Short run – Page 24 – Foster Runs

September 27, 2009September 27, 2009

Good for the sole

We have had family staying across the weekend, so I was grateful that they insisted I tootle off and do my Sunday run… while they sat in the garden!

And my, what a b e a u t i f u l day to do it!

I met Cliff in Falmer and we set out for a short run… me for time constraints; he because he’s still recovering from the crazy Mont Blanc race! We followed the route previously taken from here by heading up alongside the Falmer Road and then across to the copse, before dropping down to Newmarket.

Then then we ran back towards Falmer on the disused road and turned right up, up, up through Balmer Farm and all the (long) way to the top of the rise at Balmer Huff. From here the view was stunning!

After five or maybe even ten minutes trying to stem a nose bleed brought on by altitude, or maybe age, we then headed back down on the other side of the hillock and down Ridge Road into Falmer again, taking in more gorgeous views as we went.

Our route was 6.85 miles and our run one hour and five minutes, but if you take off ten minutes for stoppages, you get more of an accurate sense of how quickly Cliff was going… clearly already well back on form again!

September 13, 2009January 10, 2010

Sleepy sunday

After returning late from a party in London and crawling into bed around 3am this morning and then getting up just after seven, I think it’s amazing that I even thought about going out for a run. But I sleepily climbed straight into my running gear to help me prepare mentally, thinking that despite it being a bit chilly outside, at least the sun was shining cheerfully.

Then the sun went in.

So instead of going out for a run in the cool overcastness of the fresh air outside, I opted to visit my friend’s running machine.

It started gently enough, but realising that Radio 4 could keep me going only so long this morning, I dialled up the speed a little and settled for a shorter time-span.

Short of recounting what I heard on the radio, I’m afraid that there’s not a whole lot to report, although this will no doubt please Cliff. Once you’ve realised that the initial gentle warm-up pace meant that the first mile took over 10 minutes and that the speed indicator now shows 8mph, most of your focus is required for merely staying on the whirring narrow band of black beneath your feet. While the rest contemplates the philosophical meaning of the only scenery there is within sensible eye-shot, pictured below.

So 7.5 miles in one hour, which if I could keep it up would give me a marathon time of three and a half hours. This is great until your consider that my closing heart rate was over 180bpm, which is too high to sustain.

So, more training required…. much more! And now I come to think of it, more sleep too!

August 18, 2009August 18, 2009

A hill or three before breakfast

Daren, Andy and I met at Jack & Jill windmills this morning for a quick run before (a late) breakfast. It was a beautiful morning, as can be seen from the photos.

We ran up to the top of the first hill and left down the tank tracks to the gate at the bottom. We made out to Andy that the gate was locked and ran back up the tank tracks to the top.

Despite being knackered towards the top, the testosterone still kicked in and Andy & I ended up sprinting for the gate! Meanwhile Mister P was much more circumspect and gracefully gave me just enough time to take a photo of him.

Gluttons for punishment, we dropped down Burnhouse Bostal with a view to coming back up that too, but on reaching the bottom changed our mind & ran along Underhill Lane to go up the Beacon path instead.

This time Andy left nothing to chance and gently pulled away from us towards the top, saving all of us some energy!

We then pottered gently back along the top of the Downs to the cars. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable run with a gratifying height gain of over 340 metres!

Our 6.25 mile (just over 10k) run took us one hour 17 minutes (4.87mph), which was clearly slightly slower than the 13.88mph of Kenenisa Bekele from Ethiopia who ran 10k in under 27 minutes in the World Championships in Berlin yesterday.

However, for the race to be a little more equal we would need to tilt his 400m running track to have one end 5m higher than the other and then make the surface a lot less pristine… let’s see him do 60-odd laps of that!

Speaking of which, Cliff & Pete are off to do some crazy race next weekend where they will have a gain in height of about 60 times our run today whilst completing a third of the distance I have run in the last year! I have to sit down just to think about it! Good luck boys!

Ooops… I almost forgot.

August 14, 2009January 10, 2010

No sweat!

I wish that were true, but it’s not!

A local girl friend of mine has a running machine and she has agreed to let me use it whenever I like in exchange for a small charge to cover running costs.

So since I’d not had a midweek run this week I tried it out this lunchtime.

The view above was not as inspiring as my normal runs, but the result was 6.2 miles in one hour and this should be a useful facility in order to help me add an extra run to my current two a week… especially as the winter training push starts to kick in ahead of our April marathon.

Who am I kidding… I’m only trying find ways to get ahead of the Pac-Man in the local men’s fitness league!

Right now though I need to replace the 336 calories I used up, along with about a gallon of sweat… I’d forgotten how warm you get when you’re not outside!

August 5, 2009

Another flat run

I’m trying to remain aloof from Daren ‘I’ve run up a 1000m mountain twice this week’ Packham‘s various acerbic comments. I’m sure that some form of bovine retribution (eg. a misplaced footfall in a recently deposited cowpat) will have to be forthcoming at some point.

I think the Girl Guides (who are in Division 2 of the Men’s Fitness League) are secretly pleased that Daren is putting some effort in again… they are tired of always being on top and are looking forward to him giving them a run for their money. Very tempting spoonerism there!

