I’ve recently been sitting out most mornings in the tea-house enjoying the early morning sun. This week the weather warmed a little and one morning I was sitting in shorts & t-shirt by 7am. Yesterday however, I walked straight out in my running kit at 6.30am and it was already gloriously warm!
Learning from last week how uncomfortable it is running in the heat, I was out on the road before 7.15am, but it was already warm from a running perspective.
With no time pressure, I headed out to Oldlands Mill and up through Ditchling to the Beacon. I love running through little villages when there are no cars around but I do appreciate seeing a few lone souls to say good morning to. I was surprised therefore that the car-park at the Beacon was already mostly full – there was a gathering of 30 or so people on the Beacon itself and I wasn’t quite sure whether it was the ramblers club assembling or a church service waiting to start. I certainly got a couple of looks as I looped around them & headed back the way I had come. 49 minutes is not my fastest time to here, but acceptable.
The sun was hot as I ran East along the top and there were several other runners and loads of cyclists out enjoying it. The white path along to Blackcap felt longer than I remembered but I reached it at 1 hour 15 and turned back again to put the sun behind me.
I caught up with a runner who had paused momentarily at the gate and ran on back towards the Beacon with her, chatting as we went. It is so much easier running with other people and though you sometimes end up running more slowly as a result, the time passes much more quickly and any running pains are anaesthetised. Claire appeared to have a similar resilience to Cliff, which showed from the fact that when in training for the London Marathon, she used to run from Lewes to Brighton pier along the road… and back again. The road element of this is significant to me, as there’s no escaping how far you have left to run!
I left Claire at the top of the Beacon at 1 hour 45 and crashed down the Beacon path and on down to Ditchling. Up Lodge Hill, back past Oldlands Mill and back to Ockley Lane, where I suddenly felt very tired in the leg department. I pushed on regardless and made it back to the house in 2 hours 27 minutes. A quick measure on the map puts the distance at 15.25 miles and the speed at 6.2mph. Both distance and speed are better than other similar runs recently.
I normally have a quiet afternoon after such a run, but instead I spent the afternoon up the ladder painting the house… and since it was quite windy, I found time to also paint the windowpanes, the driveway, the down-pipe etc!
While I remember about it, Claire is running in the Seaford Marathon next weekend, so good luck to her and the rest of the runners!