On occasions I am SO ready to run on a Sunday morning, but yesterday was not one of these. I knew that I had to be showered and ready to leave the house by 2pm and it was interesting to observe how my mind sank into Flotsametrics, the book that Nigel & Kristin gave me for Christmas, thus shortening the time available to run.
It’s a double edged sword though, as with less time you need more focus and where I would normally run out and follow my nose, I instead planned where I would run to maximum benefit.
I’ve been running sub-Phil Stupples (as in slower than) for some time now (although to be fair I do usually run off-road) and I wanted to see whether this was reversible. So my planned route went down to Wivelsfield Station, along to London Road and then south to Clayton, where I went up the lane 400m or so to make up the mileage. And back again, obviously.
The advantage of pre-planning was that I knew roughly where the miles fell and could thus see how I was doing for a change. It also allowed me to be more deliberate in my choice of clothing, going for cotton socks and no jacket… all the better for running slightly faster!
En route I passed a surprised-looking Mister Matt Beermatt and also the guys from Crawley Community Payback who were tidying the grass verges.
You may be surprised at how delighted I was to see someone edging the grass, but I have been agitating with the local council, my local MP and central government since last year for this very task to be engaged with. My suggested strategy was deeper and more involving, but this is at least a great start!
My lite set-up worked well, as though I was cold to start with, it enabled me to keep up a good pace and arrive back quite literally steaming.
The pace was not the 10 minute-miles that was my backstop to get back in time to go out. Not even Mister Stupples 9.12 pace, but 8.64 miles per minute.
This is not far off the 8.57 pace that I used to run the 7 miles to work from Earls Court in 2004, though then I used to arrive in London Bridge ready to collapse, whereas yesterday I returned having merely enjoyed a fun run.
So 11 miles, 1.35, 6.95mph.