Short run – Page 30 – Foster Runs

April 6, 2008

Yes?

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!

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!

April 2, 2008

Barbie returns

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.

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!

March 28, 2008

More rain… and bad wind

After almost perfect driving conditions out on the roads yesterday, this morning dawned very wet. We ran from Nick’s place and it was fun to go somewhere completely new for a change… even if I have absolutely no idea of where we went or how we got back. At times I had the feeling that Nick didn’t know where we were either, but I’m sure this was just feigned.

The run was a mix of delicious, lightweight and very wet mud in a parky sort of area; a nasty road with no path and lots of fast-moving traffic; a forest firebreak with big trunks across and deep slippery clay-mud, another road like the previous one; and a pavement through a build-up area, where the puddles seemed to be jumping out at me as I ran past. This latter may have been something to do with Nick’s foot… I don’t know.

At one point he managed to thwack me with a medium sized tree: I thought it was a little unsporting bearing in mind we were clinging to the side of the dangerous road to avoid being collected by a car roaring past at the time.

I was also surprised by the drains in the locale. It’s a fairly upmarket area, but even in the forest I kept getting whiff of them from time to time. Later I realised it wasn’t the drains…

So, our run was a very wet 6.6 miles in a breathy 58 minutes. Great fun for a change, but can someone buy Nick an OS map before I return?

March 20, 2008

Shorts

No, I don’t mean clothing… it’s still WAY too cold for me to wear shorts, although Cliff probably went back to wearing them straight after his annual Christmas break!

No, having had more than my fair share of mud, sweat and tears (of laughter) this week, I decided to go for a pavement run… which is not as inspiring as running through countryside… so I don’t run so far… so I have to run faster. Therefore, if you’re still with my logic, I ran for short bursts around a short circuit and shortly became short of breath. Shorts.

31 minutes (WOW, that IS short!) and 3.9 miles gives 7.5mph. Or just under 8 minute miles. This latter information is particularly relevant today because I had to pull the rug out from under my reputation yesterday. My colleague John had assumed that I was training at around 7 minute miles (as he used to), as opposed to 7mph (my usual fastest), which is actually 8-34 minute miles. Or my more usual and sedate 9-15.

March 14, 2008

Raindrops

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!

March 6, 2008

Bush Thwacker

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!

March 3, 2008

Friday mud fun

Pressed for time on Friday morning, Nick and I managed only a quick run around.

His trainers arrived dirty and thanks to an excellent run, left looking like they were no longer new, though I feel sure that over the weekend they will have be reborn in the washing machine!

Mine, by contrast, are camouflaged in case I need to hide at any point. This is mainly because, between deliberate offensives and genuine slips (of which there was one today), I regularly splatter Nick in mud and I’m sure that at some point his trademark good naturedness will snap and I’ll need to disappear before something hits the fan.

We covered just over 5 miles on our 45 minute run at an average speed of 6.9mph.

February 27, 2008

The morning after the night before

Both Daren & Nick are friends with Jamie at The Half Moon in Warninglid, so it seemed only right and proper to go and sample the fare there last night. Jamie has apparently transformed the place in the last year or so and it’s now a real, proper gastropub. The food was totally delicious! I had tender liver & crispy bacon with mash potato and shredded cabbage that would have won a competition in a sculpture contest – I ate every last scrap despite the fact that it was a rather large portion. In fact, all six plates were virtually scraped clean! And despite having a full-on meal for six with liberal quantities of wine, yummy sticky puddings and coffees, the bill was only £25 per head.

My only beef was the fact that of the range of great bitters that Jamie serves, he doesn’t currently have any Hepworths… I can see I’ll have to work on him!

Anyway, it will come as small surprise that the 7.30am gathering this morning was slightly more muted than normal! But it was a beautiful, brisk morning and it didn’t take us too long to get over the edge of tiredness. Once again it was a real pleasure running with Daren (his being slightly less fit than normal) as the pace was gloriously manageable and we could all chat contentedly without running out of steam. The Bok would shoot off every so often like a springer spaniel, egging us to join in the fun, but was eventually reigned in to enjoy the gentle run & conversation.

