Long run – Page 3 – Foster Runs

November 10, 2013November 16, 2013

Pier pressure

We’ve all felt the pressure exerted by our peers and last night I felt that inexorable pull as the first of my school friends turned 50 years of age… they always seem to be able to drag me along when it comes to age! I drove down to Andy’s party in Southampton with Cliff, who managed to persuade me, during the course of the evening, to join the crazy crew on the Pier to Pier run today. Not for them the straightforward route along the pavement… their route just had to do in the opposite direction and take a big 28-mile loop around mid-Sussex to get from one pier to the other.

Fortunately (from my current perspective, at least) I had my excuses lined up in a row… I had not run further than 3.77 miles for weeks, I was inundated with preparation for my current heavy workload of lecturing /consulting and I needed to be able to walk next week… unlikely if I did even half of the distance they were running!

I took a careful look at the route on the map to figure out which short section I could most efficiently run, time-wise and decided that I would join them at the end of the day for the final few miles to the end.

I met up with them in Ovingdean towards the end of a gloriously sunny day. Nikki had sadly succumbed to fatigue (on the last run, from the London Eye to the Brighton Eye last year, she intended to only run half way yet ended up completing the whole thing in style!) so there were seven left accompanied by two cyclists and Dai on his motorbike.

The running was easy as I was fresh out of the starting blocks, but these guys still had capacious reserves despite having run 25 miles! What I particularly enjoyed was the camaraderie, something you tend not to have on the running machine.

We ran on down to the kayak club, pausing to regroup and allow the last man to catch up ahead of the final dash.

The final dash ended up being exactly that, with Andy P inevitably unleashing a final burst of speed in order to cross the line first! Fortunately there wasn’t really a line as such to cross, so the ensemble all won first place at around the six-hour-mark for 28 point something miles.

As the sun started to head from the sky, I decided to make tracks back to the car, but I couldn’t resist doing my own pier to pier to pier run on the way. Of course I opted for the sensible direct route: it took me six minutes.

Thus I found myself running back from the West Pier to Ovingdean as the chill of the evening descended and a combination of this and my recent fast treadmill sessions spurred me onwards. Whilst the outbound route technically took me an hour and five minutes, including standing around chatting at the landward end of the pier, the return leg took me a mere 35 minutes… a respectable 7 mph.

We won’t mention the overall stats for the 8.2 miles ! (Well okay… 4.9 mph).

I shall now wait with baited breath for the next sublimely crazy challenge… increasing age certainly doesn’t appear (a pier?) to be dimming my peer group’s sense of adventure or creativity!

July 30, 2013July 30, 2013

The many-headed monster

First, an admission… even people who help others to improve their focus, lose their focus from time to time. That might go some way to explain the delay in posting my last two runs, as well as the reason for posting in the middle of a work day when I have a myriad of deadlines to hit!

Scroll back to the 18th July and Kim & I were in the middle of a relaxing week in Cornwall… it was like a holiday from my childhood, but that might have been because I did in fact go there on family holidays in 1969 and 1973, or thereabouts.

We were making great use of the amazing weather but I really wanted to manage at least one run before returning home. With daytime temperatures in the high eighties, this involved an early morning start… for a non-work day, at least!

With the cottage situated on the cliffs above Mullion Cove, 100m from the South West Coast Path, and having already explored the path south, it was an easy decision to head north.

In short this involved visiting Polurrian, Poldhu and Church Coves, along with the steep headlands between them and then continuing on way past my the 30 minute turnaround time that I initially planned. In fact I was so enjoying myself that I finally turned round above Halzephron Cliff at the one-hour mark, and then mainly because I found a stretch of path that had millions of midges where the fresh air was supposed to be. YUK!

The return journey was faster because I wasn’t running down onto each of the low-tide beaches in turn, but it was also harder work with the increasing temperature. And yet, when I got back to Mullion, I had the strong urge to run down to the Cove… and then back up again.

The run was approximately 7.5 miles took something like 1.45… SLOW, but REALLY enjoyable! PS, sorry the photos are all mixed up… you hopefully get a sense of the scenery though!

