Was it me or the event timing that was running slow? 1.50.54 is nowhere near the sub-1.50 that I expected!
For a picture of the drowned rat hammering home, visit Antbliss – runner 1291 finishing 525th…
Enjoy!
Barns Green Half Marathon
Always write when the pain is still fresh… that’s what I reckon!
The day was gray & drizzly and curling up by the fire seemed like the best idea, but instead Mister Thomas’s jalopy turned up at the appointed hour to whisk us away to play. Cliff, the tall man with the gray hair, was already there whilst Pete turned up in the nick of time… not bad, bearing in mind that he had cycled from Brighton to warm up!
Cliff & Pete acted as the advance party, Kim brought up the rear, whilst Dai and I just cruised along in the middle, the beeps of his sat-nav watch suggesting that someone could have been more accurate with the mile markers. Seven, eight and nine minute miles were the order of the day, depending on the gradient therein, which augured well for the sub-two-hour goal.
The weather was basically pants (that’s a technical term) and although warm enough on the lungs and cool enough on the back of the neck, it played havoc with my hair, making me look like a drowned rat.
Two tips for anyone who’s interested. Firstly, when you’re running try to land towards the outside of your heel, rolling your foot forward as you pass over it to depart from your big toe. This is very efficient and is great for allowing you to lengthen your stride… which means that you can reduce the number of strides you have to take if you’re a lazy oaf like me! It’s also softer on your knees, welcome for the vets amongst us!
Secondly, judging by the gasping going on around me, the lungs are a greatly under utilised asset to many runners. Although I do accept that you have to do what works for you, I was taught (some 25 years ago by a Police diver) to run four paces breathing in and four paces breathing out. This slower intake means that you can breath in through your nose (helped today by a Breathe-Right strip, at least until the sweat and rain washed the sticky stuff away towards the end) and also means that you get to fully inflate your lungs. After five minutes focusing on breathing this way, it is amazing how easy the uphills are, as the blood has that elusive oxygen stuff, that muscles lap up, in abundance.
At the 12 mile marker my watch said 1.40 and I picked up the pace slightly to chase a new target of 1.50, helped by a kind man in a green vest. In the last 400m a tall guy came running past, kamikaze style, only to slow to a walk ahead. As he picked up to run again at the 200m mark, he became my new target in a sprint to the finish. I hoped the man in the green vest would come with me, but I ended up pipping the tall man and two or three others to the post alone.
The results are still not out, but my watch was a gnats whisker before 1.50 so I hope to have a one forty-nine-something time. Slightly better than Dai at 1.59 and Kim at 2.34, but not as good as Cliff at 1.42 and Pete at 1.36.
Pete was all set to cycle back to Brighton too, mad fool, but accepted Dai’s offer of a lift in view of the inclemency of the weather!
The fire was finally lit and a fry-up devoured along with copious cups of Earl Grey tea… Twining’s of course! And hey!, it’s only six o’clock!
For the finishers photo, you need to go to Dai’s site… enjoy the grins!
Hi Chris!
Kim very kindly dropped me off at Jack & Jill windmills this morning. And what a beautiful morning it was too, as you can see from the pics! The only people I normally share running space with on a Sunday are dog walkers, which was why bumping into Richard last weekend was so cool. Today there were a plethora of other runners, cyclists and dog walkers out and about and a real sense of bonhomie!
One of the benefits of wearing an extra layer (it was a frosty morning) was an extra pocket to put my mobile in, which enabled me to take some photos for a change.
I made good progress along the top of the Downs past Ditchling Beacon as far as Blackcap. Kim and I used to train along here in preparation for the Berlin marathon in 2004 and so it holds memories as well as being a good firm surface to run on. After Blackcap I dropped off the top and headed north, breaking new ground and finding some beautiful houses, farms and churches surrounded by lush Sussex countryside!
Eventually I hit Plumpton and followed my nose as to the route out, running up what looked like someone’s driveway. A man with a dog approached me in the opposite direction and I felt it may be pertinent to ask if this was a public footpath and not his drive! I was totally amazed when, taking off his Walkman, a most cunning disguise, it turned out to be Chris Burt, an ex corporate bank manager of mine. Both stunned, we stood to chat and it was really great to see you Chris!
