got me through!
Let’s cut to the chase, so to speak. The time last week (clearly hampered by a self-confessed Division 2 girl guide) was 75 minutes. My unstressed time for the 7 mile route yesterday was, er um, 62 minutes!
Which brings me to a question regarding Daren’s fitness league. How do we differentiate between the different players? Daren might complain that he’s slow, but if cheerfulness is taken into consideration, he’s way up at the front. Dai is clearly a contender too, as he can get up after months off and run that distance at that speed. Cliff and Pete, both a lot older than me, could run at that speed even if you made them go around the circuit 10 and 15 times respectively. Meanwhile Nick might only run it once, but it would be in about 14 minutes flat.
We clearly need a new differentiator. I propose an annual timed route of about ten or twelve miles, with a handicap system based on the number of miles run by the individual in the previous 12 months… which gives Daren a fighting chance, with only a 65m superyacht to run around for months on end!
To start the proposals coming in, may I put forward the route from my house to the Beacon and back, or alternatively Clayton Church to Blackcap & back. What say ye?
Sounds good to me, though am unsure of how you will accurately guage miles run in the season! I dont keep track so will have to be a guestimation.. What will it prove anyway? That there’s a super league of super fitness… and girl guides (no offence meant to the guides!), or that chatting slows us down on the run?
Its all good fun, like this morning’s little sojourn; it blew away the cobwebs, spread some mud around and we met the Dai-Llama’s again!