Category: Long run

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T-shirt & shorts

After working hard in the garden yesterday, I would not have been surprised if the last thing I relished was a run today.  However, yesterday’s hard work was a visual triumph, especially on such a bright spring morning and as I sat in the tea house circa 9am, I had the urge to run rather than read.

I’ve not been out before 10am on a Sunday for months so to leave at 9.20am felt really good.  Especially as, despite the slightest of chills in the air, I ran out in a t-shirt, shorts & summer socks.  I ran out past Ote Hall and for the first 20 minutes I really missed my beanie hat… my ears were frozen.  There were no llamas in the llama field, but there was a yappy dog at Townings Place that chased after me.

The only people in Wivelsfield were those collecting their Sunday papers and I headed south down Hundred Acre Lane.  At the top of the hill, despite feeling like I really wanted to head back (I had intended to run for about an hour and so had not brought any water with me) I turned left down a path that I remember having seen on the map once.

This brought me out on the road to Hattons Green and I headed in that direction before turning south to St Helen’s Farm.  This dropped down to the road west to the Common and since the traffic was whistling past, I stopped at a stile to see whether the path would take me in the right direction.  A cyclist stopped to see if I needed directions & it turned out that she owned the land I was looking at.  It’s always so lovely to find out about places from locals so I stood & chatted to Karen, probably for ten minutes.

Some friends used to have a cat called Chester, which was a cross between a Tonkinese (or similar) show cat and a black Tom.  Chester, clad in grey fur, was a big cat with a low boredom threshold.  He would sit lovingly on your lap for a while before taking a swipe at your face or whatever else he could reach!  Karen had a black cow that had a similar story to tell, its mother having had a brief fling with an Aberdeen Angus (I think) in a neighboring field.  I don’t know about it’s temperament, but I’m guessing you’d not want it sitting on your lap anyway.

I ran onward, back across Hundred Acre Lane and stopped to talk to Lew as he was trying to figure out how to use one of his new toys… a wood trailer.  (mental note to self, remember to scrounge some wood for the wood-burner from Lew before next winter!).  A further ten minutes or so spent chatting, but this time not in full sun, and I suddenly felt a chill so headed for home.

I returned via the magical path & the Common, collapsing into a chair in a sun-soaked garden.  8.65 miles were covered but I have no idea how long I ran for.  My guess is one hour 25 minutes (I was out for 1:45), giving a speed of about 6mph.

More chores ensued (several not on the list again) and I shall undoubtedly feel as if I’ve been beaten up when I get up tomorrow morning, but WHAT a great weekend!

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Long on resolve

After a late and boozy evening in London on Friday night, and a freezing walk home from the station, Saturday dawned bright and sunny.  One of the great things about having your own sun-trap is that it’s possible to sit outside on otherwise quite chilly days and since the sculpture that I had started last year was calling to me, I sat outside and tapped away for a while.

Within an hour or so I had shed fleece, socks, sweatshirt, T-shirt and jeans in favour of an old pair of shorts, it was that warm, although I had to put more clothes on to cut the grass as the micro climate did not extend more than a few feet away from the house.

An hour of sculpting turned into four or five in the end at the end of which the still-really-unfinished piece returned to the house as polished as it had started, just a little lighter!

This morning I would have been quite happy to replay the whole of yesterday, maybe just sitting quietly reading in the sun, but the longer you don’t run, the more difficult it is to persuade yourself to go.  So on went the running shorts and my caked-in-mud trainers and out I went into another chilly, but bright morning.

Oh boy, it was hard running down the road!  Neither mind nor body were totally enamoured by the idea, and it was a good ten minutes before I managed to put those feelings behind me.  By then I had run down towards Oldlands Mill, with the loose goal of running into Ditchling and back again.

Ditchling Beacon is on the other side of the village and I was not entirely surprised to find myself running towards it, feet following well-run paths, almost before I realised what was happening.  

