Author: FosterRuns

First up… no it’s not Sunday yet, don’t worry!  But may I remind you that the clocks go back tonight… and for some reason, possibly inflation, they are due to change at 2am.

And it’s for this reason that I ran today rather than tomorrow… I was going to trim a hedge for some friends tomorrow afternoon, but they reminded me that, with the clocks changing, it would be dark by about 2pm so I’d better come earlier.

And it was lovely and sunny earlier so I got out and got going.  Being a Saturday I thought I would run somewhere different, so I decided I would stick to the roads and started by running down to Wivelsfield Station.

Here I realised that I’d left my drink in the kitchen, but rather than return I carried on along Leylands Road, where the skies opened for about 5 minutes and soaked me through.

It was warm enough that I was wearing shorts, and my two top layers kept my body warmth in so I didn’t feel the need to unfurl my Gore jacket… yet!

Fortunately I had remembered the last of Cliff’s orange energy beads, so I rationed these out all the way round to keep at least some energy flowing in.

I turned left, South, onto London Road and followed this all the way through and out of Burgess Hill to Hassocks.  As I nearer the Stone Pound crossroads, the heavens opened a second time, but with WAY more gusto!  On went the jacket and just in time for a serious soaking… in fact I was forced to swim through the air for several minutes otherwise I would have been sunk.

Although I had pondered about running on and up to Jack and Jill, the shower persuaded me otherwise… I’ve run down that next section or road in heavy rain a couple of times before and it hasn’t left me with fond memories!  So I turned left and ran through Hassocks, Keymer and Ditchling instead.

At the other side of Ditchling I turned left onto Spatham Lane, fully expecting the rain clouds to envelope me, but as it happens I managed to get away with it.  It did provide a lovely background for some autumnal colour though.

Meanwhile, I capitalised on a large puddle.

From there it was an easy run back across the Common and down Folders Lane to the town again…. and to my patiently waiting energy drink!

An easy 10.95 miles in 1.38, 6.7mph.  The sun is out again now and it’s still only the start of the weekend!

Today is beautiful indeed, with clear blue sky and a gentle, warm breeze.  In fact it looked like a great day to be running on the Downs, so that’s what I did.

I started by running out towards Oldlands Mill, but I turned left before I got there and dropped down into Ditchling High Street.  Once south of the village I took the Beacon Road for a short distance before turning left onto my usual Beacon track… and then turning left again onto a path that took me further along Underhill Lane. And then turning left again to get to Westmeston.

From here I took the Westmeston Bostal to the top of the Downs and ran the short distance to Ditchling Beacon, which I reached in an hour.

Several years ago now, Cliff had given me some little orange Sport Beans and despite them being almost a year out of date (one of the downsides of having an overflowing gear draw), I now opened the packet and tried them.

The breeze was strong up here and since it was coming from a North-Easterly direction, I opted to run to Jack & Jill which I reached twenty minutes later.

Rather than running on down the hill towards home (via the white blob of Oldlands Mill in the last picture) I turned around and ran back up to the top of the hill before descending on the Burnhouse Bostal.

As I ran back towards Ditchling, I ran through the farmyard at Park Barn Farm.  Here there are two gates to go through and I took a direct line between, realising too late that this took me straight through a silage puddle with white mould on the top!  Anticipating that I was going to disappear into the depths, I yelped (which must have amused anyone watching) but fortunately it was no deeper than my trainer.  Nevertheless I stumbled and consequently ran straight through a second, adjacent puddle.  YUK!

From there I ran back through Ditchling, up Lodge Hill and along to Oldlands Mill, where there was a great view back to Jack & Jill.

The run back from here is straightforward and was quickly dispatched, with me even pushing harder along the final few hundred metres… I must be getting used to running longer distances again.

So a shade over 13.5 miles in 2.23, 5.66mph.  That’s the forth Sunday that I have run in excess of a half marathon distance, although it was also the slowest.

Cliff’s orange beans seemed to have helped though and I don’t feel as tired as normal… although that means that I now have to go and cut the grass and wash the cars!  At least it’s still a beautiful day out there!

This morning was one of those mornings when I would quite happily have foregone my run.  Quite frankly I felt as if someone had already beaten me up, added to which I had a troubled night’s sleep, at one point being rudely awoken by both legs cramping at the same time!

The culprit was spending most of yesterday in the garden, trimming both hedges and a few other bushes to boot, cutting the grass and so on.  But Kim was even worse off this morning, as she had been scraping the moss out from between the brick pavers yesterday and could hardly stand up straight!

When I finally left the house around half eleven, it was with a little double-think going on.  On the one hand I thought I would go for a moderate run through the local woods (it was super windy out there), whilst on the other I planned to go to Blackcap… though with plenty of latitude to turn around at any point!

Even as I took the first strides down the road, the refrain of ‘I feel just like a Time Lord’ by Sisemore played through my head (in fact I had woken up with it in my head… Russell would be VERY happy with that, I’m sure, especially on his birthday!) and this tune followed my all the way to the end of my run!  I quite often complete long runs to one song and whilst this may seem somewhat irritating (which occasionally it is), most of the time it keeps part of my brain busy, maybe so it doesn’t notice the pain so much.

I headed out across the Common and past the Industrial Estate, then through Blackbrook Wood to the Westmeston path.  As you approach the South Downs you get a distant view of my route up past Queen Victoria’s V.

Despite telling myself that I could turn around at any point, my feet kept pulling me along… and then up to the top of the Downs.  I was surprised that the path up past the V did not seem to trouble me at all and I reached the top with no need to rest… except that I had to put my jacket and hat on because it was so windy.  I reached the top right on the hour.

Whilst I could have easily turned around right there, I thought I would carry on to the top of Blackcap (or maybe even to the gate to Lewes Racecourse) as this represented a more worthy goal… although I had forgotten how far along the top it was.  By the time I reached Blackcap I had run another 15 minutes which, whilst not a concern of itself, would mean that my total run would now be over 2.5 hours.

I turned round into the stiff wind pausing to take a photo of what looked like a band of rain making its way across my path home.

I made it back to the gate to the hill in about 16 minutes and then stretched out down the hill.  As it happened the sun came out, although there were some goodly dark clouds roaming around.

By the time I had passed the two hour mark I was starting to fade, with my pace slowing and the desire to stop growing.  But the song kept cycling and barring a couple of very brief pauses, my feet kept pushing on.

Despite tired legs (actually it was my back that was the epicentre of the pain, for some reason) I strode out along the final quarter mile of pavement, making the end in 2.33.  Two and a half hours on from this and I’m still feeling like I’ve only just stopped running, despite copious amounts of toast and tea, plus a shower… yes, cold shower on my legs, despite feeling somewhat chilled.  NB I should point out that I had considered wearing longs today, due to the temperature, but it seemed churlish as it was still September!

I made a self-satisfied (Kim said smug!) laugh when I realised that I had covered 6 miles in that first hour, including running up the scarp slope at the end!  I pretty much carried this pace for the rest of the run too, covering 15 miles in 2.33… 5.9mph.  I am VERY happy with that!