I had this strange feeling this morning that I had forgotten something as I ran down the road around 8am. But it was a lovely morning and I did a quick double check to make sure I had all my clothes on, which I did, so that was okay. There’s nothing worse than forgetting your clothes, or a trainer or two, when you go out in the morning… unless of course you happen to live in a Travelodge hotel.
I had a plan this morning, the thinking behind which was seeing a field up on the Downs last weekend that looked like the right size and gradient to run around. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a schlapp to get there, but there is a poor facsimile on the common and I thought I’d at least give it a try. It’s about a ten minute jog to get there so I was just about warmed up by the time I arrived.
I reckon that the ‘track’ is about a half mile oblong, sloping gently up to one corner. The going underfoot is soft and fairly even but not level by any stretch of the imagination, which means that it’s a good work out for the ankles even when you’re concentrating on where you place your feet!
I started off by doing two laps where I sprinted, well, er… ran faster at least… along the uphill back straight, gasping my way down the next short side and jogging back round to recover. After two of these circuits I was, er, I was tired (it’s before the watershed and this is a family show) and had to the walk slowly round two sides to recover before jogging the next two.
Next time around I jogged the first long side, ran fast up the shorter end, jogged the long side to recover and ran fast down the other shorter end. I repeated this a second time and then somehow managed to persuade myself to go around a third time, despite feeling well past my prime by then.
A gentle ten minute jog back to the house completed the session which was a total of 55 minutes. Distance-wise I have no idea and this was one occasion where Nick’s supercomputer would have… hang on a minute… Nick… where was Nick? I knew I’d forgotten something!