I always think of the climb as a test of resolve, something which is a really useful attribute when you run your own company… and especially one that specialises in change management.  I make myself run every last step to the very top… people must think I’m mad!

I think that one day last year I made the top in 45 minutes, so to get there in 52 was pretty pleasing bearing in mind how little running I’ve been doing. 

I then retraced my steps home again, pausing only to take a couple of photos of the view, making it back in one hour 42 minutes… pretty much 6mph for the 10.25 miles.

That’s the first long run since December, which is pretty appalling, but maybe now I can get back into the swing of things!

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Run around the races

I had a little difficulty getting out of bed this morning, on account of a Vanilla Sky type (weird) dream.  I gave up on trying to figure out what was going on in the end and got up, but most of the morning had escaped by then.  Hence the reason that it was just after ten to midday by the time I left the house for my run.

When Kim had come down a couple of hours before me, there had been a large sheet of ice slowly descending her windscreen outside, but I left into a warmer but murky rainstorm feeling slightly overdressed in the same gear I ran in on Thursday (yes, unwashed!) plus an additional long-sleeved top.

Five minutes later as I ran through the first wooded section, there was a rush of wind of such ferocity that it sounded exactly like surf crashing onto Brighton beach.  I thought that this heralded a wet and windy run and I prepared my mind to run only for about an hour, but twenty minutes later I was stripping off my jacket and gloves with the heat of the sunshine!

This change of weather caused me to elongate my run and a while later I found myself running down the road through Plumpton Green, passing as I did the start of the Plumpton Races.  Plumpton Lane is not such a nice lane to run down on account of it being twisty, narrow and relatively busy.  But it does head straight for the Downs and I had decided that if I was going to be out for longer than an hour (which passed as I passed six-mile mark at the entrance to the racecourse), I might as well go up top and soak up the view.

The bostal running up from The Half Moon is concrete and about a 1 in 4 gradient and it felt like it took me an age to make the top.  I duly put my jacket and gloves back on to ward of the now cold wind,  sacrificed a couple of jelly babies to regain some energy and ran on towards the Beacon.

One of the problems with a tendency towards madness is the tendency to do mad things, so it won’t surprise you that I took a small detour en route to the top.  I hung a right down the path I descended last week and a left onto the steep track that I then ascended.  And then on to the Beacon at about the one hour 47 mark… a couple of minutes behind myself last week.

Then I turned northward, dropping down the path under the road and into Ditchling, up onto Lodge Hill and back via Oldlands Mill.

I wasn’t going as quickly as last week on the return leg, as though it took me a minute less, the more direct route made it less than five miles.  Still, overall I had run 15.1 miles in 2 hours 35 minutes and at 5.8mph it was a tad faster than last week.  At this rate of improvement I’ll be ready for a marathon in May.

Two thousand and twelve.

I’ve forgotten to mention over the last couple of weeks that I keep kicking my left heel with the castellated inside sole edge of my right shoe and it has slowly been getting worse.  Today I kicked it a few more (excruciating) times and have now finally resorted to Compeed!

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A very Nietzche-esque thing to do

If there is one thing that running teaches you, it is perseverance.  I thought this as I walked home on Friday night with three heavy bags of shopping, stopping only once to answer my mobile.  And I thought it again this morning as I ran off down the road aiming for a slightly longer than normal run.

Which is why I started off at a sensible pace, one that neither Nick nor Cliff can run at: slow!

I headed out to Oldlands Mill, but then rather than take the Ditchling route I turned right and dropped down into Hassocks, running through the back-streets to the station.  In an attempt to find some new paths I ended up running down more back-streets before emerging to the south of the village and running to Clayton at the base of the Downs.

Here the path takes the scarp slope head on and I engaged low gear and kept running as far as Jack & Jill.  Recognising that I normally walk across the car-park before carrying on up the hill (effectively breaking the hill into two) I decided just to keep going for a change.  I might not have stopped, but I have to confess to having had a little help… in the form of a couple of jelly babies.  Well, two at the bottom of the hill and two more at the very top to be exact.

