Author: FosterRuns

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Extreme Choreography

Cliff is well known for his organisational abilities but today they were tested in-extremis.

But I must first mention that yesterday I spent the afternoon in the garage making a new piece of furniture for my office… a two-storey bookcase for my London Business School folders (although I haven’t managed to find the box with the rest of them in yet!).  My point though is that it’s difficult to gauge how different excuses measure up against one-another, but at least mine was a different one to last week.

Anyway, having got my dig at Cliff in early, I pitched up at Stamner Park with only a vague idea of who else would turn up, or how many… and it was to be many indeed: Mini-me Mark, Duncan (I feel like we’ve met before?), Big Man Daren, Pete (having run from home, show-off!), Lotta (parter of Leigh from last week), Robyn and the indomitable Clifford, who was wearing a t-shirt that somehow managed to accentuate his already huge shoulders!

The merry band of eight set off and somewhat inevitably, instantly spread out, making it difficult for the front runners to know where to go and the back-markers to know where to follow.  Cliff did a sterling job as choreographer, sending faster people up the steeper hills and allowing the slower ones to take sneaky short cuts so that everybody kept together, more or less.

No matter how fast we ran though, Pete would always pull effortlessly ahead, as if gravity was somehow lessened in his vicinity.

And so it was that the ensemble reached Ditchling Beacon for a quick team photo.

Here we split into two groups, Cliff being of the mistaken belief that Mark and I could run as fast as Pete to cover an extra couple of miles and still catch the rest up before they got back.  Fat chance!

We chose to run down the north side of the Beacon, along Underhill Lane and for some obscure and probably hilariously testosterone-fuelled reason, run back up the steepest path in the whole area… the one above Westmeston.  It was here that I discovered that, small as Mark might be, he still makes an excellent break for the headwind if he is running two paces in front of me… as he was an extra few feet further up the slope!

It’s difficult to describe the downhill on the other side as anything other than extremely painful… the wind was so strong that it blew the entire contents of my sinuses up into the back of my head somewhere, where they stayed waiting for a more inopportune moment to be repatriated.

We ran on down, and down until we eventually reached Stamner village, where, devoid of any money between us, we glumly ran past the overflowing tea-rooms with its delicious cakes.

Rather than run straight down through the park, Pete took us up through the woods again, allowing me to demonstrate to myself just how knackered I was!

Thus Pete and Mark had pulled ahead as we ran down the final hill but as I hit the mown grass I started to sprint to close the gap.  Fortunately for me they didn’t notice until I raced past as they were now sauntering along… a chase ensued and there was definitely a winner, although I’m not really sure who it was!

Cliff, Robyn and Lotta were the only ones left to witness our final pirouette, the others having danced off already.  Mark duly disappeared back off up the hill, presumably to go around again… we had only covered 9.2 miles in 1.39, 5.58mph.

Meanwhile I went back with Pete for coffee and was presented with this simply amazing picture by his daughter Lucy, aged 10.  Thank you again Lucy!

Comments ARE welcome!

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A great day!

Tuesday was a great day… it’s just that this week has been too hectic to mention it previously!  The day finished with a lovely meal with Nigel, Kristin, Kim and I, followed by much playing of the guitars… ahead of an early morning to drive them to the airport.

At the start of the day though, I met the big man Daren at Jack & Jill, now loosely referred to as upstairs to Clayton Rec’s downstairs.  We set out on our circuit, generally laughing most of the way around… and though I would be hard pressed to recount what exactly we were laughing about, it may at times have been to do with the mud.

We ran down to Pycombe and up to the top of Wolstonbury where the slightly murky day showed us a sunny edge.

Having slithered down Wolstonbury and into the next valley, we then had a short and very muddy hill to climb.  So convinced was I that Daren would slip over that I held my camera ready for the big moment… only to press the button inadvertently as I slipped myself.

