Category: Long run

Kim & I drove into London yesterday for a family gathering and I used this as a good excuse not to run.  Having managed to run for four weekends consecutively (after an extended period of more irregular runs), the pressure was on and I got up this morning knowing that I had to get out there.

With my 15th birthday tomorrow (I realise that I’m showing either my age or dyslexia), I was also keen to go further afield than my normal circuit and I had wondered about running from Jack & Jill.

Tough luck then that the torrential rain that had been forecast on BBC Weather for yesterday, was now scheduled for lunchtime today… just when I was going to be in the middle of my run!

Undaunted, I donned shorts and my rain jacket and jumped in the car.  When I got to Jack & Jill, I was slightly less keen to jump out of the car on account of the low cloud and drizzle but, thanks to my training with Big Man Daren, this was only a temporary cognitive hurdle to negotiate.  I was soon running up the hill into the mirk.

There was not a whole lot of landscape to see, but this made me focus more on what I could see… ponds & puddles in the main.

My arrival at Ditchling Beacon coincided with some walkers who were originally from Lancashire who very kindly took a photo of me standing on the trig point.

I was not at all sure that I wanted to go very much further before turning around, yet at the same time I didn’t want to have to ‘fess up to you that age, fitness or the weather had truncated a decent run before the end of the year… thus I continued on, and on, until I reached Blackcap, where there’s another trig point (but alas no-one around to photograph me).

Strava conveniently showed that I had completed 4.7 miles, so I ran on down the hill a little way and turned round at a bush which was growing at the 5.1 mile mark.

The return journey was a mirror image of the outbound in all but speed, which was a little slower.  I’d blame the terrain or the elevation, but the turn-bush seems to be at almost the same altitude as Jack & Jill, so it can only really come down to my level of fitness!

According to Strava I covered 10.3 miles in 100 minutes, which gives a not unreasonable average of 6.18 miles per hour.

I kept expecting the forecasted torrential rain, but, if anything, the mirk was starting to clear by the time I got back to the car… it was very disappointing, but I had a nice cold shower when I got home instead.

At the end of last week I managed to temporarily misplace the hearing in one ear… I’m hoping that the doctor is going to help me find it again, but unfortunately that’s not going to be for another ten days!  Meanwhile my hearing is somewhat dull and as I sat relaxing with a quadspresso in the teahouse, half-listening to the waterfall, it was almost a good enough excuse for me not to run this morning.

However, it was a beautiful morning and I didn’t want to lose the momentum from the last few weeks so I just got out there regardless.

It was hard work to start with and I had already decided to do the shortest of my loops when I passed a ‘mad woman on a bike’ (her description, not mine!) going the other way.  My memory is nowhere near as good as my dull hearing (and it was frankly unlikely that I would have recognised anyone dressed in mountain-bike protective garb and dark glasses), but she somehow recognised me from an event we attended a good few years ago so we stopped to chat.  I love those random conversations that you have whilst running and by the time that she pedalled off to continue her training session I felt totally reinvigorated.

I continued on the same loop I’ve been doing recently, deep in thought, as much as anything about a team-building session that I need to design for a Finance team.  Every step of the running was a real pleasure!  Well, almost… there’s a stile and a short section of path that are being reclaimed by the undergrowth, so I had to duck and dive and still managed to get stung by the nettles!

Last week the distance was 6.9 miles, which is still a short run according to the criteria I’m used to, so I was keen to run at least one tenth of a mile more today.  I decided to loop the other way around Ditchling Common, using a path that I used to use as a speed circuit.  It’s a while since I’ve run that way, but I’m sure that there’s a tree where there wasn’t one before.

As I got back towards home I decided to have another go at the sprint… it must be about 300m along a road that many runners use and so there’s a league table on Strava.  Whereas last week I simply hurried along there, today I lifted my skirts and sprinted, pretty much all out… such that I ran out of steam towards the end.  My personal best had been 1.04, but today I managed 58 seconds.  Hooo-RAH!  This is the third fastest time… though the ‘course’ record is a sobering 48 seconds.

So 7.1 miles completed in 67 minutes, an average of 6.35 mph.  You can see the stats on Strava.

One final thing: they say that when one sense is dull, others are enhanced… like seeing vivid colours in the dark?