I then ran across to Ditchling Beacon and whilst I had loosely planning to continue running towards Lewes, something caught my eye.  It was a group of three people contemplating a matched pair of barbed wire fences in the corner of a field.  I stopped to offer assistance, although since two of them were in their elegant seventies, I guess that they weren’t about to take me up on my offer.

Agreeing that the best way for them to go was back the way they had come, I then took the path in front of me which lead all the way down to Westmeston.  But on reaching Westmeston, a strange thought occurred to me, worthy of Cliff or Pete.  Why not run back up the hill?  

I was all out of reasons so I headed back aloft, taking the path goes pretty much directly from the bottom to the top.  At the top I chatted briefly to the group who had also made it back to the safety of the stile, before I headed off back towards the Beacon.  Nietzche would have been proud!

I took the path down before the road, but half way down my sense of curiosity took me off to the left from normal, across up-slope from a house with a tennis court to the beacon road and down to the car park at the bottom of the hill.  Here I turned left along Underhill Lane and then right onto the path that leads to Ditchling.  The village now boasts two tree-houses of which I am envious.  One is clearly for children, bearing in mind the assault course that enables them to get down.  The other, apparently, was designed with adults in mind… taking G&T’s on the deck looked like a very appealing prospect.

I ran up Lodge Hill and back via Oldlands Mill, feeling that I was finishing at pretty much the same pace that I started… still slow, but not quite fading, although that might have been something to do with another four or six jelly babies which I had callously chewed.  Overall the time was two hours, 34 minutes for 14.7 miles… a mere 5.72 mph.

However m’lud, I would like to introduce some mitigating circumstances: the time as I left the Beacon was 1 hour 45 and the speed up to that point, including two scarp climbs, was 5.35mph.  The 5.3 miles home from there was dispatched in 49 minutes… 6.5mph.  Still slow by comparison to the boys, but not that slow!

And I did have some additional weight to carry.

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Wet around the edges

Bearing in mind I was not in bed until well after 1am last night, the fact that I woke up before 7.30am seems crazy.  But despite the torrential rain last night, followed by bright, clear skies, it was neither wet nor cold and it was the uncommonly bright morning that had woken me.

I supped on a banana & some espresso and read for a while and finally emerged from the house, wearing shorts (again), just after nine.  Alas, after a bout of serious deck cleaning with a broom yesterday, I was not on top form and I decided early on that this would be a shortish run.

I headed out across the Common, where the duck pond was overflowing its banks and the slightest dip in the ground was full of water.  I stopped to take photo’s at regular intervals along the magical path so that you can see what I keep going on about (watch this space tomorrow for the results) – although I’m sure they still won’t do it justice.

The path through Blackbrook Woods was also wet and it was at this point that I switched to wet style running… that is, running straight down the path and through the middle of anything in the way.  Once your feet are wet, there seems little point in wasting time around the slippery margins.

As I headed south towards the Downs, my legs were already heavy and the thought of an extended run did not appeal.  So I turned right / west at Hayleigh Farm and headed across towards Ditchling on a soulless farm road with the wind picking up into my face.

I snuck through Ditchling, up onto Lodge Hill and around by Oldlands Mill.  Once again the path was waterlogged and the only other people I saw were struggling in wellington boots while I splished past them. 

Once onto the Keymer Road, I turned off to the water tower and across to the railway line.  The path that runs from here to the station always reminds me of Daren for some reason, probably for the visage of him disappearing kamikaze style ahead of me down a steep and extremely slippery hill… how he stayed vertical I really have no idea.

I reached the house in one hour 27 minutes after 8.8 miles… just over 6mph… and although I felt heavy legged whilst running, I feel quite sprightly now.  Stopping to take photos obviously had an impact on the split time (out at 5.66mph, return at 6.5mph) so I hope that you appreciate the photos!

