This morning was one of those mornings when I would quite happily have foregone my run. Quite frankly I felt as if someone had already beaten me up, added to which I had a troubled night’s sleep, at one point being rudely awoken by both legs cramping at the same time!
The culprit was spending most of yesterday in the garden, trimming both hedges and a few other bushes to boot, cutting the grass and so on. But Kim was even worse off this morning, as she had been scraping the moss out from between the brick pavers yesterday and could hardly stand up straight!
When I finally left the house around half eleven, it was with a little double-think going on. On the one hand I thought I would go for a moderate run through the local woods (it was super windy out there), whilst on the other I planned to go to Blackcap… though with plenty of latitude to turn around at any point!
Even as I took the first strides down the road, the refrain of ‘I feel just like a Time Lord’ by Sisemore played through my head (in fact I had woken up with it in my head… Russell would be VERY happy with that, I’m sure, especially on his birthday!) and this tune followed my all the way to the end of my run! I quite often complete long runs to one song and whilst this may seem somewhat irritating (which occasionally it is), most of the time it keeps part of my brain busy, maybe so it doesn’t notice the pain so much.
I headed out across the Common and past the Industrial Estate, then through Blackbrook Wood to the Westmeston path. As you approach the South Downs you get a distant view of my route up past Queen Victoria’s V.
Despite telling myself that I could turn around at any point, my feet kept pulling me along… and then up to the top of the Downs. I was surprised that the path up past the V did not seem to trouble me at all and I reached the top with no need to rest… except that I had to put my jacket and hat on because it was so windy. I reached the top right on the hour.
Whilst I could have easily turned around right there, I thought I would carry on to the top of Blackcap (or maybe even to the gate to Lewes Racecourse) as this represented a more worthy goal… although I had forgotten how far along the top it was. By the time I reached Blackcap I had run another 15 minutes which, whilst not a concern of itself, would mean that my total run would now be over 2.5 hours.
I turned round into the stiff wind pausing to take a photo of what looked like a band of rain making its way across my path home.
I made it back to the gate to the hill in about 16 minutes and then stretched out down the hill. As it happened the sun came out, although there were some goodly dark clouds roaming around.
By the time I had passed the two hour mark I was starting to fade, with my pace slowing and the desire to stop growing. But the song kept cycling and barring a couple of very brief pauses, my feet kept pushing on.
Despite tired legs (actually it was my back that was the epicentre of the pain, for some reason) I strode out along the final quarter mile of pavement, making the end in 2.33. Two and a half hours on from this and I’m still feeling like I’ve only just stopped running, despite copious amounts of toast and tea, plus a shower… yes, cold shower on my legs, despite feeling somewhat chilled. NB I should point out that I had considered wearing longs today, due to the temperature, but it seemed churlish as it was still September!
I made a self-satisfied (Kim said smug!) laugh when I realised that I had covered 6 miles in that first hour, including running up the scarp slope at the end! I pretty much carried this pace for the rest of the run too, covering 15 miles in 2.33… 5.9mph. I am VERY happy with that!