Up memory hill

It was a good run for thinking today.  I didn’t get out in the week so I rose early, had my quadspresso, read another chapter of Richard Askwith’s The Lost Village and then set out around 7.50am into the quiet morning.  I headed down the road and within five minutes, keen to experiment, had chosen my destination.  I would see if I could run to the beacon a more direct route than normal.

So it was out onto Folders Lane, round the muddy footpath past the vineyards and across the road to Ditchling, then down through all the chicken farms to Ditchling itself.  The ground had definitely dried out, but there were still pockets of slurry here and there, which is why my runners are currently soaking in a bucket of water, outside in the sun.

Ditchling is such a beautiful village and my route took me a new way through between the hidden houses and their idyllic gardens.  Thrust back out from this bygone age near the crossroads, I decided to run along the beacon road, since there were still not many people out and about driving.  With Richard Askwith’s prose still humming around my head, I looked afresh at  houses that I normally pass in the car, imagining them newly built when the road was a track and a coach and four was a highlight.

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At the base of the beacon, I took the path to the right and instantly the last twenty or so years fell away back to the first time I remember walking up it.  My friend Cliff had decided to do this completely mad thing of joining the Raleigh expedition and needed to raise a fair amount of money through sponsorship.  As far as I remember, he decided to climb the height of Everest by going up Ditchling Beacon; I forget how many times, but quite a number.

With a gang of supporters taking it in turns to keep him company and making sure he was kept fed and watered, he had almost finished by the time I arrived so I thought I would walk up once with him.  It was a really tough climb, as the path goes more or less straight up the scarp slope, but I was so exhilarated on reaching the top that I continued and did the final four or five laps with him.

That day was baking hot, the ground firm and the legs young, but today the steepness of the slope and a thin layer of mud meant that anything other than a walk was out of the question.  Mist covered the top and standing, munching, by the side of the trig point was a white cow… I’m not sure who was more startled!

I was a touch disappointed, as it had still taken me an hour to get there despite seemingly going a faster route, so I determined to try to make up time on the way back.  I only discovered the main bridle-path down the Beacon last year and it’s still a thrill to run down, although today it was slippery enough for me to recall passages from Richard Askwith’s earlier book, Feet in the Clouds about the completely balmy sport of fell running.  This video downthebeacon.mp4 shows my progress although you don’t get a sense of how steep or slippery it is!  And by the sounds of it, the fell runners would call me a wuss for not throwing caution to the wind!

It was round about here that I had a revelation and Richard, if you happen to read this, expect a call from me shortly!  Others, whose interest might be piqued, please wait patiently to see whether it turns into an interesting project.

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I took a different path at the base of the beacon and thus ended up running back to Ditchling crossroads, where I turned left, circled around the back of the beautiful church and village pond and headed up a single track road.  At the top of the hill, having seen a property that I would happily aspire to (no, it wasn’t just because of the Aston parked in the drive) I reached the mill that Nick and I passed last weekend.  But rather than repeating our mistake, I took the footpath that headed north which eventually brought me out a good way up the keymer road towards home.

Which was a very good thing because I was already knackered!  I felt like I hobbled my way back past the old houses lining the route home and eventually found myself leaning, panting, against my front door-frame.  The 45 minute return journey reflecting not my speed, but the fact that I’d finally discovered a more direct route. 

Or so I thought.  Actually, the distance each way was almost exactly the same at 5.1 miles, which actually makes me wonder if I was so knackered on returning that I misread my watch by ten minutes.  Otherwise the return leg was at 6.8mph, which it certainly didn’t feel like at the time, even if it does right now!

Message for Daren

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Dai and I set the world to rights today with a bottle of Merlot over lunch and a relaxed stroll along Brighton seafront on a gloriously sunny day. 

If anyone is wondering why the English have a reputation for talking about the weather, last week was gorgeous, there were floods on Saturday, two inches of snow on Sunday and we were back supping Earl Grey tea in a beach cafe today… go figure.

Readers of Daren’s blog will be familiar with the way that he taunts us with pictures of glamorous beaches and idyllic sunsets, so back at ya Daren!

Monday morning exercise

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After the snow and freezing temperatures on Sunday, I was back helping my friend John with the base for his new garden shed on Monday, pictured after the first load and again after the second – or should that be the 5th and 6th as Nick & I helped him in with the 3rd & 4th last week. 

