Author: FosterRuns

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My goodness, you’ve put on some weight!

At the end of our run on Monday, there was a short exchange that has set some very particular wheels in motion. Well, legs really. Up until that exchange, Daren had been looking for someone mad enough to run the Tour d’Mont Blanc with. ‘Nuff said?

Bearing in mind that the TMB route is circa 120 miles long, with about 10,000m of height gain and height loss (greater than climbing Everest from sea level), it may seem strange that I wasn’t out on the Downs this morning doing some hill work.

Actually, part of the reason was that I had been edging grass verges yesterday (see England Garden Gang) and also felt as if I’d put on a little weight (more of that later). Rather than get injured in early training, I thought I’d stick to a flat route.

I set out at 8.25am to get the run over before it got too hot and made my way down the road route that I’ve run frequently… down to Wiveslfield Station, along to the London Road and then South towards Hassocks. It’s a good route for thinking about stuff and because I know where the mile markers are, I’m able to gauge my pace to a certain extent.

Despite not feeling as fleet of foot as normal, I made good time and was surprised how consistent my pace was at 9 minute miles. This is not the fastest I’ve run down here (which is an average 7.9 minutes per mile), but more recently I’ve struggled to run it this quickly.

I turned in Hassocks at the four mile marker and ran back to the outskirts of Burgess Hill, before returning to the Hassocks turn point a second time, now six miles. In late February when I first ran this route, the guys from Crawley Community Payback were busy doing the verge edges on the outskirts of Hassocks and it was still really clear the short stretch that they had completed. The balance of the way down the road, the path is getting narrower between the encroaching verge on one side, which is breaking up the pavement, and the encroaching hedge on the other. Bearing in mind this is both a footpath and a well-used cycle path, I think it deserves a little more care, not that people in the Council care what I think!

I retraced my steps back via Wivelsfield Station and up Junction Road making it to the end of the ten-mile run in a shade less than 1.30… 9 minutes per mile or 6.67mph. Despite being pretty red in the face compared to normal, it was a nice run and good timing to boot… rather than getting hotter, it was actually raining lightly as I charged up the road towards the end and within ten minutes of getting back the rain was coming down like stair rods.

But wait a minute… or rather, weight a minute. The reason I felt heavier this morning was because I was wearing a rucsac weighing 10lbs, or 4.5kg and I still ran faster than the last time I did this route! It’s likely that the TMB pack will be more than twice this weight, but I feel reassured… nay, as Phil Stupples would probably say, I feel GOOD, nah, na na, na naaa, I knew that I would now, la, la la, la laaa!

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Tank Tracks (Alternative) route

There are many downsides to being currently underutilised workwise, but one major upside is being able to run with friends on a beautiful weekday morning… a little like a male version of the ladies who do coffee, but without the challenge of parking prams in the coffee shop.

The run this morning was also a little more poignant as our very good friend Penny’s dad Brian passed away suddenly last week and he has touched each of our lives. I’ve known Penny since Primary school and Brian was like a bright red, fun thread weaving its way through life’s rich tapestry.

Probably like most people, I regret not spending more time with my family and friends, but thankfully my last memory of Brian is only from April this year and is a great way to remember him. He was standing in their flat with the sun streaming through the open doors, chatting comfortably with us about an irrepressible burst pipe, whilst wearing only his underpants. He was a sensibly uninhibited man endowed with the loveliest of families, a real sense of fun and, well, let’s just say that he was clearly, well, well endowed! Too much information, maybe, but that’s good memories for you!

So four of us met for a run at Jack & Jill in the high humidity of a bright, sunny morning… Daren, Dai, Henna and I. Dai was keen not to do any hills so we gratefully followed his lead (though maybe it was really Henna’s lead)… which took us down the hill to Clayton, along Underhill Lane and up the path to the right of the Tank Tracks. Having reached the top we decided the correct notation should be Tank Tracks (Alternative), as it’s almost steep enough to be a climbing route!

