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!