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013

Water shortage

This morning it was 20 degrees in the shade, at 7am, so I realised a long run would be foolhardy.

However… I may just be that hardy fool.

A trip to Holland & Barratt yesterday had yielded some weird pre-run chemicals and I was interested to see whether it did what it said on the tin.

There was sadly no explosive surge of energy as I ran off down the road just before 8am, but I managed to reach the Beacon two minutes faster than last week and still felt like running.

Most of the route thus far had been under tree cover, but as I neared the top of the Beacon track I kept getting wafts of superheated air coming through the trees from the grass slope below. Yikes!

Wanting to go slightly further than last week I turned east from the Beacon and headed along to Blackcap, arriving in 1:21. This meant that I had averaged 5.74mph compared to last week’s 5.5mph at the halfway turn. I had taken the precaution of carrying a Beet shot and rather than waiting to run out of energy and drank it at this point.

It was really hot along the top of the Downs and I was glad that I had all my black gear on again! Actually, the wool is very comfortable indeed, despite the heat… it’s really growing on me! I even noticed on the Armadillo website that when you finally have wrung every use out their stuff, you can put it in the compost heap to good effect. Green as well as black!

Once again I ran up to the Beacon and then turned north, back the cool under the trees. Tiredness came over me somewhere between Ditchling and Oldlands Mill, right about the time that my supply of water ran out. Fortunately for me, Oldlands was setting up for an open day and a very kind steward refilled my water bottle.

I made it back to Ockley Lane and then my mental energy just seemed to evaporate in the heat. I walked for a couple of hundred metres and then ran walked all the way home… fortunately not too far by that point.

Four Dextrose tablets, two handfuls of nuts, a bowl of porridge, umpteen glasses of water and a cold shower later and I was ready to write.

15.5 miles in 2:50 is an average of 5.47mph, which despite the increased distance and walk/running is still faster than last week… and I’m still awake! So maybe the Nitro did its job after all… on a crazy hot day to run!

STOP PRESS: Kim quite literally just booked us on a short trip away and I can’t now do the marathon… I’m really sorry Mark! I’m definitely fit enough to join the guys on a training run sometime though!

July 7, 2013July 7, 2013

More than half out of the box

I’m writing this a week late, on account of the fact that last Sunday afternoon I unaccountably fell asleep on the sofa for two and a half hours. Poor excuse, I know, but it’s been a busy week.

During the previous week I had visited The Run Shop in Hove. I arrived good & early to beat the rush but, em, found them closed! Fortunately Ethel’s Kitchen opposite does the best cakes ever and I sat whilst an Americano and a hot chocolate brownie slipped deliciously down my throat.

While sitting there I had two surprise visitors: Fred who was off to Run’s store in Worthing and then Claire, who was taking baby Emma for a walk. Claire informed me that the BIG man Daren was home so I took myself off there… for more coffee and more cake!

When I returned to Run, Kurt was mobbed with customers, but he’s a really good juggler and he managed to seamlessly add me to the people he was attentively serving.

A little later I was kitted out with new splodge and new socks and the weekend couldn’t come quickly enough!

The previous week I had also met the lovely guys from Armadillo Merino and although their gear is designed primarily for professional risk takers, it seemed as if it would be pretty good for amateur runners too. Aside from this, my brother Nigel loves merino wool gear, which is a pretty good recommendation, so I invested in a new t-shirt.

One of the things that Armadillo said is that I’d only want to take it off to wash it (which is not that frequently due to it’s natural odour control properties)… and they were right! I’ve been wearing it pretty much non-stop since I got it!

In between meeting Armadillo and going to Run I had spent a fun evening in Lewes with Mark Johnson… in fact I was sat at dinner between him and Richard Garland of Gradient Consultants, who just happened to also be an ultra-marathoner! A recurrent theme of conversation was my elusive next marathon!

I’ve been caught like this before, by Grant in 2004 (hence doing the Berlin marathon that year), so I’m quite wary of what I say… and reserve the right to change my mind again Mark!

So Sunday eventually came round and there I was, like a small child at Christmas, getting ready to run before 8am! One final touch was required… some energy!

