Duke of Edinburgh energy

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.

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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.

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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!