Nessie made a delicious breakfast for Cliff and I this morning, consisting of eggs from the hens in the garden, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, fried bread… and beans. It was a HUGE plate and they waited patiently while I slowly worked my way through it – Cliff having woofed his down before their three huge dogs (which you can see in this video with After the Ice) spotted that he had food enough for all of them.
What was odd about it, was that whilst you would expect to have wind after eating a meal like that, we had it before. In fact, truth be known, Cliff had it much worse than I did.
It was one of those mornings where one look outside gives you sufficient information to call the planned run off. Alas, I knew that whatever excuse I could devise would not suffice… and certainly not ‘it’s fweezing cold and heaving it down with rain’. I suspect that even ‘hell hath frozen over and it’s raining frozen fire’ would still elicit a response along the lines of ‘get out there, you wuss’.
So it was that I found myself running with Cliff on this weather-filled day. He really is SO fit (as Daren’s fitness table shows) and it won’t surprise you to hear that he ran up the steep hill behind their house (25 minutes bottom to top) directly into the strongest Northerly wind I have run in this winter. Strangely, I neither ran up the hill nor directly into the wind… instead I ran (pretty much flat out) two feet behind him whilst watching the seemingly almost flat ground spew out from under his feet.
When we turned to the East towards Firle Beacon at the top of the hill, I finally emerged from Cliff’s lea and the full force of the wind hit me. It was so strong that it was actually difficult to breathe and when it started to hail, ten minutes later, it was like needles stinging the side of my face. My gloved hands were starting to freeze, but I knew that if I stopped it would only prolong the agony, so the only option was to keep on pressing forward.
As we approached the top of Firle Beacon, the full force of the wind was augmented by driving rain: the combination meant that I could see nothing out of my watery up-wind left eye! Momentarily I was transported back in time to kayak trips in my ‘teens & early twenties when the wind and rain always seemed to unleash their full force as we crossed an area of open water… despite the feeling of total wretchedness and despair, the only option was to press on. One paddle stroke forward, one to correct the heading as the wind caught the bow and seemingly a third stroke forward to get back to where you started.
Cliff’s run rate is right on the edge of my capability and I was really pleased to have managed to stay with him, even if I had slip-streamed him for the really difficult bit and now felt like up-chucking! But from here on in it was mostly downhill with the wind in our rear quarter. Slowly I managed to fill and empty my lungs more fully, while my frozen hands became more painful as the warm blood returned and eventually the pain subsided.
The sun came out and the run down was a delight in the little valleys where the temperature felt like a summers day. Bizarrely, on one last little uphill section, I could feel the intense heat of the material of my longs on my legs… something that I cannot recall having experienced before.
And before I knew it, we were back, showered and eating breakfast: the pain of the hill receding into my failing memory whilst the rain came down once again outside.
I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure that we ran around 7.6 miles in just under one hour 10 minutes which is 6.5mph. This is a staggeringly fast speed bearing in mind that we climbed 776 feet and had to cope with a roaring headwind. And for the avoidance of any doubt, this was nothing to do with Nessie’s beans.