As I sit writing, the Japanese Maple outside my study window is such a vivid red right now – I’ve taken a stack of photos of it and none of them capture the intensity of the colour.  This one is the closest.

Oh, and after a fine morning, the torrential rain has just started again… I’m really glad I got up when I did!

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A short reprise

After a day of torrential rain yesterday, where we hid away in the garage sculpting, we woke this morning to flat grey clouds and a light mist, suggesting it was kind of warm outside.  Which is was by comparison to some of the days we’ve had recently.

A quick espresso with a banana later and I was out the door by 10am… in my shorts.  Although I also had my Gore jacket, woollen Thurlo’s and Orange mud-pluggers on.  The latter seem to be my shoe of choice at the moment, and I guess it’s likely they will continue to be until the Spring now!  They are warmer and they actually give me some sense of grip in the mud… although they are like ice skates on wet wood.

I headed out to the south to Oldlands Mill (with a quick diversion around the water tower for a change) and then down onto Lodge Hill.  If you ever fancy a short walk with a great view, this little hill above Ditchling is really worthwhile as it looks down into the sleepy village below, as well as across at the Downs.

I bumbled along East End Lane and crossed the road at Sporting Cars of Brighton (MX5’s R Us) and started on the long run up to the Downs.  After all the rain I thought it would be really muddy, but most of the water was running off or sitting in puddles.  Still, as the incline increased the orange shoes really came into their own.

This path up Ditchling Beacon is a real test of endurance and I often think of it as a simile for work (at the moment, for sure!) where you just have to plug away, step after breathless step, the temptation to stop actually strengthening the resolve to keep running.  And the sense of achievement when you get to the top without having stopped (work-wise I’m still on the steep bit, alas!) is palpable.  Small victories, perhaps, but victories nevertheless.

As I made the top, the sun was just starting to burn through the mist, which was really uplifting, as was running back down the path again.

I now have some small sense of what it might have been like to face a cavalry charge in days of old.  As I came along a narrow path towards Ditchling, so towards me round a corner ahead came galloping a big white horse… EEEEk!  I pressed myself into the side of the path, but the woman saw me and reigned her steed in before they reached me.  PHEWIE!  The thought of a whole army of these things charging you down must have made those foot soldiers go week at the knees!

Back over Lodge Hill in the now sunny morning and past Oldlands Mill and then it was just a short tromp back to the house.  One hour 37 minutes seems like a shortish run for a Sunday, but it was 10.5 miles and I guess that 6.5mph is more than okay bearing in mind the climbs up Ditchling Beacon, and Lodge Hill on the way back.

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Around the page… and some

There was a beautiful mist this morning when we got up and like yesterday morning, it was clear that the sun was working away to burn it off.

The task this morning was to run a short section of path running south from Ditchling that I’d not noticed on the map before.  In order to get there I ran down to Oldlands Mill, past my favouritist house and down to Ditchling Church.  Here I noticed a path running in the right kind of direction which took me down to New Road, just outside the village limits.  It seems an odd place to dump you out, with no onward paths and I struggle to imagine who would really use this little cut-through.

I ran down the to the junction with the Beacon road and onto the path that bisects the corner.  Narrow little path it was, twisting and turning behind the various houses (and an amazing tree-house too) until it finally reached the farmland behind.  When I got to Underhill Lane and Burnhouse Bostall, the sun was just lifting the lid on the morning and the view of the scarp slope was glorious.

I maintained a gentle jog as the bostall rose, keeping going despite the gradient.  As the slope began to flatten off, there was a curious gust of hot air, like I had just walked past a boiler flue and seconds later there was another.  The world above the mist-line was HOT and the hot air was tumbling down the slope to meet the cooler air below.  On reaching the top I just had to stop (and hold the gatepost up for a moment or three!) to admire the view.