And then I was off, curious to know what my new splodge could do straight out of the box…. and whether I really could do a marathon in three weeks time. I headed up to Oldlands Mill where the view was beautiful.

Then to Ditchling and up the Beacon track, where I was grateful that a walker commented on how hot and humid it was… I thought it was just me!

I continued along the top to Jack and Jill then turned around to do the return journey. It was hard already and I was way past half way through my water, but hey-ho, it was a lovely day to be out and about.

The sun went behind a cloud as I reached the top of Lodge Hill so I took a few photos looking back at the Beacon (aka quick rest).

Then it was back to base for a cold shower and, as I previously mentioned, a rather long snooze on the sofa with my feet angled up onto cushions.

So the new splodge and I managed 13.75 miles (more than half a marathon) in 2:37, a respectable average of 5.25mph. Socks, t-shirt and shoes were all great… I’ve lost count of the number of these shoes I’ve had in the ten years we’ve been customers at Run (though I still have them all so a photo will be forthcoming in due course!).

Right, now on to write about this week!

May 5, 2013May 5, 2013

Duke of Edinburgh energy

The tea-house finally opened for business this week… which simply involved waiting for a warm day and emptying out the deck furniture. To have designed & created such a versatile space makes me smile every time I look at it… which I have done a lot over the last five years! A perfect thinking retreat.

For some reason I was not on top form this morning. Sure, I often put off starting my runs, but this morning was different… I lacked energy.

When I did finally set off it was clear that I wasn’t going to get far, but then I did a silly thing… I followed the same route as last week.

It was a lovely day (I almost wore two layers which would have been unbearable) and I meandered along in the direction of Ditchling, choosing my footfalls carefully on the baked clay ruts.

I was in no particular hurry and was contemplating turning around at 45 minutes when I met a group of lads practising for their D of E Bronze Award. They politely asked if I could confirm where they were on the map (they were right) and called out for me to ‘Have Fun!’ as I ran off.

The positive energy transferred to me in that short interaction was amazing and it carried me all the way up to the top of the Beacon, past a couple more teams, one of which was really making hard work of walking down the hill.

The outbound journey had taken me 1:02, five minutes longer than last week, though it felt like I was twenty minutes behind.

The return journey seemed slower still, though I passed the labouring team whilst they were still walking down the hill and caught up with the second team before they reached Ditchling. The energising team however had rocketed off. I almost caught them up at Ditchling Common where I turned off… they were clearly on a mission. Bravo!

I ended up running back into Burgess Hill on impulse power, so I am somewhat surprised that the return leg took me the same time as last week. Running is funny like that sometimes.

So overall 1:58 for 10.5 miles… 5.3 mph average.

Since then I have been largely in a state of collapse on the sofa, in between consuming food and water… clearly I drained reserves that weren’t there in the first place, though I’m also glad that I did. More food is now required!

Good luck all you D of E-ers out there!

April 28, 2013

There & back a different way

It’s been a really interesting week with two student business pitch events at Brighton Business School and a day spent at TEDx LBS, held this year at the Royal Geographic Society. Whilst the former are always brilliantly thought-provoking, the latter was really excellent brain food.

The speakers are generally talking about really challenging subjects and the fascinating conversations with the other delegates between sessions are icing on the cake. I could happily spend a day every month at one of these events!

The hard-working LBS students who organised the superb event

You can see the talks from last year on the site at the moment and I’m sure that in due course they will add the ones from Friday… I can highly recommend listening to Shoshana Clark talk about her work in Kabul which I found incredibly inspiring!

I was immersed in an HBR article this morning, sitting in the sun on the deck and could happily have stayed there reading the whole day. But a run was needed to stay in shape and to keep the writing here going, so on went the running shoes and off I ran.

It was a beautiful sunny day but there was a distinct chill in the wind… not enough to make me regret wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, but enough to give me painful ears and make me fantasize about ear muffs!

To start with I wasn’t really sure where I was going, so I followed my nose out onto Folders Lane, across the common and down the Sussex Border Path to Ditchling. When the ground is wet, this path is a quagmire but the recent dry weather made it a really enjoyable route, along behind the garden centres and right into the middle of the village.