This morning I embarked on yet another flat run… and short too. I did my increasingly normal midweek mini circuit to Wivelsfield & back, the 5.2 miles taking me 45 minutes… just over 6.9 mph.

The weather was really strange. At 6am it was the most beautiful summer morning but by the time I left the house at just after 7am it was cloudy and dark… like I should be expecting heavy rain. The rain did not materialise but running through the woods I had to remove my Oakleys because I couldn’t see!

July 30, 2009

More falling

After two hot & sticky days in London and an evening of torrential rain, I escaped out earlier into a clear, cool, sunny morning. I did my quick 5.2 mile circuit… not so quickly it turned out, as it took me 50 minutes this morning. 6.24mph.

I was aware that I was running more slowly, so I set about enjoying the scenery which was beautiful. To such an extent that at one point, looking to the side and miles away in thought, I tripped heavily on an exposed root and landed on my palms & elbows!

July 22, 2009

Back to the Wednesday run

Despite not having any intention of running this morning, I somehow found myself warming to the idea over my morning espresso… and was out just after seven.

It was a [I’m actually unsure of correct adjective for a change] morning, warm enough for t-shirt & shorts, windy, fresh etc. It seems to have been raining for days so I was expecting wall to wall mud… but was not looking forward to it.

As it turned out there was very little mud around at all, the ground having comprehensively soaked up any rainwater. I did my standard 5.2 mile circuit out past the Royal Oak, through the woods & back down the magical path and actually found myself really enjoying it.

At one point in the woods I felt that I had been joined by some of my friends, particularly Nick & Daren, who have run through here with me before and I also had the sense that Ric was there too. Ever present, if only in spirit. He would have enjoyed running through there.

It was a lovely little run with plenty to see and think about but no drama… what a great way to spend 45 minutes at the start of the day!

July 1, 2009

Circling

After the heat of the last few days, it was a little cooler sitting outside this morning with my espresso and my current book, Synchronicity, The Inner Path of Leadership by Joseph Jaworski.

The lower temperature drew me to do some more fartleks and so off to the Common I trotted. It is such a lovely place and as I did the warm-up lap, I thought about how I could share this with you… so on the next loop I took a video, which you can see here. It’s more than a little bumpy, so you may need to take a sea-sickness tablet before you start watching it, but I think that you’ll get the idea: lovely path through the high grass during an earthquake, beautiful scenery zipping past in every direction, fresh air being drawn in noisily by the runner in the background etc.

It was so lovely that I put in an extra lap… no no NO, scrub that. Actually I didn’t feel that I was trying hard enough, so I forced myself to run an additional lap before heading for home, so five laps in total.

So just over 5 miles in 46 minutes gives 6.6mph… slightly quicker than last week and a speed that would allow me to sneak in at under four hours… if I kept it up for the whole of the upcoming Brighton marathon.

June 28, 2009

Short and sweet(y)

This morning’s run was always going to be a short one.

For starters, I spent yesterday painting more of the house, managing to complete fully two-thirds of one side wall. I’ll have finished by next year at this rate. I then had to go to Kim’s rental flat to try to figure out why the cistern was leaking, which involved taking it to bits several times and still only figuring out what the likely problem was afterwards. I need to return to both of these lovely jobs at some point, but between these exertions, I woke up this morning as if I’d be starched.

For another thing, it’s about 25 degree outside. In the shade. And humid to boot.

All things considered, it was pretty amazing that I got out running at all, but out I did get, clunking down the road like a Transformer in need of lubrication. I was keen to stick to the shaded woodland paths, which meant the easy route was my 5.2 mile one and I staggered around this in a less than stunning 54 minutes… slowest time yet, I think and I’m still knackered.

Oh well, back the painting then…

PS. I wrote to this point earlier, but could not post it due to a net outage,. I can now report that no painting was done on account of my being too knackered… and tetchy with it.

Still, since Kim very kindly and painstakingly removed the white paint that I sloppily applied to the black down-pipe the other week, I did get out and refurbish some of the UPVC window frames that were dirty in addition to having had paint splattered on them.

Before collapsing in the tea-house and falling asleep. Happy days!

June 24, 2009

Common farts

I don’t know why it should be, but whenever I think of the word fartlek I get a really clear picture of Dai Thomas first explaining it to me. Thus he was out there on the Common this morning with me, in spirit at least.

I was off to London, so I had to squeeze in a short run and based on my realisation that I’m currently running too slow to better 3.45 in the marathon, I thought I’d better use the time working on speed.

It was a stunning morning, hot even at 7am, with a slight breeze.

Fortunately the really fast side of the oblong was in the shade and unlike previous trips to the common, I managed to do four circuits without stopping for a breather, which I thought would surely give me a better time. For some inexplicable reason however, the overall 4.5 run still took me 42 minutes, EXACTLY the same as last time I ran it on 20th May.

And despite the breathlessness and the sweat pouring from me, this speed (6.4mph) kept up across 26.2 miles will not even give me a sub-four-hour marathon. Oh boy! I have a LOT of training to do!