After my timing error the other week, Daren was careful to reiterate 8.30am to me when we spoke yesterday. So when he called at 8.30am this morning, I really thought he was playing a prank… fortunately he was just running a few minutes late.
We had agreed to meet at Clayton Rec again, and decided that, as a variation on our current favoured route, we would go & tackle the tank tracks first rather than at the end. This was a good idea, most especially as additional energy was required to overcome the constant foot slippage in the muddy topsoil. Running up this hill without stopping is a real test of resilience, even for us, er, seasoned runners (HA!) so it was with self-congratulatory cheers that we arrived at the top!
It was then slightly strange, running down towards Jack & Jill, knowing that this wasn’t the end of the run… I would have even missed the left turn that the South Downs Way makes had Daren not remembered.
Once through Pyecombe village we ran up and on to Wolstenbury Hill, Daren keeping my mind off the hill itself as he started to introduce the thinking behind a stunning business idea. It’s always hard to convey how much fun we have on our runs, but this photo, taken at the top, might give you some idea.
Then it was down, down, down the other (steeper) side, which was fortunately not as slippery as we had feared. After some slippery paths lower down and some mildly muddy bits, we emerged back at Clayton Rec.
Alas, with the cars in sight, Daren’s GPS watch piped up to say that we’d not quite covered 6 miles, so we had a quick run around the football pitches to make up the distance… adding a quick sprint for good measure.
Our 6 miles had taken us 1.15, 4.8mph, but quite acceptable given the hills tackled (both up and down need to taken easy in this weather… unless your name is Dai Thomas, of course) and the amount of conversation shared.
And that was that, except that I suddenly had the urge to do a little more. So leaving Daren changing his shoes, I headed for the windmills and the track to Ditchling Beacon.
You can see from the photo above that it was a murky old day and where I had felt warm all the time we were talking while we ran, I now felt the chill coming through the layers onto my chest.
Visibility was pretty limited, but twice as I ran to the Beacon and twice running back, the colour temperature suddenly rose as the sun tried to break through and the landscape around me went from black and white to colour… motivating a HUGE smile from me each time.
At the Beacon I called Cliff, on the off-chance that he had decided to run along this way from his start point in Lewes… alas he had gone south and was somewhere on the top of Beddingham Hill.
I ran back through the murk and thought I would take this picture to give a sense of what I was running through.
To be fair, this was around behind Jack & Jill and was the only proper snow that I had come across. It was fun running through it but it does give a sense of both the temperature and the mist.
Back down the steep hill to the car, but a glance at my watch showed that I had a few minutes before I had run a whole hour, so I did a second loop of the playing field to make the time up.
5.25 miles in 1 hour, er 5.25mph… quicker than earlier as I only had one hill to go up/down and probably because my distance wasn’t verified by a satellite!
Overall 11.25 miles in 2.15, pretty much bang on 5mph. GREAT morning!