At the top we turned left and ran towards the Beacon, with much conversation about how to stay more or less on the flat stuff. There’s a small pond alongside the path and it being hot, Henna suddenly hurled herself in to cool down… some people are just born crazy! Then Dai led us to the flat South, down towards Patcham and around in a grand sweep of hot, dry hills back to Pyecombe Golf Course and the cars.

Opinions varied as to the distance, depending on whether the satnav had been started at the car park, or five minutes into the run at the bottom of the hill, but we finally agreed that it was 6.3 miles, which we had covered in an amiable 1.23.

We did discuss elongating the run as we had done on Sunday, but the new MUM rule (Made Up Mileage) states that we can only do that if the distance is over the .5 mile mark. Frankly it’s a fairly elitist rule though, as without a satnav I generally have no idea how far I’ve run in the first place!

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Bitten Bok bottom

After weeks of running once a week and on my own, I’ve now run with two different friends in three days.  This morning I met the Bok at 6.30am (eeek) for a quick run around the local area… and quick it was too.

We ran 7 miles in 1.01 which actually equates to an average speed in excess of 7mph if you take out the time spent trying not to be eaten by two big, poorly behaved dogs.

I actually felt teeth on my elbow at one point as the two dogs jumped angrily around us, whilst the Bok came away with skin missing on his butt… it was a really scary moment and difficult to erase from my mind so I really hope that he doesn’t inflict the view on anyone else!

I suspect that what happened was the owner saw us running up the field behind her and called her dogs to her, fearing for our safety… the dogs heard the fear in her voice and misinterpreted it.  Easily done, as we humans know all too well and no harm done, bar the lingering picture of a bitten Bok bottom!

Our route, for the memory banks, was out past Ote Hall and the pyjama-llamas, down Hundred Acre Lane and back down the Magical Path to the Bok sanctuary.  We were deep in conversation the entire way around, such that I was surprised both by the distance and the speed… and whilst I didn’t even think to take any photos, it actually felt like a walk in the park.  Must do that again… sans the dog bite, obviously.

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Of Running Stitch

Strangely, despite the severity of the run today, the reference to running stich is not passing comment on our dubious fitness levels, but rather on our poor needlework skills.

After a typically lengthy absence, it was an honour today to run with The BIG Man, fresh from his travels and travails.

The BIG man’s plan was somewhat crazy, especially bearing in mind that he was sporting something of a hangover and I was suffering from sleep deprivation… having gone to bed around 2am and gotten up again at 6am, on a Sunday, I ask you. We were to run along the Downs, taking each consecutive path between the top and the bottom… my expectation was that we probably wouldn’t get too far!

In order to run up the Tank Tracks, we started by running down the hill from Jack & Jill to Clayton and along the road… nice start, especially as we arrived at a mutually agreeable pace that is generally referred to as Slow. The pace suited us well on the inevitable first climb and we managed admirably… just as well as we had a spectator watching us towards the top in the form of a friendly competitor of mine, Paul Hopwood. Not that we could stop to chat for fear of breaking our resolve.

In retrospect we could have gone straight back down the adjacent bostal from there, but instead we ran along the top to the more vertical path that drops down to the bottom of the Ditchling Beacon road. Cliff ran up and down this steep track countless times (I think to emulate the height of Everest) in order to gain the sponsorship money to go on Operation Raleigh all those years ago.

We ran along Underhill Lane and back up my favourite Beacon track which wends its way up slightly further down the hill from the climbing road. Two hills didn’t seem quite enough, so we ran down the next bostal to Westmeston and back up through the top of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee V… I seem to vaguely recall that there had been plans to plant trees to form another letter next to it (R for Regina or A for Albert?), but she sadly died in the intervening period… although the validity of my source is forgotten so this may be totally spurious!

As every good needle-worker knows, what we had done to this point could be considered to be running-stitch and not the most stable of sewing styles. Bravado (or maybe memories of needlework class at Woodingdean Primary School) therefore made me suggest that we did cross-stitch, zagging our outbound zigs on the return leg and creating a much stronger, er… well, let’s not try to take the analogy too far, huh?

