Category: Long run

I had a loose arrangement to meet some of the guys at 9am in Falmer yesterday.  I almost didn’t keep it as I had been up later than intended the night before reading, but somehow I managed to make it on time.  No-one else turned up and after watching a local on his bike circling the pond a few times, following his dog, who was watching him intently over his shoulder to make sure he was following, I headed out.

I had enjoyed the hills on the route that we did on August 2nd and had a vague sense that I would now be writing about doing the same route, on my own and hopefully slightly faster.  I love exploring though, so having run up the path alongside the Falmer Road and then left towards the copse, I couldn’t help but follow the path that turned right and led directly up to the top of the ridge.

In a much earlier blog I described being amazed to discover a path running up Ditchling Beacon, just downslope of the road, when I thought I knew the area really well.  Here was a similar feeling and from the top of the hill I surveyed the deepcut valley of the Castle Hill Nature Reserve which I knew lead to the, now buried, town of Balsdean and on to the sea which was clear in the distance.  I tramped the paths around here as a youngster, as a Scout and most recently on a Jogshop 20 mile race five years ago but it was still like a new land.  I opened the gate and ran down the hill, ready to discover some new routes.

Largely covered by grassland, the valley of Falmer Bottom winds around beautifully as it makes its way slowly to the sea, with occasional remnants of its former, more intensely farmed heritage in the form of derelict farm buildings.  In order to get to the sea though, I had to run up on to the hill above Rottingdean, passing as I did a magnificent country house of a pumping station in the valley below to my left.  From the top I could see the familiar villages of Woodingdean, Ovingdean and Saltdean and I spent a good while thinking of the friends and family that live in each of those places.

Then I was running down through the prosperous town of Rottingdean, where even the shop that sells plastic buckets and spades has an air of exclusivity.  At the one-hour point, I found myself standing on a pretty, remodelled Undercliff Walk with glorious views.

Running to Saltdean on the flat, past the Lido and then through the park at the entrance to the valley, I realised that my legs were really tired and the thought of the long drag back up to the top of the ridge was now daunting.  At Pickets Hill Farm the path splits and since there was a runner half way up the steep High Hill to my left, I chose this way to go in order to have a moving target.  Though I seemingly made no ground on them on the hill itself, I had caught them by the time they reached the next gate.

Faced then with a drop back down into the valley and the steep track at its head, I opted for the slow gradient of the path that hugs the eastern edge of Woodingdean.  It was simultaneously like a new path and an old acquaintance and odd memories of growing up in Woodingdean kept dropping into my mind.

At the Falmer Road I turned right and headed up to Newmarket Hill, the highest point around and then back to the top of Castle Hill Nature Reserve, before retracing my initial steps back down the hill to Falmer.

The 12.8 mile round trip had taken me 2 hours 17 minutes and aside from the pain, I thoroughly enjoyed every retraced step of it.

To get straight back into the swing of things, I met Daren at Jack & Jill this morning for a gentle run.

With the wind firmly behind us, we ran along to Blackcap, pausing to help an incongruent cyclist who first asked directions to Ditchling beacon, then later, when we caught him up again at the Beacon, asked directions to Hollingbury… it might have been easier for him to have asked the second question first!  The going was pretty easy and the conversation also flowed happily along.

Then we turned around to run back.

With the wind now firmly in our faces, conversation became much sparser, not least because we practically had to shout to be understood.  We watched a rain squall ahead in the distance, but were fortunate that it didn’t come our way.

It felt like the entire way back was very uphill… most especially the last downhill section back to the cars!  Yet despite this, we were whooping with the joy of blasting cobwebs and force-fed fresh air… it was just GREAT!

The distance was 9.35 miles and we took about the same one hour 35 minutes that was taken on the 23rd August… not sure exactly though because my watch is still in for repair and I messed up starting the stopwatch that is standing in for it.

This morning I drove down to Stamner Park to go for a run with a bunch of friends… Cliff, Andy, Paula, Nikki and the ever elusive Daren, whose head I seem to have squished in order to get Nikki & Cliff in!

You’ll notice a couple of things from the photos below… Cliff is wearing a red shirt to match his red shoes , whilst twins Daren and I apparently share the same tailor… and quite independently bought new Omni 8’s from Kurt at Run yesterday.

