Author: FosterRuns

After a fun-packed day of sculpting and Scouting yesterday, the alarm this morning was an unwelcome intrusion… especially as it was still dark.  I even fell asleep again on a chair in the space between putting the coffee-pot on and it boiling! But it was all for a good cause as I was meeting Mark at 8am for a run.

Kim and I had returned to Skelton Workshops yesterday for a very pleasant morning to push our sculptures on a little more… it really is such a relaxing environment to work!

Then it was off to Denton for the unveiling of a Blue Plaque, in memory of Ralph Reader of Scouting Gang Show fame, on Cliff & Nessie’s house, which was followed by a mini Gang Show in the local Scout hall.

Last night we had been due to go to a gig in Ardingly, but alas it was cancelled, so instead we used the firewood that Kim had reclaimed last weekend (back when it was hot!) to start the first fire of the season.

This morning was a grey day that threatened heavy rain, but since it was milder than the cold snap in the week, both Mark & I arrived in shorts.  I told Mark that he wouldn’t need his jacket (as I put mine on over a t-shirt) but he wouldn’t listen and stripped to the waist (fortunately from the top down) in the now-filling car-park in order to copy me.

We basically ran to the A27 at Newmarket, with a slight variation on the normal route and then back again.  Neither of us was particularly on form, Mark having picked up a cold from his daughter (for the second time) and me with lingering backache.

Our detour en route took us through the Bronze Age settlements above Plumpton and whilst there were none of our forbears around, it was still lovely to see the landscape where they lived.

Nearing the turn-point, the view of the fields was also worth pausing to capture.

We reached the halfway mark at 1.10, six minutes behind our run with Mach 2 two weeks ago, though some of this difference might have been in the diversion which included a stout hill to climb.  However, the return leg was a slowness of a whole different level… it took us 1.26.  We just got slower and slower.

To be fair, we were, as ever, in deep conversation, but something wasn’t right when a guy walking his dogs caught up with us!  Admittedly he was an ex-runner and was using walking sticks (one of the secrets to our speed in the TMB walk), but it was still disheartening to be caught up with by him not once, but three times in about half a mile!

As we neared the end, Mark admitted that he would have been happy to run a shorter circuit, a feeling that I echoed in spades… a perfect example of the Abilene paradox if ever there was one!  And we didn’t need our jackets either!

So, 14 miles in a laughable 2.36 (I’m not even going to work out how fast that is) before a return to the horizontal on the sofa!

At the point that I met Mark this morning at 8am at Jack & Jill I was feeling a little jaded.  Kim and I had given Karen & Fergus a lift back to East London from an interesting dinner in North London and then driven back to Sussex to arrive very slightly after 3am.  Still, four hours sleep is not bad compared to the first night on the TMB a couple of weeks ago, so I shouldn’t really complain!

The reason for such an early start arrived moments later in the form of another Mark, his being required to work later on in the morning and thus get a run over with early.

We set out and it was quickly clear to me from Mark 2’s easy gait that it was going to be a fast run!  In fact, I reckon that he spells his name Mach!

Surprising then that this was only Mach’s third long run with Mark… although the fact that he is a sprint cyclist might go some way to help explain the obvious power in his legs!

We ran on in an affable way, admiring the scenery as we headed for Blackcap… or rather the path before Blackcap that runs down to Newmarket.

Having had to work hard to keep with the pace, the downhill section finally allowed me to stretch out my legs… but alas, neither of my colleagues was phased in the least by my increased pace.  In fact, when we got to the steep uphill section they continued going like it wasn’t there and disappeared on ahead.

One more downhill and we reached the halfway point in 1.04.

The return leg started as it continued, with Mach stretching out an easy lead up the first hill, Mark following not far behind.

Despite some ungentlemanly behaviour on my part further up the hill (closing a gate behind me and running on, rather than waiting for the Marks), they caught me easily… and again, every time they graciously let me get ahead!

Despite running (way?) more slowly than my companions, I was actually feeling on pretty good form and the dreaded lapse in energy never materialised.  Instead I just ran on (slowly) right to the very end.  I’m not sure whether this was a PB for the route, but it was certainly one of my fastest and I could have run on, which is always a good sign.