By the time we passed the downstairs car park we were both knackered, feeling that we had already climbed the Tank Tracks before we had even arrived at their base.  It was a supreme act of resolve that enabled us both to reach the top without walking or pausing… the locals must have wondered what all the hoopla was about!

Rather than turning right for the cars though, we turned left for Ditchling Beacon to add a little extra mileage to our route, even going so far as to run around the car-park when we got there.

The return leg was super hard work and the wind against us made it difficult to hear, so laughter was suspended until nearer the end.

Overall 8.9 miles in 1.42, 5.23mph, not bad bearing in mind the hills and the mud.  Daren sent me the image below from his Garmin to show the route with elevation in green and speed in blue… note that the slower the speed, the taller the peak roughly corresponding to gates, stiles or other assorted unscheduled stops… and that huge climb in the middle!

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Kurt-tailing my pace

T’was a Brighton sunny morning and I was really looking forward to adding some more photos to these pages like the ones on the 12th December.  Alas, the second time I remembered that I had forgotten to retrieve my Blackberry from the charger, I was already driving through Ditchling.

At least I had realised earlier, even if I had forgotten to act on it.

I sat at Falmer and waited, hoping that the guys hadn’t changed the venue or the time and watching something I’ve not seen before… a vapour trail that was moving as quickly sideways across the sky as the aircraft making it was moving forwards.  Windy up there then!

Andy arrived first, having cycled from the other side of Brighton and then Cliff pitched up with newbie ‘Leigh, no really a guy (male)’ [strange name huh?].

The guys got their excuses in early.  In addition to running most of the way to work and back one day in the week, Cliff had been swimming (racing?) yesterday with King Mandy (the circuits teacher) and had a bad back this morning.  Andy reiterated that he had cycled rather than driven to Falmer and would be doing likewise on the return leg.  Leigh had never run for more than an hour.  I have no time for excuses.

We ran up alongside the Falmer Road, pausing at the top to wait for Cliff and his excuses to catch up, and then went left across to Newmarket Copse.  From here we ran up to the ridge and out to Kingston on the Juggs Road.  Having run down the Downs, I tested my colleagues mettle by suggesting that we ran back up to the top and come down again.  Leigh said yes without hesitating, Cliff demurred but said he would do press-ups for the duration, which seemed fair enough, but Andy outright refused… sensible man that he is.

We ran onward past the new windmill, past a myriad of potentially beautiful photographs and down into Lewes, before running up to the Prison.  Andy was conspicuously absent as we ascended the hill as he had gone the wrong way at the bottom, or some such excuse… they were all out today.

He moved to the front as we ran up towards Lewes Racecourse, but he disappeared again to stop for a pee and we had to wait for him again a little further up.

As we ran up towards Blackcap we had a little blast of the wind that had been blowing the vapour trail, although my attention was drawn from it by a lithe horse galloping past us into the distance… not one of the normal pony plodders, this.

As I was working out my tactics for beating Andy to the top (a rare trick, if you can manage it), we became aware of some runners sneaking up behind us.  Testosterone to the four, we picked up the pace a little, so I was then surprised when the first two guys slid past me barely ten paces later… one greeting me heartily as he did.

It was the inimitable Kurt from the Run Shop and in order to catch up on news I increased my pace to match his.  Alas, I couldn’t hold it to the top, having used every ounce of my reserves in a ridiculously short distance!  I wished him well and slowed to a crawl, whereupon Andy slid past and effortlessly beat me to the top.

Here I stood, immobilised for several minutes, trying to catch my breath before I did my best to walk after the other guys as they ran off, Kurt and his friends by now having vanished into the middle distance.

I can report that it took me about a mile to get rid of the stitch and another mile to properly get my breath back and catch the others up again… and all after just a sub-50m dash trying to match Kurt’s pace… man, that guy is FAST!  I had no energy left for excuses.

The rest of the run down to Falmer was straightforward bar the occasional and fortunately only vague desire to upchuck.