I’m sure he’ll call me a wimp, but I ACHED yesterday having pulled the float machine up and down a dozen times!  There was great camaraderie amongst the friends helping though and it was fascinating to see how it all came together. 

And I have actually enjoyed discovering some dormant muscles!

Yes?

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Do I look crazy?

Yes, I guess I do, and as you know, I am!

I have to confess that the motivation to run came from Kim this morning.  I was contentedly supping on my quad-spresso this morning, tucked up in my reading chair with a truly excellent book (The Lost Village, by Richard Askwith – more of which later, I’m sure) when she announced that she was going for a run.  Despite the fact that she drove to the gym to do this, I still felt I couldn’t just sit there and relax.  Although it was a close run thing!

The only additional bits of kit that I took with me this morning were a neckie to keep my nose warm and Kim’s warm gloves, both of which were needed.  The other things that were very welcome were my Gore jacket (with only two layers underneath) which was toasty and my Thurlo woolen socks, without which my feet would have fallen off several times over the last few months.  The really great thing about the Thurlo’s is that even when you splash through a muddy puddle and your feet get an ice cold blast, they warm straight back up again.  Totally priceless!

So, the going was a little slippery on the pavement as I set out, but once I got out into the country the going was… a little more slippery still!  Not from the snow, you understand, but from the mud.  Oh glorious mud!  It rained a lot yesterday before it snowed today, so there was lots of it, with a covering of snow to disguise it for the unwary.  It even caught me out once or twice, giving me a good excuse to laugh out loud as the icy cold enveloped my feet!

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My route this morning took me across the common, past the Royal Oak, up through Hundred Acre Woods, right across to the water tower, the railway and the then home.  Unusually, I met three other runners out enjoying the conditions… well two of them were anyway.  One lady was wearing her brand new trainers and was clinging to the foliage along the edge of the path in a vain attempt to keep them dry.  To be fair, she and her husband had run six miles and the trainers were no longer particularly clean, but there was a stark difference between her progress and mine, as I sploshed down the middle of the path!

Back across the common, the snow was in abundance, as can be seen in this short video video000a.mp4 (and note that it’s quite difficult to press the off button wearing gloves on cold hands) while beyond the water tower some snowmen and their dogs were out playing with the locals, which you don’t quite get to see ahead of me in this short video video001a.mp4.

It was a joy to be out in the weather and my run lasted one hour and five minutes. covering 6.4 miles… a speed of around 5.9mph or 10.15minute miles.  Ironically, about the same time and distance that Kim covered in the gym and strangely, she felt colder than I did by the time she got back!

Barbie returns

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I suspect that you already know that the longer you don’t run, the less you feel like running: while I last ran only a few days ago, it was this feeling I had when I woke up today.  Leaving nothing to chance, I donned my running gear from the getgo, ate a banana and downed my usual quadruple espresso… and closed the door behind me on the way out. 

Now I either had to run, or alternatively look silly standing around on my street while my neighbours go to work.  As a portfolio worker (as in someone who has the good fortune to have a number of work interests) they already think I’m weird, so I figured I’d better get running.

The aim this morning was to take the photograph above for an earlier post, so I quickly worked out a convoluted way to pass there and was delighted to find that there she was, still walking around harmlessly and without a care in her head.  Wherever it was.

The downside of going this way was that I once again ended up falling off the edge of my map and my word, it’s muddy over there!  What can I say other than ‘don’t stray orf the map!’  When I finally get around to buying the next one up (which may end up being the two maps, as I think the bit I need falls right on a vertical join) I won’t be at all surprised if it’s all mud (and planks, see the pic below), as far as the legs can run.

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So what else can I say?  From an unenthusiastic start, the different route with its more than liberal helping of mud helped to re-engage me and by the time I returned, I was running well.  It was warm enough that I had to take a layer off (the middle one) and tie it around my waist.  I also had to take my gloves off, which since there’s only one place to put them, may explain why I got a few more smiles along the way than normal.  Barbie certainly seemed pleased to see me, although she bent over backwards to hide her blushes.

In all, I was out for one hour 18 minutes and covered 5.5 miles according to my map.  Though exactly how much further I covered off-map I’m not exactly sure.  It could be a good time to buy shares in Ordinance Survey!