Also of considerable note is the sheer girth of my leg (in the white socks) compared to skinny Daren’s!  How totally bizarre!

We six ran out of Stamner Park, around the back of Sussex University and on up the hill past Granny’s Belt, through Moon’s Bottom and up to the dip between the Brows of Western and Home on the top of the Downs.

We then passed Ditchling Beacon and turned left to North Bottom… which is  a very deep bottom indeed.  Here there lies a steep hill, which Andy ended up pushing Paula’s bike up, having persuaded her that Cliff must have been pulling her leg when he suggested she stick to the contours and miss out the big hole!  Freud may have had something to say about all that, but he didn’t make it along today.

Then it was back along a grassy sprint and into Stamner Park, with it’s long gratifying downhill section back to the cars.

Of course, at this point Andy & I turned around & ran back up that very same (now) not so downhill section to the limit of the park, where he carried on along the Downs back to his house.  I meanwhile turned around yet again and dropped down into Stamner Village (where I mourned the fact that I had no money for an ice cream) and ran back down the park road to the car.

11.1 miles in two hours and two minute s is not the fastest time in the world, but it was such great fun running with a bunch of old friends.

I pulled up at Falmer pond behind a guy limbering up to go running and asked him if he was running with Andy? ‘Yes’, came the reply, ‘but how did you know to come here?’  It turned out that he had only just changed the meeting point and was waiting for a different Andy to me!

Cliff, Lydia, Andy and Paula duly arrived and we set off up the path alongside the Falmer road, Paula riding her mountain bike to make sure we kept a good pace… down the hills, at least!  Half way up the Falmer Road, the path turns left across to Newmarket Copse and you can see what we were in for.  For those keen enough to follow me on a map, Loose Bottom is in front of us at this point.

Paula had ridden half way up the next hill but we kept left and followed the South Downs Way down the hill to the main road… she had to work SO hard, for about a nanosecond, to catch us back up again, before racing on down the hill ahead of us.

On the north side of the road, the path ascends the ironically named Long Hill, which it is and at the top I found these to old men sitting down for a breather… though they reckoned they were just about to do sit-ups!

I didn’t wait to find out and after a steep descent through Bunkershill Plantation, I had a good head start up Balmer Down… which was a little like Long Hill, only longer and hillier.  About half way up I turned round & ran back down to rejoin the others and then ran back up again with them to the next gate.

Here we saved a father & son, out for a two-day cycle from Amberley to Eastbourne, from going the wrong way.

We turned left and ran down Buckland Bank, bearing right to Waterpit Hill and back down to Falmer… I make it about 7.25 miles.

Here I left the others to stretch out and set out to run for a while longer.  I went back up the Falmer Road and back across to Newmarket Copse, where I passed the original runner coming the other way on his own… I’m guessing that his Andy didn’t manage to find him after all.  I then ran around inside Newmarket Copse, trying to recall whether or not I had actually overnighted there as a Scout thirty years ago!

Then I continued down the hill to the main road as before, passing as I did a somewhat surprised father & son cycling up the other way… I have to conclude that it was they who had taken their time, as I was not going that fast!

At the A27 I turned left up the disused carriageway that serves the houses there.  It was here, in about 1980, that Ric, Tony and I were cycling, weaving around the cats eyes along the middle of the recently redundant road, when Tony ran over my back wheel.

The quiet road ended and I had the choice of running alongside the dual carriageway, or turning right up towards Balmer Farm.  I chose the latter, but having reached the trees, a horse rider kindly confirmed that the only way back across to Falmer way right to the top of Balmer Down where we had been earlier.

I tuned back down the hill & ran alongside the dual carriageway instead… not at all nice, but more direct.  When I got to Falmer I ran around to Cliff’s old house/shop, which to my surprise looked like a newly built house, or possibly two.  I then crossed the A27 on the road bridge and ran around the pond before finishing back at the car.

Two hours twenty minutes to do 12.8 miles is not that fast (5.5mph) but it was a REALLY enjoyable run.  It was a beautiful day with gorgeous scenery and GREAT company, which helped carry me effortlessly around the second loop.

The forecasters’ prediction for today was very wet, but as it turned out it was instead very warm.  I found this out as I ran down the road carrying both my Gore jacket and beanie hat as insurance against being caught out in the rain.