The observant amongst you might have realised that the only person not left behind during our run, despite never having run for more than an hour, was Leigh… he had just kept on smiling and kept up.  Mind you, he is almost 20 years younger than us… ouch, that hurts!

As the cars swung into view, so Andy picked up his skirts and started sprinting, with Cliff hot on his tail… and when my brain finally registered what was happening, me too.  Thus we finally left Leigh behind, probably shaking his head in disbelief at the display of old testosterone he was witnessing!

So 11.1 miles in 1.50, just over 6mph, no photos and,in my case, a lightly bruised ego!  Kim always knows when I run hard as I fall asleep on the sofa afterwards… having not fallen asleep afterwards for months, I collapsed in a heap in the sun and dozed straight off.

If you’re interested to see where we ran, you can find a record, with photos, of a very similar day on the 17th January 2010.

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Happy 2011

Kim and I have had the pleasure of a full house over Christmas with the number of diners ranging from 3 to 10 and up to eight of us sleeping overnight… and occasionally during the day too.

Alas for me, Kim wasn’t one of them: she spent a wonderful Christmas with her family instead and I only got her back in time for the end of the year!

Suffice to say that between delightful guests, kitchen duties and the icy remnants of the snow, I didn’t really have the inclination to go out running.

On Saturday however, I decided to get out and force-feed my lungs with some fresh, New Year air.  In answer to Cliff’s comment, I have only now got around to posting, as today is the first lull in visitation!

It was a comparatively mild day with a little light drizzle and I ran out past Oldlands Mill and Lodge Hill to Ditchling Beacon, returning via Sporting Cars of Brighton, East End Lane and Ditchling High Street.

At Ditchling Beacon I was, for a few minutes at least, the most elevated man in the area… although technically speaking I was standing about four feet above the ground on the top of the trig point.

As I neared the end of my run, the sky cleared to allow the sun to stream through, like a spring day and this was equally as uplifting.

I was only moseying along and taking in the surroundings and it took 53 minutes to get to the Beacon and a little less to get back once I had taken in the airy view.  Overall I completed 10.2 miles in 1.47, 5.7mph.

And so 2011 began…

Have a great Gregorian year… and if, like me, you favour the older, Chinese calendar, then enjoy the last month of Tigerishness before the Year of the Rabbit begins on the 3rd February.

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Cleats of Clayton

T’was the week before Christmas and all through the snow, the crazies were running shouting YEE, HA and HO; wearing bright lime green trainers or twee Santa hats, they dashed through the snow like a herd of mad cats.

It was a whole day since my previous run, so I felt quite privileged to be out in the snow again, this time in the company of Dai & Daren.  Kim had very kindly lent me her car, which I was pleased about as the side roads at both ends were still white and slippery… no place for the big fat tyres on my rear-wheel drive car.

Dai was sporting his latest pair of off-road runners, complete with incisive cleats… it was quite amazing to see the difference in footprints between our shoes and his… ours were imprints in the snow, his were clear cuts into the ice below.

We set off from Clayton Rec along Underhill Lane and up the tank tracks, the snow making progress heavier-going than normal, which is saying something of that hill!

We turned right at the top and ran down towards Jack & Jill, admiring the bleak views to our left.

The snow was glorious to run on though and we took the South Downs Way down past the golf course and into Pyecombe, glad that we can always be bothered to get out and run, no matter what it looks like outside.  From Pyecombe we followed our normal track all the way to the top of Wolstonbury Hill.

Once on the top we realised the bite in the wind and huddled like kittens in the lee of the trig point.

The steep-steep hill down was a mass of whoops and laughter, Dai showing us how much faster cleated shoes get to the bottom… or maybe he just has a greater sense of gravity.  Either way, his feet hardly seemed to touch the ground.

Further down we saw how brilliant the valley we always thought would be brilliant for sledging really was, which was clearly brilliant.  Although, alas, we didn’t have a sledge to rub between us.