Breaking new, er… water

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There seemed to be a plethora of possible titles for my entry today, amongst them ‘Harmless Barbie Lost Her Head-ing Too’ (I’ll see if I can get a picture at some point, then you’ll understand!) and ‘Beyond the Edge of the Known Universe’.  Let me set the scene though: I didn’t feel like running, it was raining outside, my stomach was ready to eat breakfast, I was happy sitting reading about deforestation in China etc.  But weighed against that was the need to write… and hence the need to run… allied to the fact that my gear is truly BRILLIANT.  Out I went.

I couldn’t decide whether I was in the mood for a long or a short run, but I topped my water bottle up just in case.  It quickly became apparent that water was going to be in abundance, with the brooks and streams pretty much filled to overflowing.  This meant that it was also rather muddy… oh boy, is that ever the understatement of the year!

I quickly got into my stride, heading straight through most of the mud except where there was a more obvious firm line.  One of the things that you quickly learn when you first drive a car off-road is that you have to slow down and this was no exception… trying to avoid a mudbath at the last minute was not an option given the general lack of traction, so it was often safer to go straight through!

I headed out to the Royal Oak and then decided to go a different way.  It seems strange to me sitting here now why I always seem to do this on rainy days!  I ran into Wivelsfield and up Slugwash Lane and then turned right where Nick and I normally cut across.  Rather than going back down to Wivelsfield though, I headed East with the view of finding a path that goes South further across.  I didn’t find it though and ended up running around a big WET field before passing the place I had come in.  With the dull, overcast sky, I had managed to lose my direction in the process and now headed North by mistake, into a tract of woodland that could more appropriately have been called WaterWood.

The marked path was basically a small river, so I had no choice but to plough on through it.  Splish Splash Splosh!  It is very strange how the heart is heaviest when you think you’re going in the wrong direction but you’ve come too far to turn around: out of the whole run, it was only here that I actually registered that it was raining.

Eventually, after more trees, more water and some beautiful, but distant country houses, I emerged back onto Slugwash Lane, although I was sufficiently disorientated that I didn’t realise it.  Faced with the choice of which way to go on this unfamiliar road I did what many of my other friends might have done… I chose the up-hill direction.  Training is training, after all.

I finally realised where I was when I came to the junction with Lewes Road, to the East of Haywards Heath… and off the top of my map (no, I didn’t have it with me, silly!).  The quick way home might have been to turn round and head back down Slugwash Lane to Wivelsfield, but instead I turned towards Haywards Heath and then, some way along the road, made a right turn into Colwell Lane which was marked as unsuitable for motor vehicles.

It seemed okay to me as I ran down the tarmac but then the tarmac ceased and I soon came to understand what the sign meant.  Unsuitable?  HA!  This was the muddiest lane I have run on this whole winter!  Oh, how I wish the Bok had been here with his freshly laundered trainers!  I could almost have paddled my kayak in places, it was that wet.  On and on and on it went and anyone hiding in the undergrowth as I passed (and they would have been hiding, believe me) would have heard the mud-covered monster laughing out loud as he sploshed through the worst of it.

Eventually the tarmac resumed and I emerged onto Fox Hill, passed the pub (very tempting to stop, but they used to have a policy of not allowing muddy boots and I know I would have not even have made it to the door) and headed back into the country in the general direction of Burgess Hill.

Some records are not destined to stand for long and I quickly found that, on reflection, Colwell Lane was not the muddiest of them all.  This bridleway really was hilarious and I ended up with one main consideration… not losing my trainers!  In places the water & mud was up to my ankles, but on I went.  Finally, when it had been assured of it’s place as the new record holder, it morphed into Theobalds Lane, and the ancient tarmac with its plethora of axle-breaking puddles served the useful purpose of washing the mud off my trainers… once again, where was the Bok when I really needed him!

There are two reasonably direct ways back home from this place, one of which has thick mud in the middle of summer, so I opted for the other, even though it was a little dull running on the road. 

So, my little run had taken me some 10.2 miles in one hour 45 minutes and whilst the speed of 5.8mph is not outstanding, I think it can hold its muddy head up with pride given the fantastical conditions.  As can my gear… my Rono soft underlayer, Gore jacket and iQ beanie, all from Run in Hove (actually), really do help make every day a fair weather runner’s day!

Raindrops

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We all spend a lot of time inside, out of the weather: our homes, offices, cars, shops etc each place a roof over our head, a barrier to the weather outside.  One of the things that was most striking about the Vipassana meditation retreat that I attended last year was having time to immerse myself in the weather: to be able to think about it, listen to it, revel in the wind and the rain.  It helped that it was January and there were lots of weather fronts sweeping through to demonstrate their power.