Even the route South across the fields here was firm going, which is rare indeed and then I was faced with a choice. I could turn left or right and still do a lovely loop, but instead I chose to go straight on and up the Beacon… there’s something about the lure of a steep hill!

I reached this halfway point in 57 minutes and set about retracing my steps. With the chilly breeze now behind me and the sun higher in the sky, my ears started to warm up, though I now noticed that many of the walkers I passed were wearing jackets and trousers.

Mown paths... Ditchling really is a lovely place! — Mown paths… Ditchling really is a lovely place!

The route through the vale is normally all like this... yuk! — The route through the vale is normally all like this… yuk!

I found the return leg to be harder work, despite the absence of a big hill. I’m definitely fitter than I was (maybe last year) as I was still able to keep pushing ahead, but there was nothing left to really push hard over the last quarter-mile.

Surprisingly this route is slightly longer than the one via Oldlands Mill, so I ended up running 10.5 miles in 1:53… averaging just over 5.5 mph… and I’m definitely going to run this way to the Beacon again as the weather warms up.

April 14, 2013

Shorts on 2013

Finally the wind blew from Southern climes and after a day of rain yesterday, Spring sidled in and made its mark on the weekend.

And what a day it has been… windows open, sitting outside to eat, car washing, grass cutting and prefacing all this, the first run of the year in shorts and a tee-shirt.

In a nod to those friends who were running in the Brighton Marathon today, I took to the pavement for a 10-mile run down to Hassocks & back.

The first couple of miles were hard going and then I started to run into a warm southerly wind which meant that it didn’t exactly get easier as I warmed up. Somehow I managed to reach the turn-point in 46 minutes, just outside of a 9 minute per mile pace, which gave me an incentive to push a little harder on the way back.

Out of interest, you’ll note from the pictures above that the hedgerows and trees and all still brown… the photo in my post from the same run on April 15th last year shows a thick green hedge!

With the wind now behind me I did my best to make up for the lost minute as I retraced my steps. A quick glance at my watch with one mile to go showed that I was back on track, but alas not ahead.

That meant that I had to push really hard up the steep part of Junction Road and keep the pressure on when I reached the flat part at the top. Knowing that I couldn’t possibly do it, my subconscious was telling me to slow down and take a breather, but I pushed on through regardless.

And somehow I managed to do it! 10 miles in 90 minutes… a full 10 minutes faster than that same Brighton Marathon-day run last year!

One thing was clear though… I would never have been able to run the other 16.2 miles! Congratulations to all those who did!

April 7, 2013April 7, 2013

Spring ahoy!

I’ve had a really interesting week, but it’s been infeasibly cold for April… bleak grey skies, snow flurries, Siberian winds. In fact it was a great week to have good excuses to be inside… and I was particularly glad that a walk down amongst the Seven Sisters was postponed at the last minute!

Yesterday we were treated to a sibling visit, with Debbie and John arriving in style… on the back of a low loader!

It was really nice to see their smiling faces emerging from the truck… they took the whole incident very well, despite a two-hour delay to their arrival and a £200 bill for emptying £20 of petrol from the diesel tank!

By the time we woke up this morning the sun was well in control of the day and though it was still chilly, I couldn’t resist a run outside.

Two layers was not really enough, though I’m not sure whether this was for the obvious reason, or because I was sweating and the cold wind was supercooling me as a result. Either way I resisted the temptation to don the jacket I took along for spare.

I headed out to Oldlands Mill along a path with mud the consistency of chocolate icing. The lovely panoramic photograph I took is unfortunately too big to upload to this site… you’ll have to take it from me that the white windmill looked beautiful, while the view to Jack & Jill across the Weald was lovely in the sunlight.

From there I ran down into a bustling Ditchling and up towards the Beacon track. The track itself seemed really steep after so long away whilst the top layer of permafrosted ground had melted to make the surface very slippery in places. Despite this it was great to be back and I managed to reach the Beacon without stopping.

Running back down the track was harder work in some ways, since the brakes had to be full on to offset the questionable grip, but I made it down without incident.