Back at Clayton Rec we ran around the football pitch in order to reach the 6-mile mark… and then had to chase Dai as he raised our 6 miles to 10km by running around again!

So 10 brilliant kilometres,  circa 6.25 miles, 1.18… 4.8mph.  Mind you, we did laugh a lot!

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A week difference in colour

There have been days when I have gotten back from running completely frozen at the extremities and this was the expectation I had of today.  Looking at the photo below you can probably see why.

As much as anything it is amazing how the colour temperature changed between these photos and the ones last week, even though there was little difference in air temperature, both being in the low plus numbers.

From the comfort of a warm chair, reading, I thought I would go for a quick blast around through the woods and come back before my feet dropped off from cold, but it was so delightful running on the crunchy snow that, having crossed the Common, I headed for Ditchling.

Ten minutes into the run my foot went through thin ice into an ice cold puddle, up to my ankle… that certainly woke me up!  Although inadvertent, it was an excellent test of my trusty Thurlo woollen socks and remarkably, the socks warmed back up really quickly and I felt no ill-effect bar the initial shock.

Ten minutes later my path coincided with another runner, also heading towards Ditchling and those of you who have read my musings for a while will know how much I value these fortuitous encounters.  As on previous occasions, the runner, whose name turned out to be Adrian, was happy for me to tag along.

One of the reasons that I love running is that it’s a solitary pass-time which gives the brain time to ruminate whilst you focus on the relatively simple task of putting one foot in front of the other.  Another reason that I love it is for chance meetings such as this.

Experience has shown that other solitary people are generally pretty fascinating to chat to.   Running also provides a great low pressure framework within which to chat, allowing anything from an occasional word or observation right through to a continuous discussion.

This was towards the latter end and so immersed was I in the conversation that the run seemed effortless and I certainly didn’t notice the temperature.

We ran through the farms to Ditchling, down East End Lane and up past Sporting Cars to Underhill Lane.  Here the pull to run up the Beacon was strong for me, but I was enjoying the company so much that I gladly turned right along the lane instead.

We passed the Ditchling Beacon road, which was closed to traffic for obvious reasons and continued on, turning right to run into Keymer.

At the junction we turned right and then left onto the footpath and across the fields to Lodge Hill, and thence up to Oldlands Mill.

From there it was a lovely run down to Ockley Lane and back along Folders Lane towards where Adrian lives.

From where we parted it was an easy run back through the houses to home.

10.95 miles took me 1.52, 5.85mph and I returned feeling invigorated and with surprisingly warm fingers and toes, such that I stood outside for a while to stretch.

My thanks to Adrian for making the run so much more interesting… I hope that we get to run together again in the future.

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Grandstanding

Happiness is a clean car, so I was more than a little unhappy when I realised my car was sitting outside, rather than tucked up in the garage, utterly filthy when I had a visitor on Friday.  More so, as the kind of people who notice these things and think anything of them (like me), tend to reverse park into unfamiliar spaces… which is what he did.

This meant that the key task yesterday was to wash the cars, which I spent most of the afternoon doing, happy as a sand boy… finishing when it was too dark to clearly make out the readings on the tyre pressure gauge!  I was very glad that it was quite a pleasant day, although even today there are lumps of snow that still haven’t melted so it can’t really have been that warm!

I expected to wake up this morning suffering from these exertions but it was too beautiful a morning to notice.  I sat reading my current non-work book for a while, which is this year’s Booker Prize winner, Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question… Kim bought it some time ago and I had made all sorts of excuses not to read it, but it’s actually very enjoyable.

But before the morning had totally expired, I kitted up and got out running.

Mindful as ever of Cliff’s attention span, I’ll try to bring as much brevity to the description of my route as I can, but he’ll have to give me some leeway as it was slightly tortuous… I suppose he could always ignore the words and go to the pictures below.