This morning there was an ever so gentle rain falling and the raindrops were caressing my face the whole way round.  It was a truly delightful sensation.

I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel after not running for over a week.  I helped Debbie & John to dig a hole in their garden last Saturday as part of their pond redevelopment: it was only 2.5 feet square by 3 feet deep but past the luscious top-soil, it was thick, heavy London clay, so heavy that I could hardly lift a small spade-full of it above my shoulders (my work boots, above, both weighed me down and stuck to the ground!).  The combination of this with some most inclement weather disinclined me to run Sunday [please see comment below].  This week was then very busy, added to which Nick has been poorly and quite sensibly decided not to run.

So it was just me striding out this morning, which was a shame as it would have been fun watching the Bok trying to avoid the gorgeous, squelchy, wall-to-wall mud!  In the same way that the Inuits have quite precise descriptions for different types of snow and ice, so I might describe the going today as a good structure of firm mud with large pockets or areas of wet surface mud: my trainers came back wet but not clogged and thus got a wash off and are now drop-dripping outside… I had actually forgotten that they were disco shoes!

Cutting to the chase, the overall time was one hour, one minute for 6.7 miles (6.6mph), but it was interesting that after 45 minutes I decided to increase the pace and managed to change it from a comfortable 7mph, for the distance prior to that, to a breathy 5.25mph for the distance home.  Yes, you read that right: I actually slowed down!  Go figure!

Bush Thwacker

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It was another chilly morning in Sussex and the glorious sunshine was one of the two reasons that I wished I had worn my Oakleys (no, I don’t have Prada sunnies either).  The other was that the Bok was getting his own back for my mud splishing, by thwacking bushes across my face.

Mind you, part of that had to do with my proximity running behind him, itself the result of a reversal in fortune, energy wise.  Yes, let’s be clear about this: I was on form for a change.  I realised this when we got to the first hill (that’s a low rise to you Cliff) and the Bok started to push harder: where he would normally open up a lead, today I just went with him.

We went out via Ote Hall and around to the north of Wivelsfield, dropping through the middle of the village and heading south on Hundred Acre Lane where I was once again able to match his pace and raise it a little on the rise. 

An indicator that he was finding it harder by comparison was that the alarm on his heart-rate monitor, which sounds to warm of impending heart failure, kept sounding.  Beep beep BEEP!  Having slightly more energy that normal, I pushed the pace a little harder every time I heard the alarm sound, keeping it going off for as long as possible.  Beep, beep BEEP!  Beep, beep, BEEP!  You might say that this suggests a total disregard for his well-being, but I feel that he has proved pretty conclusively that he is virtually indestructible in this regard (note the qualifications on both counts!) so I felt no qualms about it, whatsoever!  When the sunne shyneth, make hey!

Heading back through the woods, we came across an old bike and since he was clearly finding it hard work running, he tried to cycle instead.  Despite being a mad keen cyclist as well as all-round mini Olympic team, the combination of the state of the bike and the gradient of the terrain proved too much for him and he had to lay down for moment, as you can see for yourself above.

The run continued in a similar vein, with me generally taking (and extending) the lead until we got to the home straight.  This is where he normally runs me completely ragged, so I thought I would play him at his own game and to the tune of his alarm, I gently upped the pace the whole way down the road until I was virtually sprinting.

Beep, beep, BEEP!  Beep, beep, BEEP!  Beep, beep, BEEP! 

Then nothing.

I thought it was the batteries on his watch that had expired, but I suddenly found myself running on my own.  More than slightly alarmed, I retraced my steps to find him walking along very gently, the power outage not in the watch, but in the owner.

I have to report that there were several perfectly reasonable mitigating circumstances (note that I deliberately went out of my way not to use the word excuses) as to why he had less energy than normal, but alas I am unable to make further hey under pain of extreme torture!

According to the beep beep watch we covered 7.12 miles in one hour and one minute, a speed of 7mph on the nose, which I am pretty pleased with personally.  His maximum heart-rate was apparently 193 – I’d welcome comments as to whether this shows that this 40 year old is fit, or just passing his perspiration date.

Post-script.  In the spirit of friendship, I told him about my having pushed harder when his alarm sounded.  As a measure of his competitiveness, he immediately worked out how to to turn the sound off!