Kim & I drove into London yesterday for a family gathering and I used this as a good excuse not to run. Having managed to run for four weekends consecutively (after an extended period of more irregular runs), the pressure was on and I got up this morning knowing that I had to get out there.
With my 15th birthday tomorrow (I realise that I’m showing either my age or dyslexia), I was also keen to go further afield than my normal circuit and I had wondered about running from Jack & Jill.
Tough luck then that the torrential rain that had been forecast on BBC Weather for yesterday, was now scheduled for lunchtime today… just when I was going to be in the middle of my run!
Undaunted, I donned shorts and my rain jacket and jumped in the car. When I got to Jack & Jill, I was slightly less keen to jump out of the car on account of the low cloud and drizzle but, thanks to my training with Big Man Daren, this was only a temporary cognitive hurdle to negotiate. I was soon running up the hill into the mirk.
There was not a whole lot of landscape to see, but this made me focus more on what I could see… ponds & puddles in the main.
My arrival at Ditchling Beacon coincided with some walkers who were originally from Lancashire who very kindly took a photo of me standing on the trig point.
I was not at all sure that I wanted to go very much further before turning around, yet at the same time I didn’t want to have to ‘fess up to you that age, fitness or the weather had truncated a decent run before the end of the year… thus I continued on, and on, until I reached Blackcap, where there’s another trig point (but alas no-one around to photograph me).
Strava conveniently showed that I had completed 4.7 miles, so I ran on down the hill a little way and turned round at a bush which was growing at the 5.1 mile mark.
The return journey was a mirror image of the outbound in all but speed, which was a little slower. I’d blame the terrain or the elevation, but the turn-bush seems to be at almost the same altitude as Jack & Jill, so it can only really come down to my level of fitness!
According to Strava I covered 10.3 miles in 100 minutes, which gives a not unreasonable average of 6.18 miles per hour.
I kept expecting the forecasted torrential rain, but, if anything, the mirk was starting to clear by the time I got back to the car… it was very disappointing, but I had a nice cold shower when I got home instead.
That’s an amazing time given the weather and the wet muddy probably quite slippy terrain!!