As I retraced my steps I reaped the benefit of all those recent magic carpet sessions… despite the additional distance, gradient and rough ground, my legs felt really good. I even managed to increase my pace towards the end.

So 10 miles in 1:44 (53 minutes out, 2 mins taking photos on the trig point and 49 minutes back) gives an average of 5.77mph.

One odd aside… I’m not sure when I last had a pair of scales in the house (at least 20 years ago), but our new scales show that I lost 2 pounds during the run, despite drinking half a litre of water en route… no wonder my shirt felt cold!

As a further sign that Spring is nigh, Kim and I then sat outside to eat brunch… it wasn’t spectacularly warm, but warm enough while we ate. Though as I write this we are admiring the sunlit garden from inside with the doors closed!

I’m inclined to make the most of it as the forecast for the rest of April (starting Tuesday) is for as much rain in three weeks as we normally have in four! Spring ahoy!

March 31, 2013

Cookin’

A chance comment by a seasoned guitarist at a packed 50th party on Friday night led me to spend Saturday morning and this morning trying to replay the two Jazz standards I have been learning… but with the correct timing!

I have been learning and practising the two pieces (total length just 3 minutes!) at least every morning for a year now.

Initially it was impossible to even play many of the chords, let alone string them together to form a tune, but during a recent Music Theory lesson Lucas Cook commented that I seemed to know the chord progressions well enough to learn how to assemble them properly.

Andy’s comment reiterated that message and provoked action.

Unfortunately the correct timing requires me to play parts of the music way more than a tad faster, so I have a few more weeks of effort ahead.

We spent yesterday with Kim’s family which, with only 12 of us, was a marginally more serene affair,

Energised by lots of great people interaction I took to the machine this morning with a gusto… it STILL being cold and grey outside.

Working from a base of 7 mph, I increased the speed for 1-2 minutes every five minutes… initially 7.6, then 8.1, 8.6 and after about the halfway mark 9.1 mph. Because of the frequent changes in tempo I focused on very little apart from the running.

7.37 miles in 60 minutes.

After a shower, breakfast and a snooze (speak to Kim about her album of photos!) we set about cooking dinner for the next few days… a big colourful stew!

It’s now ready to eat, so… BYEeeee!

P.S. Very Happy Birthdays to Debbie & Evrim today!

March 25, 2013March 25, 2013

A lesson in futility

It was a great week, during which I worked with two different groups of inquisitive mature students, caught up with lovely old schoolmates at a birthday party and separately managed to reconnect with a treasured long-lost friend!

In a reflective mood on Saturday I had picked up Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers to reread and by Sunday morning I found myself looking at a page with the following puzzle to solve:

It’s a sample question from Raven’s Progressive Matrices, which apparently gives a measure of abstract reasoning skills.

Let me pose you a different question:

Guessing that it was a near-impossible problem, did I:

1. Solve it easily and prove that my intellect is in the top 0.1% of humanity?

2. Read on to the answer (which was in the sentence which followed) straight away, to maximise my (still-winter) Sunday reading time?

3. Challenge myself to solve it and still be trying to figure out the answer four-hours later?

Thank you to anyone who instantly knew the answer was No. 1… I truly value your (clearly misguided) views of me!

No. 2. would have been the most efficient answer but the answer was actually closest to No. 3, although four hours is a little out… fully eight hours elapsed before I gave in, although I did pause to run, eat lunch and cook dinner in between.

I will keep the answer to myself in case anyone else wants to have a go at it, but be warned that even when I knew what the answer was, I still couldn’t understand why!

Nor could Malcolm Gladwell, to be fair.

It being cold and miserable outside and with my mind trying to bend itself around an insurmountable challenge, I took to the running machine and stared at the wall for an hour.

Not much to report there then, other than to say that I ramped up the speed by 0.1 mph every mile and increased it more sharply in the last five minutes to complete 7.34 miles.

With chances of heavy snow in the South towards the back end of this week and with the winter weather set to stay with us probably into the middle of April, according to the BBC, expecting Spring to arrive anytime soon really is a lesson in futility.

Stay warm and upbeat peops!