So 14 miles in 2.18, almost 6.1mph.  Not bad bearing in mind I’ve not run more than 10 miles for a month.  And a big thank you to the Marks for hanging around for me!

I can say unequivocally that I did not want to run, such that I sat in the sun drinking coffee and avoiding it for a couple of hours this morning.  The excuses that I offered myself included a stiff back from an uncomfortable night bivouacking Thursday, exacerbated by bending over a craft table mounting & framing ten of Karen’s photos yesterday for her exhibition which opens near Old St tube next week; a dodgy-feeling left knee which is probably showing accumulated strain from running with a rucsac for the last few weeks; a general sense of tiredness.

At the end of the day though, none of these feature in the Sussex Men’s League list of allowable excuses so I finally got with the programme and launched myself out the door.

Since I had worn my battered old runners on Thursday night, for the sake of prudence, this was the inaugural outing of my new Saucony splodge.  I wore my thicker spring/autumn socks to pad them out to give them a good trial (based on the likelihood of slightly swollen feet in the Alps)… and quickly forgot that I was wearing them!

Other than pausing to say hi to BeerMatt, m route was unremarkable, following the pavement for the oft-followed five miles to the other side of Hassocks… without any hint of a rucsac to give my back a chance to recover.  I wasn’t exactly running quickly and it took me 47 minutes to get to the turn marker.

My body felt as if it has relaxed a little on the return leg and I began to focus on landing on my outside heel and pushing off from my big toe as physio Andrea Wright taught me… not that I was running any much quicker.  Around the 8-mile mark I ran into a very late April shower and within a few paces I was drenched through, such that my phone became as slippery as a bar of soap!

I ran on regardless of the impulse to soap-up and reached home in 45 minutes.

So 10 miles in 1.32, my back feeling looser, but left ankle having come out in sympathy with its adjacent knee and still feeling generally tired.  So what’s new!

‘Very, very, very, very’, the nice lady in the bright pink sock near the top of Ditchling Beacon paused momentarily to find an adjective which might not offend me, settling on ‘brave’.  Stupid would have been closer to the truth.

The morning had started slowly, with me sleepily escaping to the tea house with a quadspresso to read the Economist.  I ate a banana rather than having some more meaningful fuel as I vainly expected to be out running before too long.  By the time Kim offered me breakfast, over two hours later, I was starting to get peckish, but instead of joining her I finally made it out the front door.

The ruscsack remained unchanged from last week and despite its comparative lightness at 4.5kg, it still felt pretty heavy as I started running.  In fact I could easily weigh that much more without anyone noticing anything odd.  Sadly it looks likely that the final TMB pack will be more than twice as heavy so I’m going to have to ramp up the training weight sometime… just not today!

I hadn’t decided where I was going until I made the turn at the bottom of the road… it was right, so only then did I realise I must be running to the Beacon.

It was a pleasant day for a run, though strange for August becuse of the muddy puddles on the path either side of Oldlands Mill.  Running up the Beacon I realised that I was experiencing no particular pain, just a lot of heat, hence the comment from the nice lady was probably a reflection on the colour of my face, which was in turn was probably a reflection of her pink socks.

I made the top of the Beacon in 53 minutes, which at 5.67mph is a perfectly acceptable time for me without the pack, but I allowed myself three minutes to cool down before I made my way back down.  In many ways going down with the additional weight was harder work than going up, but it was still not painful and I made it safely down the tricky path.

I chose to run down past Sporting Cars and along East End Lane to rejoin my outbound route at Boddington Lane, where the sharp ascent of Home Hill really did tax my legs… such that I paused at the top to take photos.

Then it was a short run back home via Oldlands Mill gleaming with seemingly fresh paint in the sunshine.  I arrived back in 49 minutes, or 6.1mph which is very pleasing for a largely off-road track.  Overall, 10 miles in 1.45 gave an average, including my half-way pause, of 5.71mph.

Still not feeling wiped out I got out to cut the grass (and the green across the road) and then the hedge, but now I AM feeling wiped out… such that I can hear the sofa calling gently to me!  Zzzzzzzzzzz