Thankfully the BIG man, he sayeth (words to the effect of) No, which let me off the hook from my rather stupid suggestion. Instead, we ran gently back along the top, via the trig point at Ditchling Beacon, to Jack and Jill again.

Back at the cars Daren made one tiny error, mentioning that we had completed 9.75 miles… too close for me not to want to complete the other quarter-mile. He gracefully agreed (quite frankly, this is blatant writer’s licence) and we ran back off up the hill, returning a few minutes later having completed the requisite distance… in some ways it was a neat knot to complete our needlework class.

So, ten pretty arduous miles in 2.10, an unsurprisingly slow 4.6mph, and one of the most enjoyable runs in ages… in between all our laughing and whooping, of course!

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Back to the Bronze Age

A couple of weeks back I went to Plumpton Agricultural College where the Principle, Des Lambert, gave members of BHBPA a guided tour of the facility.  It was a really interesting evening, which started by him driving us up onto the Downs in a LandRover to show us the college from above.  Once up there he gave us a fascinating history lesson of the area, which included pointing out where there had been a Bronze Age settlement.  He also regaled us with tales of a couple of the interesting characters who are often to be found walking up on the Downs.

So my task today, after the second ‘no-run’ Sunday in a month last weekend (more about that later), was to find said settlement starting from my folks place.

I had envisaged it as a fairly straightforward run with a diversion, but when I reached the top of Woodingdean I decided to try running along the new path that follows the Falmer Road to, er… Falmer.

Once over the A27 bridge and through the other half of the village I passed Cliff’s old place (the house, incidentally used to be old and full of character/s, but now sadly has the appearance of a new-build) and then noticed a path opposite, which I followed up to the Uni sports pavilion.  From here I took the path towards Blackcap, but dropped off to the left at the top of Waterpit Hill.  [Yes, Cliff, I’m looking at the map!]  This goes down and then up steeply to my goal.

There’s not much to see (the people are all long gone, for starters), but it’s a beautiful tract of land with a wooded valley winding down the hill.  And amazingly, one of the people that Des mentioned, Michael, who was out for a walk.  He was the kind of charming and interesting gentlemen, like Des himself, whom one could have happily chatted to all day, so I at least paused to chat for a short time… while he gallantly prevented one of his dogs from eating me!

The land eventually rejoins the South Downs Way but not where I expected it to, so I’m glad I didn’t stick to my original plan!  From there I took a wander up to the next wood to see if I could see the remnants of an old house Des had mentioned… alas no joy though.

Then I struck for home again, this time running down towards Balmer Farm.  In the midst of the farm was a lone signpost propped up against the wall and though I was fairly certain that it was pointing in the wrong direction, I followed it across towards Falmer to save myself having to run alongside the busy A27.  The downside was that it crossed a deep valley and by the time I reached the top of the other side, near the sports pavilion, I was pooped.  And on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence… so the sign was definitely not correct.

I ate some jelly babies and made my way down into Falmer before retracing my steps back along the Falmer Road path, returning to my folks’ place in 2.17.  Allowing for maybe 10 minutes split between talking to Michael and searching for an absent house, I covered the 10.9 miles at an average pace of 5.15mph.  Pitiful pace, but a really wonderful run!

I mentioned that there was a reason for my absence from these pages last weekend.  You can find it at www.EnglandGardenGang.org.  It may sound a bit crazy, but it’s worth a thought!  Enjoy!

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Over and out…

… as in, the run was over and I was out for the count.

I met Mark up at Jack & Jill yesterday morning for our 14 mile circuit and though it felt like an early start, it was late enough to bump into Maria coming back from a later than normal 8-mile run!

We set out on good form but I didn’t get too far up the hill before my energy levels started to wane.  I seriously doubted that I would go the distance, even though I wasn’t quite ready to give up at that point.

Mark has a simple strategy for keeping me going… he asks me to explain something to him.  In this case it was the barmy idea that I alluded to last week, the explanation for which carried me about four miles… you can tell that Mark has tremendous patience!