I ran out of town on the Keymer Road, turning right to Oldlands Mill, left towards Ditchling then right, which took me to the back of Keymer.  I ran through Keymer and Hassocks on the main road then took the path left before the railway bridge.  This took me to Clayton, up to the windmills (the car park is open again, by the way) and across to Ditchling Beacon.

En route I stopped to admire the parascenders floating effortlessly on the steady breeze… I think the collective name must be a school of parascenders, as the van at Ditchling Beacon  said Learn to Parascend on the side.

I don’t often run down Westmeston Bostall, possibly because most times when I do, I end up running back up the steep path as a test of my resilience.  I was thinking about this as I ran down to the gate at the bottom, where there were a couple of cyclists starting the trek up.

It was a classic piece of grandstanding, but I turned around and ran back up, drawing comments of ‘you must be mad’ from both them and from the couple walking down the steep section further up.  Once at the top I ran back along and down the Bostall again, with the cyclists asking if I was planning to do it a second time as I passed them again, half way down.

I was tempted, but time was getting along so I demurred and instead ran along Underhill Lane and back to Sporting Cars in Ditchling passing Westmeston Place en route.  Here I ran up East End Lane and took the path through all the chicken farms back to Ditchling Common.  Then, cutting the corner off, I ran down through the new Folders Farm housing estate, through Folders Lane and back to base.

Photos for Cliff

The weather that had been glorious had turned sour by the time I got back, but it was still a really fun run.  14.4 miles in 2.42 and though 5.3mph is not anything to write home about, I don’t (yet, at least) feel particularly tired from it.

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Fun run

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!

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Congraduations

I think that it’s well worth mentioning that Kim’s daughter Karen graduated from University of Westminster with a BA Hons in Contemporary Media Practice and we attended her ‘Graduand’ ceremony last week.

She has long had a great eye for photographic composition and although she has become a first class photographer, her love is Art Directing where she is already making a name for herself.

Of course she’ll kill me for the grainy photo above!

You can find a selection of her work at www.karenstoreyphotography.com and she has a series of shows coming up in the New Year in Central London.

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A tromp in the frozen countryside

I don’t know why the word tromp seems to come to mind, but it does.  I think it’s the sensation of running on a surface made of crinkly mud that has frozen, not as a solid, but in the way that an ice-box does when it hasn’t been defrosted.  It crunches underfoot in a most delightful way!

It was so cold as I left that by the end of the street I had decided to make it a short run… in fact I very nearly turned back right then!

I headed out towards the Royal Oak and Wivelsfield, my feet leading the way and at one point countermanding an earlier decision on the route to take.  Having realised that I had been on autopilot I turned it off and turned off left to go up through the West Woods in a different direction.

When I hit Hundred Acre Lane, I merely turned back into the wood and followed the fire breaks… I had thought it was a path, but I’m really not sure as it’s not on the map.

Eventually I came out, back onto Hundred Acre Lane, down which I tromped and then on down Streat Lane.

After a detour which proved to me how close Streat Lane is to my normal route to Westmeston, I continued down the lane as far as Streat Church, from where I took the only photos below.  I didn’t want to freeze my camera.

Going west I quickly came back to the Westmeston path and crossing it, came to Spatham Lane.  I suspect the water in my bottle would have long since frozen had I not mixed it with Powerade and I chose now to head back towards the warmth of home, en route saying hi to a chilled-looking Ron excavating his garden to fix a water pipe.

Since it was a day for abnormal routes, I crossed the Ditchling Road at the roundabout on the Common and headed down the path that runs past Freckborough Manor.  This path was well trodden by me a few years back before Daren showed me what was on the other side of the road… and back when I was only running a few short miles before being exhausted.

I returned home in 1.49 having run 10.7 miles, an average of just under 5.9mph.  Actually, I really enjoyed being out and quickly warmed back up to normal working temperature!