Category: Great things to do!

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!

It was the day of the second Brighton Marathon and a rare thing happened. Despite setting off running at the same time, I managed to get to the 26 mile marker ahead of Cliff, albeit only by a few minutes.

I’m not seeking to mislead you though, so I should ‘fess up that my run started from home and only lasted 108 minutes, after which I breakfasted, showered and caught the train to Brighton with Kim, finally reaching the afore mentioned marker not five minutes ahead of Cliff.

It was a glorious day, but at 9am it was still fresh as I ran off in my shorts and t-short. My route was circuitous to say the least, my aim being to cover ten miles without straying too far, if that makes sense. I took in Wivelsfield, Hundred Acre Lane, Streat church, Spatham Lane & home. Roughly 10.9 miles in 1.48 is about 6mph.

Hurrying through Brighton we bumped into Clive & Nat & stopped to chat for a few minutes. We then wove our way slowly through the crowds to find Penny standing aloft on a concrete ball and then we deafened the people in front of us as Cliff ran by.

A little later we managed to find Cliff again on the other side of the finish line, and then Mark Johnson too, both surprisingly mobile given the rigours of the day… Mark actually danced a jig!

Penny, Kim and I then set off for a gorgeous walk to Rottindean along the cliff top, almost reaching the village limits by the time Cliff picked us up, he having retrieved his car in the meantime.

We then supped beer and ate comprehensively in the White Hart before wending our ways home.

Aside from currently sporting the kind of headache that comes from being dehydrated, sunkissed and hayfevered, it was a most brilliant day!

After the hubris in the reporting of last week’s fast run, it seems only fair that I am forced to eat humble pie.  I got it wrong.

One of the downsides of not having the latest satellite technology is that I have to measure the distances I run on an OS map, with the aid of a piece of paper.  And then remember where the mile markers are.

It had previously not mattered exactly where the mile markers were, as I knew the overall distance to the turn point was correct.  Last week however, I used one of the intermediate markers as a turn point and thus turned too early, by 200m, netting a quarter mile deficit.

I found this out today by running the same distance and coming up with a disappointingly different result… especially the two (lengthened) miles that I ran at 10 minutes per mile!

So, same idea as last week except that I ran to the woodland burial ground just shy of Clayton and back again.

I’ve jumbled all the intermediate numbers in my head, so all I’m sure about is that I returned in 87 minutes and that I didn’t steam the last mile up the hill.  Thus 10 miles at an average of 8.7 minutes per mile, 6.9mph.  A good result, but still slower than last week.

I took no photos’s so I thought you might like to see the flint that I found buried in the sole of my shoe, thankfully before I left… although from the damage to the innersole, it’s clearly been there a while!

I am already overdue new splodge so I can sense an imminent visit to Kurt at Run!

I also thought that you might like to see what I was doing yesterday… helping the garden into its summer clothes.  This should in no way be seen as a performance excuse… although in addition to scarifying and cutting the grass, lifting the garden furniture and myriad pots into place and cleaning out the tea-house, I also washed both cars.

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!

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!