By this time we were running down towards the A27 so it seemed churlish to bail out there, especially as we overtook a couple of cyclists on the lump and raced to get to the bottom of the next hill before them.  We reached the half-way turn (just ahead of the cyclists, by dint of the narrowness of the path) at 1.10, meaning that we had averaged 6 mph.

The return leg, by comparison, took us 1.30 and although I was guilty of a couple of lame-excuse pauses along the way, the real delays were due to a couple of people we stopped to chat to.

First there was a guy with a £3,500++ Cervelo R5 that even I could appreciate… what an amazing looking bicycle, and SO light!  We weren’t the only ones ogling, as another half a dozen people also stopped while we were standing there talking to him… he was waiting for his cycling buddy to catch him up Ditchling Beacon, which he eventually did!

Second was Gary, another of the people Mark has met running along the Downs over the years (I’m also one of them, if you remember).  This conversation continued long enough that I watched a girl on a horse approach, mosey past and continue plodding up and along the crest of the hill… long enough that it was hard work to start running again!

We ran the final mile or so to the cars, ending with time elapsed of 2.40 for our 14 miles, average 5.25mph (although the return leg actually averaged 4.66mph against 6mph outbound, due to the  various conversations).  Mark probably has a better sense of the running time, but it was way better that I had expected bearing in mind my initial energy levels.

I returned home and collapsed into a chair in the garden, falling asleep for long enough to get tan-lines on my legs.  I then stumbled lightheadedly through the shower and fell into bed where I stayed, comatose, for another four hours… even then I belonged to the sofa for the rest of the evening!

All of which pales by comparison to Pete & Cliff, whose weekend race was over 103 miles in distance and 13,500 feet in combined ascent along the South Downs Way.  It took them 29.5 hours to complete… I’d need to sleep for a fortnight after that!

Respect!  Over and out!

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Early start Sunday

I was planning to help my folks move some flotsam & jetsam and since it was likely to be another warm day, I went to bed early (after an energetic day cutting grass and polishing my car) and got up at 6am.  This meant I was out running by seven and down at their place shortly after ten.

It was a glorious day and already warm at 7am and I was surprised that I had a good flow of energy as I ran off down the road.

Alas, the energy only lasted about 2 minutes and I then had to work hard to keep myself moving.  All the vague inclines felt like major hills and even the downhills offered little respite.

I ran down to Wivelsfield Station, along to the London Road and all the way down past Hassocks to a predetermined place that I know is the five mile marker.

And then I ran back again.  Fortunately an idea was forming in my crazy mind on the way back so the miles went more easily, despite the fact that the return leg took exactly the same time as the outbound.

So ten miles in 1.36, 6.25 mph… and one crazy idea, yet to be unveiled.

The rest of the morning was lifting & carrying stuff around the house & garden and to the tip and it’s little surprise that I had an hour of sleep this afternoon!

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Relaxing stops run

It is seldom these days that you will catch me watching the news.  I subscribe to the view of author Nassim Taleb, who says it is ‘full of noise’, in contrast for example to history, which is devoid of it.  One example of this is what journalists do when there is no story to share… rather than saying nothing and going straight to the next programme, they share what they don’t know, or what they know didn’t happen.

Well, today I didn’t run.  And like a journo, rather than stay silent and have you wonder where my post was this weekend, I’m going to tell you about the non-run.

After a busy week I entered the weekend pretty tired out and then had the kind of quiet, relaxing Saturday that you may have come to expect of me…

First I gave the 15-foot hedge at the back of the garden a manicure with a hedge-trimmer.  Then I trimmed back my neighbour’s 20ft Philadelphus where it overhung the tea-house.  Then I cleaned the baked-on residue of the Phily-flowers from the (normally see-through) tea-house-roof.  Then I manicured the other neighbour’s 20ft Laurel where it overhung the fence, followed by trimming a couple of my more normal sized shrubs.  Then I moved on to edge the lawns, then cut both them and the 1 metre-wide border of the green across the road that the council grass-cutter couldn’t be bothered to cut.  One of my elderly neighbours said the guy had done a quarter of the job… harsh, but not far off!  I bagged up all the cuttings from the aforementioned manicuring and… moved on to wash the cars.  To be fair, that just about finished me off last night!