I then decided to run to Jack & Jill & return north as directly as possible.  There are very few people who would have been able to turn me from my direct return, but Mark Johnson is one of them and he was stood at the next gate in parly with a cyclist friend of his.  He had only just started (ie, he was going in the opposite direction to me) so I turned around and ran with him.  Mark keeps a great pace and the couple of times we’ve run together, the miles just fall away with a flow of light conversation.  The same was true here and I suddenly found myself at Blackcap and the one hour thirty mark.

We parted and I retraced my steps towards the Beacon, dropping down to Plumpton Agricultural College and heading north, missing the path Northeast and thus having to turn East at Plumpton Racecourse.

I reached Streat Church just after two hours and was soon heading north on the Westmeston path… and fast running out of energy.  I made it to the ford / railway before I had to walk, but from there it was a real struggle.  I tricked myself into running by counting to 30 walking and then 60 running and repeated this all the way through Blackbrook Woods and back across the Common.

When I reached the house after 2 hours and 53 minutes I was too exhausted to even stretch, which I may come to regret and even sitting here now, some three hours later, I’m still feeling pretty weak.  The speed  for the 9 miles going out was just over 6mph, but I only managed 5.5mph on the 7.6 miles return leg.  The overall of 5.75mph is actually not bad all things considered.

The way I measure my runs, when I’m not running with someone sporting a GPS, is marking the route against the edge of an A4 sheet and I can happily report that 16.6 miles makes it all the way around and another couple of inches!  This is officially my longest run since I started my blog!

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There and back: a tale of crazy folk

Today was the day of the Extreme Running: London to Brighton race and I felt really sorry for the runners, including Cliff and Pete, who were tackling this 90km / 56 mile monster, especially as it was the wettest day since the day I ran with Cliff and Dai out from Lewes.  It was chucking it down for hours on end and I was very glad to be inside, looking out.

Alas, I had told Cliff that I would definitely venture out with some moral support as they would be passing within miles of the house on the way through.  Short of getting a heavy afternoon cold, there was no getting out of it!

So around 4.45pm Kim pushed me out of the car in Wivelsfield Green so that I could run a section with them.  The worst of the storm had actually blown away by then and it was quite a good temperature for running but oh boy, was it ever wet underfoot!

The first thing I realised was that Cliff had some hangers on… on account of the fact that he alone seemed to be able to read the map.  Shortly after this revelation, I came to the conclusion that whoever had decided the route must have been inhaling laughing gas.  The short section that I did was blithely labelled the ‘easiest part of the course’ but even now I cannot link up the points on a map that I know we passed.  It was convoluted in the extreme, to the point of torture, added to which sections were actually under water.

Mind you, I’m sure that’s not the main reason it took two hours to cover somewhere under 6 miles.  Ah yes, I feel I must mention my fellow runners, though prefacing whatever cheeky comments I’m about to make by reminding you that in the preceding nine plus hours, they had just run 45 miles: if you have run a marathon, some 20 miles shy of this distance, you can at least begin to understand how they were feeling.

The wusses!  Staggering along like they had zimmer frames!  Even I could keep up!  Although I too would have got hopelessly lost if it weren’t for Cliff’s map reading!  Even though even he managed to miss the correct path up the scarp slope to the Beacon, involving us in a slightly more, er, direct ascent!

Actually, Cliff looked in pretty good shape and Pete, who really wasn’t, had a genuine excuse: he ran in the barking mad Mont Blanc ultra marathon only a few short weeks ago.  In this company I appear decidedly sane for a change!

Anyway, we eventually reached the Beacon at 6.45pm with the light fast fading and I let the boys motor on while I turned gratefully for home.  And as I dropped off the Beacon, I finally picked up some speed.  But by the time I reached Ditchling it was dark and I had a stark choice:  Run back the normal way, which I know to be tricky even in daylight, run back on the road despite wearing a non-reflective black jacket, or call for reinforcements, which was very appealing under the circumstances.  

