First, let me say congratulations to Phil Stupples for getting a PB at Stockholm… and beating my Brighton marathon time by a couple of minutes to boot. It sounds as though the Stockholm course also has more hills than Brighton, so I reckon that sorts out which of us is quicker… and we already know which of us is older too so you win on both counts!
This morning was a Woodingdean run and I set out into an overcast and windy morning with the aim of running to Blackcap & back… the run that I had intended to do the other weekend when I instead met Cliff & Joe.
As I ran down past Newmarket Copse I started to encounter cyclists coming the other way and it turned out they were on the Argus three-day event from Winchester to Eastbourne.
Sharing a narrow path with oncoming cyclists can be slightly irritating if said people are surly and lacking in spatial awareness, which many seemed to be today. They appeared to assume that I was happy to get out of the way and to run through the stinging nettles & bushes at the side of the path… or stop and wait. And all without so much as a thank you.
The few that actually thanked me, or were just good humoured & sociable, made it all the more obvious that the rest were just lacking in manners, including the one who almost ran me over despite the fact that I had stopped and was cowering well into the bushes. An apology might have been nice!
As I’ve written here before, I totally understand how difficult it is for cyclists to open and particularly to shut gates, but this fact does not absolve them of the responsibility for doing so. Horse riders have a similar challenge, if not more so, but they somehow manage the trick.
I ran up past where I met Cliff & Joe and kept going on up the hill, and up the hill, and up the hill, reaching the top of Blackcap at the 1.06 mark.
Here I unwrapped an energy bar, the latest in my recent trial of lightweight sustenance and after overcoming the shock of finding it to be pink, like chewing gum, started chewing. Let’s be kind and say that it’s good for the jaw muscles, has a passable taste, but is not quick food by any stretch of the imagination.. it took me four minutes to eat half the bar, at which point I got bored and pocketed the rest.
I started running back and briefly caught up with a cyclist removing all the race markers and I suspected, ensuring that all the gates were shut after the ensemble. Yeah, right! Of the following five gates I followed him through he left three ajar, including one to a field of sheep. Not great PR for the Argus methinks, or for the race organisers.
As I neared the A27, it started to drizzle and by the time I had climbed back up past Newmarket Copse again, it was light rain. But it was warm enough not to worry, besides which the wind was now fully behind me.
Somehow the return leg took one minute less and the overall time of 2.15 for 12.4 miles, average 5.5mph, included the time to eat half a powerbar.
Nothing like a good rant to cleanse the soul! I find that car drivers tend to fall into the same category, unless of course its me that is driving.