The tea-house finally opened for business this week… which simply involved waiting for a warm day and emptying out the deck furniture. To have designed & created such a versatile space makes me smile every time I look at it… which I have done a lot over the last five years! A perfect thinking retreat.
For some reason I was not on top form this morning. Sure, I often put off starting my runs, but this morning was different… I lacked energy.
When I did finally set off it was clear that I wasn’t going to get far, but then I did a silly thing… I followed the same route as last week.
It was a lovely day (I almost wore two layers which would have been unbearable) and I meandered along in the direction of Ditchling, choosing my footfalls carefully on the baked clay ruts.
I was in no particular hurry and was contemplating turning around at 45 minutes when I met a group of lads practising for their D of E Bronze Award. They politely asked if I could confirm where they were on the map (they were right) and called out for me to ‘Have Fun!’ as I ran off.
The positive energy transferred to me in that short interaction was amazing and it carried me all the way up to the top of the Beacon, past a couple more teams, one of which was really making hard work of walking down the hill.
The outbound journey had taken me 1:02, five minutes longer than last week, though it felt like I was twenty minutes behind.
The return journey seemed slower still, though I passed the labouring team whilst they were still walking down the hill and caught up with the second team before they reached Ditchling. The energising team however had rocketed off. I almost caught them up at Ditchling Common where I turned off… they were clearly on a mission. Bravo!
I ended up running back into Burgess Hill on impulse power, so I am somewhat surprised that the return leg took me the same time as last week. Running is funny like that sometimes.
So overall 1:58 for 10.5 miles… 5.3 mph average.
Since then I have been largely in a state of collapse on the sofa, in between consuming food and water… clearly I drained reserves that weren’t there in the first place, though I’m also glad that I did. More food is now required!
Good luck all you D of E-ers out there!
