I was lax again this week and didn’t manage to get a mid-week run in. This despite Cliff asking me if I wanted to join him & Andy P in a run around water-world, aka the Downs on a super-wet Friday evening! Unlike last week when I couldn’t walk, let alone run, this week’s excuse was one of scheduling… that’s my story anyway. Certainly, on Friday, I HAD to go to Waitrose!
And so I found myself parked at the bottom of the tank tracks chatting to another runner in the car-park. As I ran off I overheard him saying to his running partner ‘that’s the loon who we saw running up and down the tank tracks the other week!’. Oh to be so famous!
I made it to the top in ten minutes, as before. This meant that I was still slower than Daren and thus didn’t need to do any more ascents to try to beat his time, so instead I turned left to run along towards the Beacon. Ahead of me was another runner, so I picked up my skirts and set about closing the gap. By the next gate I’d made scant progress, but I managed to reel him in on the next hill.
Jim, the crazy fool, turned out to be in training for an IronMan in two weeks time which, according to Wikipedia (he did tell me but, for good reason, my mind decided to blank the information) carries the exhortation “Swim 2.4 miles! Bike 112 miles! Run 26.2 miles! Brag for the rest of your life” Tall order bearing in mind that, whilst he was a competent cyclist (which I usually measure by the number of bikes someone has… six or seven in Jim’s case) he had only run his first marathon last year and was not a confident swimmer!
He turned down his iPod and kindly allowed me to tuck in beside him and we chatted as we ran past countless people staggering along under the weight of their race numbers, which I later discovered made them part of the Oxfam Trailwalker 62.5 mile walk. Make that a 62.5 mile stagger, looking at some of them!
We ran past Blackcap and down to the next gate before turning around, which was the 50 minute mark for me. We’d been making good time, but around this point Jim let on that he had already been out on his bike this morning, I think for a couple of hours! Fit!
I wasn’t looking forward to the run back against the wind, but you really don’t notice it so much when you’re chatting away with someone else and the miles just disappeared.
Towards the end, rather than dive off right, back down the tank tracks, I decided to continue down to Jack & Jill where we parted, before running back up the hill again. This way I figured I would make the run last two hours.
In the event, despite pain above my knees and an uncomfortable inner thigh, I managed to get back to the car at 1 hour 58 minutes, not bad for the 12.15 mile circuit. In fact, although the speed was 6.2mph, if you remove the initial 1km climb, which took me 10 minutes, the balance of the loop was run at an average of 6.4mph, a merest tad faster than my shorter run with Mark last weekend. Result!
No wonder I fell asleep on the sofa when I got back!
I was talking to a customer over lunch who has a colleague at work who delights in the triple IronMan. Was it 44 hours? I can’t even begin to take that in. Then there were tales of crazy skiing exploits too, of nights when the ski lifts are turned off and skiiers climb in waxed skis or with skins on. Astonishing.