Photos – Page 6 – Foster Runs

February 8, 2015February 15, 2015

Social running

One of the nested reasons for keeping at this running thing is so that I’m fit enough to keep up when there is an opportunity to run with my friends.

Cliff, Mark and Andy were running in a Longman 28 mile run from Falmer today and Mark had cajoled me into joining them, at least for a short distance. I started at Jack & Jill, their half-way point, and ran back along the top of the Downs towards them, passing the front runners as I did. The leader looked on pretty good form but the guys weren’t actually that far behind… er, well, maybe two miles or so, which I suppose is enough.

I didn’t quite manage to get to Blackcap before Cliff came into view and I turned around and ran back to the Beacon with him. Mark was 20m behind that whole way and he finally caught up while Cliff was eating Scotch Eggs and chocolate brownies at the refuelling station. I then ran with the two of them back across to Jack & Jill.

When I reached their turn point Mark suggested that I run with them a little further until I found Andy, who was only behind on account of being in recovery from the flu… we reached him before we got to the top of Home Hill. I then turned round and ran back to the turn point with him and then, for moral support, back up to the top of Home Hill again.

And then, obviously, I ran back down to the car.

Overall I felt as if I was on good form… idling along on a sunny day with friends who have run ten miles further than you will do that every time!

My efforts amounted to a run of 10.5 miles in 1.51, an average of 5.67 mph… you can see the route on Strava at ttps://www.strava.com/activities/252009307

I returned to base for a quick shower and then Kim and I went to Lewes for a relaxed walk and something to eat… it was a glorious day! We even managed to drop in on my folks on the way back… they were on good form too, despite being somewhat more than ten metaphorical miles ahead of me!

February 1, 2015February 15, 2015

Back stitch WhuHuh!

Twice in the last week I have run for a train with a heavy work bag on my back. I managed to get to the station ahead of the train both times and was pleased that I could still breathe easily, but it clearly wasn’t a good idea as I have managed to tweak my back.

We went out for a pre-Christmas meal with my favourite (school) friends last night and the bearhugs (or at least Paul’s ones!) probably didn’t help.

Based on this I was in two minds whether to go for a run at all, but I decided there was at least a chance that it would ease the pain so went out into a sunny morning. It was like having the stitch, insofar as I couldn’t fully inflate my lungs, except that the pain was below my shoulder blades rather than my sternum. Every so often I would twist and utter the WhuHuh sound, which probably would have been funny if anyone had been there to hear me.

The mud was about the same as last week, so I was sliding all over the place. However it was a bramble that ultimately unseated me… I must have stood on one end and the loop then caught my other foot… THUD! Down I went onto my hands… I won’t be surprised if my shoulder aches tomorrow into the mix!

Overall it was a beautiful day which even felt warm in the sun… though it was fweezin’ out of the sun!

No photos to show (yet) – see last week’s rant (which I’ve only posted today) for the reason. You can see the 6 mile route at https://www.strava.com/activities/249027181 – I basically completed it in about 1.01, which is similar enough to the last few weeks to make me realise that the pain today didn’t slow me down… or that I’m not generally trying hard enough!

Photos to follow if my MacBook Air ever lets me download them! Post purchase dissonance R us!

PS. It might seem odd to have pictures above of runners that magically shed their mud, whilst the socks & longs retain theirs. Kim kindly handed me a bowl of water & a scrubbing brush to clean them before I even took them off. It worked well, but the next run returned them to their disgustingly muddy state!

January 25, 2015February 15, 2015

Last weekend

Sitting here on the first of Feb, it’s already difficult to remember the details of my run last week.

And it’s also tricky to show you as my MacBook Air has found a new way to frustrate me. iPhoto (remember from before that this is the only way to get photos from iPhone to MacBook) started uploading 55 photos from my iPhone but stopped with 18 to go. It has clearly stopped uploading (maybe an hour ago now), but I still can’t close the programme because it’s convinced that it’s still working fine. Disconnecting the iPhone makes no difference at all. It’s an impasse.