I’d like to say that I ran all the way back without stopping.  I would like to, and I did.  If Cliff and Pete, along with Dave and the other hangers-on, could run the last few miles to Brighton after a completely mental day, I could hardly wimp out now.  In fact, I managed the 5.15 miles in just 44 minutes, around 7mph.   Not at all bad considering I could hardly see a thing!  Note to self though: black jacket invisible to motorists at night: it was only fortunate that I was wearing shorts and they could see my legs!

Kim finally called to check I was okay when I was about five minutes from home… the advantage of which was that the remnants of Friday night’s Bolognese was already bubbling on the stove when I finally walked in.

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The very antithesis of a dry run

Sat in the garden in the blazing sun this afternoon, you’d probably find it hard to believe just how wet it was on the Downs this morning when Cliff, Dai and I went for a run.  Such was the inclemency of the day that my comrades both turned up wearing trail shoes, with gaiters!  Had I thought, I could have brought mine, but then I would only have followed their lead like a sheep… a dangerous thing to be when Dai is around… allegedly!

We set off up the hill from Lewes Prison into the murk and within ten minutes there was water dripping uncomfortably from my left short, although it’s amazing how the whole spectre of getting wet differs between walking and running.  Walking can be utterly miserable on a wet & windy day, but running is often exhilarating… providing you’re wearing the right gear, that is!

At the first gate, Cliff and I were a little ahead and he amazed me by dropping to the floor for ten press-up and ten squat-thrusts, followed by another ten for good measure.

We passed Blackcap and he repeated the exercise at the next gate.  And the next.  And the next too, although it was difficult to see him through the mist & rain.  By this point we were at Ditchling Beacon and though I made a mental note of the time, I seem to have forgotten what it is now… maybe around 52 minutes.

From here we headed south to the top of Stamner Park, where Dai had predetermined to split off in order to head for home… sensible lad, that Dai and I should have gone with him.

Instead, Cliff took me on a magical mystery tour of the hills and valleys to the north of Falmer, although, to be fair, he did give me choice.  ‘We can either go down to St Mary’s Farm, across to Balmer Farm and back up to Blackcap’ he said, ‘or you can wimp right out (you wuss) and take the namby-pamby shortcut’.  He also pointed out that he had been seven-years-old last time he took the latter path.  Hmmm, let me think for a moment.

The sense of loss, in height, to get to St Mary’s Farm was palpable, especially as every step down (in the rain) was a step that would have to be replaced at some point.  It was at this point that I clearly smelt bacon, eggs & fried bread on the wind, but since that really wasn’t possible, I realised that it was my mind’s way of requesting more energy.

The run back out of the valley was okay, but as we got onto a gently rising ridge path around the ten-mile / hundred minute mark, I suddenly found myself right out of energy, or will-power… either way, I was walking.  Cliff was very gracious and walked with me, although it was clear that he had only just warmed into the run!

I walked pretty much all the way from there to the rise before Blackcap, with not-quite-two miles taking 25 minutes.  We ran from the gate to the cairn and on down towards Lewes and as Cliff made it a round-hundred press-ups and sit-ups while I paused for a pee, the weather finally began to clear and we could see Kingston ridge for the first time.

I just about managed to run to Lewes Racecourse, but past there I oscillated gently between running, walking & staggering… oh, and eating wild blackberries.

The whole run was two hours forty minutes for 14.7 miles and all things considered I’m surprised that the average speed was only slightly slower than normal at 5.5mph… still, not great!

The backs of my legs were more totally caked in mud than I care to remember, but I don’t have a picture so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  Likewise the rain in general!  Now, I must hobble back to the safety of the sofa!

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Soupçon for Cliff

I went for a run this morning with Dai & Cliff.  The weather was not clement and I ran out of energy way before I got to the end.