One of the great things about getting up at six every morning coming out of winter was watching the dawn break earlier and earlier. Now when I get up it’s already light and this morning was clear and bright and spring-like. From inside, at least. Outside, there was a keen edge to the wind which made me change my Rono long sleeve top for my Gore jacket at the last minute. The super-soft Rono under-layer stayed firmly in place, as did the shorts… my token gesture to acknowledge it’s slowly getting warmer.
The aftermath of my Sunday run was not pretty… the back end of Sunday and pretty much all of Monday were spent energy-less… stuffing verily knocked out. However, Daren encouraged me to run this morning so out I went.
The first thing I noticed was that it was not as cold as I’d thought. I followed the same route as March 8th, being Royal Oak, Wivelsfield, West Wood, Industrial Estate, Magical Path, Common back and en-route came across Lew standing in his back field supping coffee. If I was a serious runner I would have waved and carried on, but I’m not. People are far more important and so we stood & chatted for a while over his garden fence, if that’s what he calls it! I was glad I had worn my jacket, standing chatting.
En route back I realised why it had seemed warmer… I had been running with the light wind. With it in my face across the Common it was way colder and once again the protection of the jacket was appreciated.
Mud-wise, the ground was springy, firm and beaten flat, with a small amount of surface mud from the rain yesterday. I’m sure I’ll find a lot more mud as the Spring develops, but I had brushed off the caked-on mud after my Sunday run so at least today my uppers were clean. Ish.
The 5.2 mile route took me 55 minutes, somewhat longer than on the 8th, but I had stood chatting for a while… if it was longer than 5 minutes, which I suspect it was, then I’m running faster than I was then. That makes the exertion of Sunday more worthwhile.