So for those of you thinking about changing from a PC to a Mac, pause to think about the following. It’s great in that it starts as soon as you open it and it certainly looks cool, but:

It’s designed for (and presumably by) people with 20/20 vision and it’s mighty difficult (in some instances impossible) to increase the size of the fonts and have them stay that way
You can’t easily save files to the folder that you want them in (that’s not how it works here)
The cables seem to be designed to break (actually I’m thinking of the iPhone cable that is currently plugged in… we have about four broken ones in the house at the moment)
Despite not using iTunes, it seems to have a 695mb or so update every other week (the last update insisted on being downloaded three times before I assumed that the prompt is broken)… it’s almost like a pointed reprimand for not having bought the version with the maximum memory
You can’t see how much memory is taken up by the myriad updates… that’s clearly above my pay grade!
Actually, I could go on, but suffice to say that I wish that I hadn’t gone back to Mac… PCs have their own frustrations (oh yes!), but at least they don’t constrain the way you want to work

I’m sure that I will get some stick for this outburst, but only from die-hard Mac users, or those people who have not tried both. I WANT to love it, but it’s really hard to do that with the constant constraints to work around.

Anyway, last Sunday started very cold indeed, but it was warmer running than I expected… I had my outer layers unzipped after about a mile. The mud was deep enough to cover me in splatters head to toe, but sufficiently shallow to be really slippery! There was loads of water around (photos would be nice here… I’ll upload them if I am allowed to at some stage!).

Overall I ran 6 miles in 1.02… a shade under 6mph. You can see the details here: https://www.strava.com/activities/245835561

January 11, 2015

Six to the sea

I’ve been running around London this week meeting entrepreneurs: legging it up and down tube escalators and along streets to stay on schedule and managing well most of the time. There were even several days when I collapsed onto the train in the evening and realised that I’d not even stopped for lunch… though I’d had plenty of caffeine instead!

This morning was bright and sunny (though somewhat chilly) and it seemed like a good day to run to the sea… though not from here! Instead I drove down to see my folks and ran my short circuit there instead.

The circuit takes me down the ridge path to Ovingdean, past the church (with a nod to Richard Marsh) and then down to Ovingdean gap where stairs take you down to the Undercliff Walk.

For some reason it was hard work going along the flat Undercliff Walk despite having a fresh wind behind me all the way… though I did stop to take quite a few photos along the way.

At Rottingdean I turned back up the hill and past the windmill to get back up to Ovingdean.

From there it was a short run up to the ridge path and back to base.

Strava estimated the run to be 6 miles in under an hour (you can see the run here), though it was an hour on my watch… an average of 6mph. I suspect that this is considerably more leisurely than my sprints around London, with somewhat fresher air too. Oh, and way less coffee!

January 4, 2015

Monitored by Strava

It was a close to ideal Sunday morning for me… get up, make coffee, play guitar, read HBR, run. It was very cold and miserably grey outside and I went upstairs to put on my shorts (for a run on the machine)… but for some reason came down dressed for the outside world. My runners were still caked in mud from last week and dried to a crisp, so I followed myself around with a dustpan & brush once I’d squeezed my feet into them. I stood ready by the door and then had an idea.

I had installed the Strava app on my phone at some point in the dim & distant past and had even gone so far as to create a profile… but that’s as far as I had managed to get. Here was a great opportunity to test it out… so I agreed to the T&Cs and set it (and me) running.

Cold it most certainly was, but as I tramped along the road there was a faint glow behind the grey mantle… enough to make me very glad to be outside. I opted for the same circuit that I ran often through the summer and quickly reached the start of the mud… oh boy, this was going to be a muddy run!

As I’ve written here often before, mud comes in lots of varieties, though I’m sadly unfamiliar with their names. Today the mud was light, wet, splashy, slippery and moderately deep in places (though fortunately not sticky enough to relieve me of my shoes!). Realising that I was going to get muddy regardless of how careful I was, I opted for a ‘plough through the middle’ approach, as much to lessen the likelihood of slipping over as anything else. This meant that I was quickly splattered in mud, but better this than running on the complex gradients at the margins of the path, having a repeat of last week and landing in the mud face-first!

Due to the temperature and the general slip-slidyness my phone stayed tucked away in the pocket of my jacket and thus photos were few… these should give a sense of the day though:

More mud ensued but little else caught my attention during the balance of the run… the benefit of reading HBR before running is that my mind was more active in trying to assimilate the new input, so random ideas kept pinging out including an idea for a short article.

