This time last week, BIG man Daren & I were returning from the Alps, where we completed the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB) in 4 days and 20 hours. This is fast compared to the numerous walkers who take a luxurious 11 days over the route, but nigh on 4 days longer than the winner of this years UTMB race!
There is an account of our trip on this site on the page menu above with pictures and a narrative for those who are interested.
Since returning, neither Daren nor I had run anywhere, so this morning was designed to get back into the swing of things and though we had thought we might do a vertical 1000m odyssey of cross stitch along the scarp face of the Downs, in the event we opted for a shorter route.
We met at Jack & Jill and headed down across Pyecombe golf course to the village. From here the route to Wolstenbury Hill rises (though not by comparison to the Alps!) and we made good time.
The hill down again is steeper and eventually took us down to Clayton, where we followed Underhill Lane to the bottom of the tank tracks. This is a steep hill in anyone’s books and we ran bottom to top without stopping (as usual) possibly gaining an admiring glance from a couple of runners coming down the hill past us.
The final mile is downhill back to Jack & Jill and we reached the end of 6.2 miles (it’s a perfect 10km route) in 1.12. 5.2mph is not fast, but as usual we had a great time and after a couple of weeks, er… ‘off’, it was great to be back running again!