So this morning, whilst I might just have squeezed in a run before the sun broke through and the temperature soared, I decided to have a Sunday off for a change.

Except for having to clean Kim’s car again thanks to the sterling efforts of a seagull to cover it front to back!  A little like a newspaper, it was black and white and read all over.

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Taking a more permissive footpath

It was a Woodingdean day, partly because it was Father’s Day and partly because I had forgotten it was the London to Brighton bike ride.  In fact I only realised the latter en route and was then surprised how easy the traffic was… although it was only a little after 9am.

My intention today was to run to Southease, crossing sufficiently into Cliff’s back yard to call it an incursion without running the risk of discovery.  That’s nonsense of course… I just figured that if I ran the other 2.5 miles to Cliff’s place, then there would be little chance that I would feel like running back again the same day!

My outbound route took me the straightforward way, leaving Woodingdean on Drove Avenue and following the ridge (and the South Downs Way)  all the way around in an arc and down to Rodmell, where I found a new and may I say very open-minded footpath which took me along to the Southease road.

I crossed the bridge quickly (in case of Trolls) and ran as far as the station to prove that I really was there.  So far so good, with 6.6-ish miles taking me 67 minutes, 5.9mph.

The return leg was slightly more convoluted and seemingly, considerably more uphill.  I started by running up and through the deliciously pretty Telscombe (as opposed to the nearby Telscombe Cliffs, which I don’t personally find so charming).  The village sits in a hollow so there’s a very steep hill to climb to get out to the South.

At the top of the road I then turned right with the intention of running around in a little arc to Balsdean Reservoir, but on a whim instead dropped down into the back of Saltdean and ran up past the football ground.  It looked like it might be a more direct route… but wasn’t at all and rather than having to run up the short hill above the pumping station, I was committed to the longer, steeper High Hill above Pickers Hill Farm.

I always think of the reservoir being at the bottom of Woodingdean, but it’s a mile from there to the outskirts, all uphill of course.

Only then could I drop down Balsdean Road to get back without too much more effort.

The return leg was 7.5 miles and took me 90 minutes, a poor 5mph, although in my defence I did stop to take 19 photos en route.

So 14.1 miles in 2.40, giving an average speed of 5.3mph.

My fears about traffic were not unfounded and there were queues back to Falmer and onto the A27 going towards Woodingdean and also at least back to Pyecombe heading towards Brighton.  Fortunately I was going the other way and whilst it was sluggish in a couple of places, I can’t complain.

Surprisingly my legs have yet to feel tired… although there’s time yet!

 

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Le retour de le Bok

Bonjour tout le monde!

After a particularly slow, frustrating afternoon yesterday, I actually contemplated going out for a run (and I can’t remember the last time that happened of an evening!), whilst dinner was cooking in the oven.

Unfortunately I got sidetracked, but the irrepressible Bok must have picked up the vibes, as about an hour later and completely out of the blue, he suddenly thought to call… to arrange a run!

And so at 7am this morning we set out for a delightful run around one of the old circuits: out to the (recently refurbished but now starting to look decidedly dilapidated again) Royal Oak, through West Wood to the industrial estate and back again via the Magical Path and Ditchling Common.

It was a lovely natterful run but, as in the excellent film Le Retour de Martin Guerre, I had to wonder whether this was really the same Bok that I used to run with… and like the film, in an entirely positive way.

I won’t bore you with the important stuff, but this Bok (quite possibly an imposter) did not lead the charge, actually stopped to catch his breath at one point and though he initiated a final sprint to the end, then didn’t have the famous speed of old.

And yet it took about the same 45 minutes to complete the 5.23 mile circuit as we quite often used to complete it in.  A merest snip under 7mph.

It took me quite a while to work my way back through all the references to the Bok in my blog, to the last time I actually ran with him.  I’m glad I was sitting down when I finally figured it out: 6th December, 2008… WOW!

That’s 2 years and 7 months ago… it may have felt almost like yesterday, but no wonder he seemed a little different!