It was fortunate that I had left the dustpan & brush out, as the floor was covered in mud by the time I had extricated myself from my socks and running longs, whilst my runners were returned sodden to dry ready for the next run.

According to previous calculations my circuit is 5.75 miles, but Strava reckons it was 6 miles… at least the difference is in the right direction! More curious, according to my watch the run took 60 minutes, whilst Strava calculated it as 58.30. Thus the average speed was in the range of 5.75 mph to 6.15 mph… either way not bad for such a slippery day!

You can even take a look at the circuit for yourself https://www.strava.com/activities/236534713

December 29, 2014

Drop and run

After a wonderful Christmas with a house full of people, I took the opportunity to drive my folks back to their place in their car. This meant that I was about ten miles from home and could enjoy the sunny day by running back across the South Downs. Sunny day, yes, but somewhat chilly too, with the car registering temperatures between one and three degrees only.

Glancing over my shoulder as I set out, I could see the sea… though I clearly didn’t notice that huge sign in my picture!

From the top of the hill above Woodingdean I could see the half-way point at Ditchling Beacon, on the horizon, though I wouldn’t reach there for another hour.

I ran down into Falmer, across the A27 and up the other side past the University sports centre.

It’s surprising how undulating the path is as it passes St Mary’s Farm and then crosses a series of small hills & valleys as it makes it’s way up toward Ditchling Beacon.

Eventually I reached the top of the ridge and looked back towards Woodingdean and on towards Burgess Hill… noting the difference in colour temperature and that the shadow of the hill already stretched past Ditchling village. I celebrated reaching the half-way point by stuffing my mouth with dried mango and continued pushing for home.

As I ran down the steep Beacon path I absent-mindedly started thinking how much of a bad idea it would be to slip over and twist an ankle here… wearing only enough to keep me warm whilst running and with the temperature approaching freezing. As if to make the point that you get whatever you focus on, I then slid over painfully on the steep and slippery surface, grazing my hip and knee through my running longs!

Fortunately the damage was only superficial and I continued onward… focusing on far more pleasant thoughts! It was an easy run down into a sleepy Ditchling and up the other side onto Lodge Hill… though unfortunately I misjudged the height of the top bar of a stile and thwacked my knee on it with the sound of a cricket ball connecting with a bat. Followed by a loud OUCH!

By the time I reached Oldlands Mill, the light was starting to fade from the sky, but I could still see that the path was 90% watery mud. This is the homeward stretch so I just splashed on through, slip-sliding around in an effort to remain vertical and noting the chilly temperature of the ice-fringed puddles as the water flooded through my shoes and socks at each step!

Dusk was fast approaching when I finally dragged myself into the warmth of the house for a cold shower and hot cup of tea. The run was just over 10 miles and I completed it in 1.55, so the average was a shade over 5 mph. It was a really invigorating way to mark the end of of a lovely family Christmas!

December 7, 2014

Exploring fifth gear

We’ve had the pleasure of Karen’s company over the weekend and when I returned from dropping her to the station I had a coffee with some neighbours… thus it was quite late before I even thought about running.

I then had to decide whether to run outside or inside… a general time constraint helped me choose the latter.

More time was then spent trying to get my MacBook Air to play music from my PC (no chance, apparently) before I resorted to a Jackson Browne CD and cranked up the stereo.

Finally I jumped on the machine to Running on Empty and instantly felt the desire to crank up the speed… I warmed up on 7mph and had soon increased this further.

I decided to run just five miles and dialled in a different speed at each quarter mile. Everything seems to flow nicely for me at 7.5mph… 9mph was not so flowing and I don’t have the fitness at the moment to keep that up for long.

However, as the final mile progressed I tested out 10mph, then 11mph and eventually 12mph. My legs are plenty long enough for these speeds (I used to happily sprint at 14mph on the machine) and I reassuringly seem to have recovered some of my general fitness. It was like exploring fifth gear on an open road, when you’ve been stuck in traffic all day.

So 5 miles took me 38.33… an average in the region of 7.75mph.

I’ll leave you with some pics of our orchid and some KriKri ceramics… great for Christmas presents!

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014

Back down to the coast

It was late in the morning by the time I managed to motivate myself to run and I needed a little help from Kim to decide whether to run locally or from my folks’ place… I (she) chose the latter and it was a great decision!