One of the benefits of being comfortable with ambiguity is that it doesn’t really matter where you end up running and I ended up running into the same junction of paths as I had found when I’d exited the golf course a week or so back. Pleased at having joined up a few more dots on the map, I then knew I was homeward bound, but right about then I had a strong urge to eat something – toast and peanut butter! Not having said sustenance and knowing that my reserves were now low I had no alternative other than to press on, slowly and regardless.
By the time I reached home I was knackered! Deducting the estimated ten minutes talking to Chris, I had run for two hours twenty and covered 13.5 miles, or 21.5 km. One of the reasons for the post being a little late is that I ate my toast & peanut butter and promptly fell asleep in the sun!
Don’t forget Barns Green next weekend… hope to see you all there!
In search of freelance chickens
It’s hard to know where to start, other than to confess that I’m having difficulty settling on a name for this week’s post. Candidates were: Debb’s pyjamas, Old MacDonald’s farm (remix version), Richard Pierce to the rescue, Sore arches, Lost AGAIN! or Wellington runners. As you can see, I settled for something completely different, referring to something Nick said whilst pished the other evening!
This morning started late (again) and with a slight mist shrouding a clearly beautiful day. Mistrustful of the temperature that this suggested, I kitted up with my longs and two layers up top and got out into it. I had decided over coffee that I would take a different route today and had poured over the map trying to memorise a potential route. The route took me up to Ote Hall, with it’s stunning chimneys, across to where Wivelsfield church is (in a future life I think I’d like to come back as the Rev for Wivelsfield church as the Vicarage must have one of the most gorgeous southerly views in this whole area!) and around to the north of Wivelsfield.
Debbs, one of Daren’s crazy American friends (and now ours too!!), had tried to convince us that she’d seen Llamas whilst out on a walk… we knew that this was a WMD-esque story so had not believed her, but here they were, running around like short-necked giraffes, or maybe long-necked mules.
The countryside on this side of Wivelsfield is beautiful and it was a real joy to be running through on this stunning morning. From there I dropped down through the middle of the village and on to Hundred Acre Lane for a short way, before disappearing into the woods that make up part of my more normal route. This will definitely be a lovely run once autumn really kicks in, as there will be piles of leaves to crunch through! The path eventually spat me out at the northern end of Spatham Lane on Ditchling Common. I was in the process of pausing, wanting to continue on unfamiliar terrain but unsure where to go, when along the road came a runner who turned down it.
Richard Pierce agreed that I could tag along for a while and we chatted amiably as he took me steadily away from home. In training for the New York marathon, he was doing a regular 20 mile training run and was clearly on top of the task, keeping a perfectly steady pace all the way down the lane.
Scared that I might end up at the top of Ditchling Beacon with Richard if I didn’t look sharp, I took my leave and headed down a path going west towards Ditchling, hoping to catch one going straight back to the Hill. Instead I found a sign saying, Danger: Archery in Progress. They seemed slightly grumpy (at least no-one said good morning back to me!) so I decided they must be protecting the path that I wanted to take. Prudence being the better part of valour, I continued on the one passing behind them that seemed only mildly dangerous.
Somewhere here I must have gone slightly wrong, as I quickly found myself crossing Spatham Lane in an easterly direction. I might have gone wrong where I had to unhook and re-hook five electric fences in a field of horses, or maybe where I had to persuade some cows to move out of the way of a style, but more likely in the scary field of freelance chickens (what does Nick mean, I wonder?) where I really feared for my life.
A few years ago I was paddling with Cliff & Dai in the Wye valley when the thousand or so sheep on the hillside above us started baaa-ing. It was a VERY SPOOKY sound and made us all a little uncomfortable… and the chickens in this field did something similar. Imagine the first part of a clucking sound, where it kind of winds up to the cluck itself… the whole field of chickens started making this noise, sounding a little like a not too distant racing car getting up to speed.
To the east of Spatham Lane is Mid Sussex Golf Cluband I now found myself running through this, though there were too many stray balls laying on the path to be really comfortable about it. I was now heading almost due east, very much not the ideal direction, but eventually I found the lovely path from Westmeston which sneaks under the railway line by an idyllic cottage with its own ford and gives access to Blackbrook Wood, Ditchling Common and home!