I had decided against driving to the Downs as there was a 30-mile race starting from Clayton & I thought the car-park might be busy… or I might get dragged in!  Instead I ran out with no clear plan, which I intuitively think makes it more difficult and easier at the same time.  More difficult as you’re not quite sure how hard to push, but easier as you can kid your unconscious that you’re only going around the block!

I ran out across the Common and on down through the woods to Westmeston at the base of the Downs.  The going was mostly baked dry, but there were several points that were incongruously muddy – all sections that are generally knee-deep in mud in the winter!

The going might have been relatively easy, but I mad hard work of it, having to resort to jellybabies after only 20 minutes… although to be fair, this was partly because of IronMan Jim’s advice about sugar intake from last week.  He said that you need to get sugar in your system before you need it, otherwise the body produces insulin which counters the effect… or something like that.

I started up the Westmeston Bostall having snuck a couple more jellybabies, but opted to then turn right for the more direct ascent… this must be a comparable gradient to the Grouse Grind because the isobars on the map are too close together to read the heights!

I reached the Beacon at one hour ten minutes and turned for home down the nearest path before any of the 30-milers came past to make me look slow!

The return leg was through Ditchling village, up to Oldlands Mill and then back via Ockley Lane and took me 48 minutes, which is a passable time.  Overall, one hour 58 minutes to do 11.35 miles.  5.35mph on the way out and 6.4mph on the way back… more to do with the initially favourable gradient and a larger proportion of road running in the second half than anything else.

Judging by the paltry amount of rain we’ve subsequently had this afternoon, I may actually need to go out & water the pots later!  Forecasters?  Fraudulent soothsayers morelike!

I was lax again this week and didn’t manage to get a mid-week run in.  This despite Cliff asking me if I wanted to join him & Andy P in a run around water-world, aka the Downs on a super-wet Friday evening!  Unlike last week when I couldn’t walk, let alone run, this week’s excuse was one of scheduling… that’s my story anyway.  Certainly, on Friday, I HAD to go to Waitrose!

And so I found myself parked at the bottom of the tank tracks chatting to another runner in the car-park.  As I ran off I overheard him saying to his running partner ‘that’s the loon who we saw running up and down the tank tracks the other week!’.  Oh to be so famous!

I made it to the top in ten minutes, as before.  This meant that I was still slower than Daren and thus didn’t need to do any more ascents to try to beat his time, so instead I turned left to run along towards the Beacon.  Ahead of me was another runner, so I picked up my skirts and set about closing the gap.  By the next gate I’d made scant progress, but I managed to reel him in on the next hill.

Jim, the crazy fool, turned out to be in training for an IronMan in two weeks time which, according to Wikipedia (he did tell me but, for good reason, my mind decided to blank the information) carries the exhortation “Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life”  Tall order bearing in mind that, whilst he was a competent cyclist (which I usually measure by the number of bikes someone has… six or seven in Jim’s case) he had only run his first marathon last year and was not a confident swimmer!

He turned down his iPod and kindly allowed me to tuck in beside him and we chatted as we ran past countless people staggering along under the weight of their race numbers, which I later discovered made them part of the Oxfam Trailwalker 62.5 mile walk.  Make that a 62.5 mile stagger, looking at some of them!

We ran past Blackcap and down to the next gate before turning around, which was the 50 minute mark for me.  We’d been making good time, but around this point Jim let on that he had already been out on his bike this morning, I think for a couple of hours!  Fit!

I wasn’t looking forward to the run back against the wind, but you really don’t notice it so much when you’re chatting away with someone else and the miles just disappeared.

Towards the end, rather than dive off right, back down the tank tracks, I decided to continue down to Jack & Jill where we parted, before running back up the hill again.  This way I figured I would make the run last two hours.

In the event, despite pain above my knees and an uncomfortable inner thigh, I managed to get back to the car at 1 hour 58 minutes, not bad for the 12.15 mile circuit.  In fact, although the speed was 6.2mph, if you remove the initial 1km climb, which took me 10 minutes, the balance of the loop was run at an average of 6.4mph, a merest tad faster than my shorter run with Mark last weekend.  Result!

No wonder I fell asleep on the sofa when I got back!