After a late and boozy evening in London on Friday night, and a freezing walk home from the station, Saturday dawned bright and sunny. One of the great things about having your own sun-trap is that it’s possible to sit outside on otherwise quite chilly days and since the sculpture that I had started last year was calling to me, I sat outside and tapped away for a while.
Within an hour or so I had shed fleece, socks, sweatshirt, T-shirt and jeans in favour of an old pair of shorts, it was that warm, although I had to put more clothes on to cut the grass as the micro climate did not extend more than a few feet away from the house.
An hour of sculpting turned into four or five in the end at the end of which the still-really-unfinished piece returned to the house as polished as it had started, just a little lighter!
This morning I would have been quite happy to replay the whole of yesterday, maybe just sitting quietly reading in the sun, but the longer you don’t run, the more difficult it is to persuade yourself to go. So on went the running shorts and my caked-in-mud trainers and out I went into another chilly, but bright morning.
Oh boy, it was hard running down the road! Neither mind nor body were totally enamoured by the idea, and it was a good ten minutes before I managed to put those feelings behind me. By then I had run down towards Oldlands Mill, with the loose goal of running into Ditchling and back again.
Ditchling Beacon is on the other side of the village and I was not entirely surprised to find myself running towards it, feet following well-run paths, almost before I realised what was happening.
I always think of the climb as a test of resolve, something which is a really useful attribute when you run your own company… and especially one that specialises in change management. I make myself run every last step to the very top… people must think I’m mad!
I think that one day last year I made the top in 45 minutes, so to get there in 52 was pretty pleasing bearing in mind how little running I’ve been doing.
I then retraced my steps home again, pausing only to take a couple of photos of the view, making it back in one hour 42 minutes… pretty much 6mph for the 10.25 miles.
That’s the first long run since December, which is pretty appalling, but maybe now I can get back into the swing of things!