Although I had commented to a couple of dog walkers that I was hot at around the 35 minute mark, it was only now that I twigged there was something I could do about it, taking off my hat and top layer and unzipping my longs to make flairs!
Bearing in mind I went out for an hour or so to break some new ground, I was quite pleased to come back strong at 2 hours, four minutes, whilst my dodgy distance calculations showed just over twelve miles, or 19.5km. I’ve finally twigged that the reason for my slow pace is because I’m forever running on muddy tracks, so I feel confident of a sub two-hour time on the country roads that make up the Barns Green Half.
There’s still time to sign up, but if it’s really too much, then at least come along on the 28th and cheer the rest of us along. So far I think it’ll be Dai, Nick, Cliff, Kim and I… and I’m hoping that Kurt will be there with my socks too!
Old news
Our good friend and Italian walking guide Lorenzo Gariano sent an email around today with some photo’s from our summer jaunt to Italy… La Via Marenca Ultra Trail.
It’s fair to say that Dai and I only did the half marathon (you might have read Dai’s comment that it was actually around 25km long and about 1km in height gain), but Cliff, Pete, Lorenzo, Steve and Colin all completed the Ultra at around 99km!
Anyway, the photo is me finishing in a relaxed 4 hours 13 minutes or so (good for a half marathon, no?) and you can see all the other photos at the site of Adolfo Ranise.
I feel exhausted just remembering!
Lost again?
I had to drag myself from slumber this morning, kicking and screaming, but it was 7.30am. On a Sunday! My espresso machine holds 4 cups, and that’s how much coffee it took for me to wake up enough to eat a banana, lace my shoes and run out the door.
There, I made it sound like an up-and-out, but there was a short delay as I sat down to read The Week. For those of you who don’t know the publication link it is brilliant! It arrives on a Friday morning and holds a synopsis of the important news and comment from the last week, from the UK and around the World that you can digest over a leisurely weekend breakfast. As a cynical soul, its approach of laying out the different treatments by the different newspapers really appeals!
This morning my attention was grabbed by two not totally unconnected things:
- the statistic that Britain’s 883 Quangos swallow up £167.5bn a year, which is roughly equal to the amount we taxpayers pay in National Insurance (£88bn) and VAT (£67bn) combined
- the news that Charlotte Mears has been enlisted by the Foreign Office to dispense advice on travel emergencies… such as broken fingernails or unruly hair extensions
This morning the weather was beautiful… magnificent in fact. A change in weather from last weekend did not stop me getting lost though… the telltale sign was when I noticed the words ‘which village is this’slipping out of my mouth as I ran past a dog walker. Plumpton. A second DW simplified what might otherwise have been a re-run of last weekend by sending me the easy way to the Downs from the other end of the village, where I permitted myself a short walk up the scarp slope.
Three years ago, towards the tail end of the training for my first (and only) marathon, we entered a race called the Brighton 20: essentially 20 miles around the Downs behind Brighton. My aim was to run every step of the way, which I did, eventually. It is surprising how many club runners you can pass on the three scarp-slope climbs no matter how slowly you’re running (and their whoops of encouragement really feed the spirit), but I now understand how they then have the energy to power past you again at the top! I now also walk up the steep bits!
Despite the heat today, the going underfoot was pretty soggy in places. I used to hate cross country (memories of running at school?), preferring road running until my friends forced me to try it again. Now the challenge of sliding along through the mud brings a grin to my face and puts core stability to the test. I have twice now, hilariously, left my shoe in the mud and had to slop back to it with a muddy sock, but that adds to the fun in my book.
Today’s run was just over 21km (13.something miles) and although 2 hours 20 minutes is not a great half marathon time, even for me, it is better than the last time I ran one… at four hours and 13 mins! Mind you. I had only just reached the top of the hill after 2’20 so I would plead mitigating circumstances. Any comments of support? Dai?
Well that’s probably it for another week. Other than to mention that I did have a run planned with Nick one morning next week, but he’s recovering from a couple of cracked ribs after an amusing head-on collision on his birthday, poor guy. I understand it was 1.00am at the end of a brilliant, raucous, medieval themed party and both he and the head concerned were on the bouncy castle at the time. ‘Nuff said?