The sky to the south of the Downs was slightly brighter and it was almost warm down on the coast. Nevertheless I was taking no chances and wore a really soft t-shirt under layer (we call it a bunny-rabbit, it’s that soft) under a long sleeved top and my Gore jacket. I probably could have got away without my jacket but I was really glad of it running back up the hill into the wind.

I ran down the old track that links Woodingdean to Ovingdean and reflected that this may have been the first place that I ever went ‘running’, more than 35 years ago, thanks to an enthusiastic Scout leader. He was also a Police Diver and thus was able to teach us about the build up of lactic acid in the lungs (aka the stitch) and how to overcome it.

From this ridge it’s easy to see how the villages nestle into the valleys and how much green space has been left… there is space for many more houses, but the quality of life would be dramatically lower.

At Ovingdean I ran in the opposite direction to the other week, dropping down to the valley floor and running on down to the steps that lead to the Undercliff Walk.

Protected from the chilly north wind by the cliffs, the path was a sun-trap and I could easily have run along in t-shirt & shorts… this might actually have been better because when I reached Rottingdean and turned to run up the hill, the sweat from wearing too many laters exacerbated the effect of the cold wind.

I ran up past Rottingdean windmill and back up through Ovingdean, where I deliberately included the steep hill back to the ridge. It was then a comparatively short run back up to Woodingdean Primary School and back to my folks’ place.

I’m guessing that the run was about the same 5.8 miles as last time and it took around the same time too at 64 minutes.

November 9, 2014

Longs on 14

Actually, I probably could have got away with wearing shorts today, but I decided to run from my folks house so I had to guess the temperature. At home it was decidedly chilly in the shade, but down near the coast the sun had made it a pretty warm day… I wore two layers just in case.

It was Remembrance Sunday and my Dad had my Grandfather’s medals, along with those of his siblings, from the various conflicts in the early twentieth century. It gives me pause for thought that my Grandfather, his brothers and a good proportion of the young men of Britain were trooping off to war a hundred years ago… many not to return. It also amazes me that my grandfather grew up with horses & carts and was in the cavalry, yet lived to see men on the moon.

I ran down the track that leads from the Primary School that I attended to Ovingdean and then on down into Rottingdean. The people I passed were all so friendly, smiling and saying hello as I passed. I put this down to the sunny day… people often say hi, but not always in a happy way.

I was surprised how sprightly I felt despite not having run for three weeks, but then it was all downhill!

At Rottingdean I turned right and headed along the Undercliff Walk and was soon feeling tired by the flatness… exacerbated by the climb up the steps to road level at Ovingdean. Running up Ovingdean valley was particularly hard work, maybe because its a long section of pavement and the vague gradient is against you.

I paused at the church to pay my respects to an old friend, before chugging back up the hill to the Woodingdean path. This super-steep hill was actually easier than the flatter stretch… maybe because it feels as if you’re getting somewhere!

As I ran up the path so the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud and the temperature dropped… two layers was a good idea after all!

The 5.8ish miles took me about 65 minutes, including my pause at Ovingdean Church… 5.35 mph average.

I was delighted to find that my sister had dropped in for lunch… though having caught up over a cup of tea, I left the four of them to eat.

October 19, 2014

Back down the Magical Path

The warm weather is still hanging on with it’s fingertips and this morning felt more like a summer day than an autumn one! It seemed rude not to go out for a run in it so I ran a slightly extended version of my normal loop.

Last time I took the Magical Path I quite literally had to wade through ferns up to my neck, but since the ferns and stinging nettles are no longer dominant, I decided it was time to get back down there. It really is magical, hence my pet name for it.

When I reached the end I took a path that took me out to the common road and though I opted for the path on the other side of the hedge to the road, I effectively then turned left into Hundred Acre Lane.

I went straight down the lane and on down the path into Wivelsfield that seems the lane’s more logical end (the road bends right and makes a big loop). Down here I found a tree that looked like it had its winter drawers on already (moss is really trendy this year).

Then I was back onto my normal path past St Georges Retreat and back to home. 6.6 miles took me 68 minutes, an average of 5.8 mph.

The warm weather meant that the grass and the green got a cut this afternoon… all now ready for the storm that is forecast this week. Summer better get some moss gloves to protect its exposed fingertips!