It was comparatively chillsome as I stood waiting for the guys at Falmer this morning. It was clearly not that cold though, as Andy and Cliff arrived and stripped to shorts and t-shirts. To be fair, I was also wearing shorts, but my Gore jacket had snuck itself on to my person and I didn’t feel warm enough to deny it passage.
Falmer is a great place to start from, as the initial hill is long, at 1km, but not too steep. Once at the top, the next ten minutes is flat or slightly downhill so you get warmed up pretty well without overdoing it. At the Newmarket Copse however, the boys seemed to have a tad of trouble the the gate.
From there we ran up to the ridge and along Juggs Road, where my Gore jacket finally became a Gore belt. We didn’t see any well-laden women while we were there, but I guess that they would probably take their wares by road these days… and before you assume that I’m being lewd in some way (qui, moi?), you may want to read this!
We were however somewhat surprised and delighted by the demonstration by the Advanced Mowing Class.
Despite the absence of Sam, or any fishwives for that matter, the view of Seven Sisters from the top of Swanborough Hill was marvellous.
From here we dropped down to the bottom of the valley near the Balsdean pumping station and it was lovely to feel the now-warm wind blowing the cobwebs away.
And then we started the long grind back up to the Newmarket ridge, taking in Standean Bottom and Falmer Bottom, before reaching the steep hill of the Castle Hill nature reserve. From previously cruising along at the back, Andy suddenly exhibited the competitive streak for which he is well known, by pretty much sprinting up the hill, while Cliff and I languished behind… walking.
From the top it’s pretty much downhill all the way back to Falmer and on that last 1km section, I opened up my stride and let the speed flow. At least for a while until I got the stitch! I then cruised happily along until I heard Andy bearing down on me, at which point I opened up all the stops again to make certain that I reached the final gate at the front of the pack!
The run seemed like it was a really long way, but it was in fact only 8.5 miles. It also seemed at least as fast as last Sunday, but at one hour 26 minutes, we only averaged 6mph. We did stop a number of times to take pictures, to pee, to work out where we were, and where we were going, to pee again (Andy), and again etc… whether this would account for the 13 minute difference between 6mph and 7mph I don’t know, but it’s probably not that bad.