We headed out to the Royal Oak and round the back of the (fast becoming monstrous) St Georges Retreat, out to Hundred Acre Lane, back across to Wellhouse Lane and returned alongside the railway. The going was firm with muddy interludes and I managed to get called rude names when I, er… missed my step and splashed in a puddle. Twice. I felt particularly triumphant that Nick’s trainers looked as if they had actually seen some countryside! Mine, of course, were still dirty from last autumn and were once again dripping with mud by the time we got back: so no change there then.

We ran for one hour twelve minutes, covered 7.25 miles at an average speed of just over 6mph and used sufficient of the calorie intake from last night to be able to woof down half-a-loaf-of-bread’s worth of toast with honey & peanut butter.

February 23, 2008

The big man cometh

We had a rare treat this morning when the big man came round to take me out for a peramble. For those of you who don’t know him, Daren is the same kind of height as Cliff, Steve or Clive, but has (ladies, look away now) another couple of inches width on each shoulder and a chest to match. Add this to the fact that the stripes on his new running top were designed to accentuate the shoulders of people of a smaller build like me and it was like running along with Judge Dredd ambling beside! And for those unladylike females who are still reading, the answer to the question forming in your mind is probably yes… suffice to say that I had to run with a hat stuffed down my running tights so that I could hold my head up!

We all claim unfitness on occasion and it was Daren’s turn this morning, but I reckon that we’re pretty lucky as a group because we’re really quite fit compared to your, average, run-of-the-mill bloke. For example, despite saying that it felt like he was running through gazpacho (he said it with such conviction that I can only conclude that he often trains in cold tomato soup), he still shrugged off a 50 minute run with ease. Okay, he wasn’t bounding along like normal, but that was the only giveaway.

We took a leisurely route out to the Royal Oak, across to Wivelsfield and along through Hundred Acre Wood, chatting all the way and catching up on news… which always slows you down. The ground was lovely, with most of the mud ruts trampled flat and the kind of give that you normally only get on a running track. It was so lovely that at one point I decided to take a closer look (my foot slipped out from under me on a tree root and down I went) but I just bounced gently. Despite having my camera with me, there was no sensational headline splash of Foster mud-monster to record… I know that Nick will be disappointed!

Even with the gazpacho, we completed about 5.25 miles in 52 minutes, giving a speed of just over 6mph: pretty good going considering it was a conversational run over a bowl of soup kind of morning.

February 20, 2008

I’m so dizzy, my world is spinning, la la la

As I snuck out of bed this morning, I got the distinct feeling I’d left my personal gyroscope behind on my pillow. Even after a banana and a generous espresso (okay, my espresso’s are always generous!) my head was still reeling. When Kim finally appeared she suggested I call this morning’s run off. I considered it for a nanosecond… nah! Maybe if I wasn’t physically able to get out of bed!

Nick duly arrived and we set off into the kind of slightly frozen mist that heralds a gloriously sunny day… I say heralds, but that implies that it might have been happening shortly after, which it certainly was not. No, the morning was misty and COLD. Cold enough that my hands were even more painful after half an hour that my feet were after a day of ice-karting in sub zero conditions.

We managed quite a reasonable pace, although it was clear that Nick could have zoomed off easily at any point… that boy has FAR too much energy!

We ran a different route this morning, across Janes Lane, past Ote Hall, across to join Theobalds Lane and down to the far end (which until very recently was delightfully like going back in time to the 1920’s) and then up to Lunces Hall near Wivelsfield Church, back past Ote Halll and then home.

It was lovely to see the investment that had been made in the properties along the route: perfect fences, fledgling hedges and even inner fences to manage livestock; refurbished houses and even one gorgeous new house where there used to be a bit of a shack; cleared undergrowth and well managed woodland. It gives me such a warm feeling when it’s clear that people really care about their environment.

Alas, the warm feeling was not sufficient to affect the temperature of my hands, which were aching with the cold, hence taking the short route home… thanks Nick.

I don’t really understand why, but despite a similar distance at 4.9 miles, it was a slower run than Sunday at 6.8mph, the run taking 43 minutes. Maybe it’s because we chat along the way, but mostly I think it’s because Nick drags me along faster and I then have to stop to catch my breath.

The longest stop was my sitting on the stairs when we got back, trying to get warm blood into my hands and waiting for the pain to abate!