After a wonderful Christmas with a house full of people, I took the opportunity to drive my folks back to their place in their car.  This meant that I was about ten miles from home and could enjoy the sunny day by running back across the South Downs.  Sunny day, yes, but somewhat chilly too, with the car registering temperatures between one and three degrees only.

Glancing over my shoulder as I set out, I could see the sea… though I clearly didn’t notice that huge sign in my picture!

From the top of the hill above Woodingdean I could see the half-way point at Ditchling Beacon, on the horizon, though I wouldn’t reach there for another hour.

I ran down into Falmer, across the A27 and up the other side past the University sports centre.

It’s surprising how undulating the path is as it passes St Mary’s Farm and then crosses a series of small hills & valleys as it makes it’s way up toward Ditchling Beacon.

Eventually I reached the top of the ridge and looked back towards Woodingdean and on towards Burgess Hill… noting the difference in colour temperature and that the shadow of the hill already stretched past Ditchling village.  I celebrated reaching the half-way point by stuffing my mouth with dried mango and continued pushing for home.

As I ran down the steep Beacon path I absent-mindedly started thinking how much of a bad idea it would be to slip over and twist an ankle here… wearing only enough to keep me warm whilst running and with the temperature approaching freezing.  As if to make the point that you get whatever you focus on, I then slid over painfully on the steep and slippery surface, grazing my hip and knee through my running longs!

Fortunately the damage was only superficial and I continued onward… focusing on far more pleasant thoughts!  It was an easy run down into a sleepy Ditchling and up the other side onto Lodge Hill… though unfortunately I misjudged the height of the top bar of a stile and thwacked my knee on it with the sound of a cricket ball connecting with a bat.  Followed by a loud OUCH!

By the time I reached Oldlands Mill, the light was starting to fade from the sky, but I could still see that the path was 90% watery mud.  This is the homeward stretch so I just splashed on through, slip-sliding around in an effort to remain vertical and noting the chilly temperature of the ice-fringed puddles as the water flooded through my shoes and socks at each step!

Dusk was fast approaching when I finally dragged myself into the warmth of the house for a cold shower and hot cup of tea.  The run was just over 10 miles and I completed it in 1.55, so the average was a shade over 5 mph.  It was a really invigorating way to mark the end of of a lovely family Christmas!

I woke early this morning and headed out to the tea-house with my quadspresso to contemplate the day… which was beautiful.  It was already nearly 20 degrees and there was a light mist giving the morning a delightfully ethereal quality.

I came to the conclusion that a day like this, so late in the season, was really deserving of a long run.  I wasn’t sure that I could deliver this, but when I got to the end of the road my feet took me right, to all points south, rather than left towards my recent wooded circuit.

On my route at the edge of town there is a collection of workshops which I must have run past more than 50 times in the last seven years.  It’s amazing that despite knowing them really well, I’d never noticed before that there’s a huge Victorian house adjacent to them.  Someone had clearly cut back a hedge and there it was, like magic!

At Oldlands Mill I paused to soak up the mill and the view that I was about to run in to.

Then it was off along the view-side of the hedge (I normally run on the other side so I can see a house that I particularly like) and down Lodge Hill into Ditchling.  Rather than run down the high street I opted for the path that cuts round the back of all the houses and then, at the bottom of the Ditchling Beacon Road, I took a path which does the same again, ending up at the bottom of the Downs further to the west than the Beacon road.

I then followed a path that I’ve run down from Home Hill before, but took a wrong turn and ended up with a huge expanse of scarp slope to run directly up.  I was surprised that the climb was so easy (taken very slowly, of course) and I was soon on the intended path (which was steep in it’s own right) which took me to the top of Home Hill.

I normally arrive here having run up the fabled tank tracks with Daren, although there was one mad day when I ran up and down them 7 times to replicate the height gain of The Grouse Grind, a run in Canada that he had done.

I decided to run down the tracks, north towards home, but detoured to the right to find a track that I had seen horses on during my steep scarp slope climb on the other side of the valley.

It was then a simple case of running down the farm road to Keymer, where I followed the paths back to Oldlands Mill where the view was still worth soaking up.

Then I retraced my steps past the magically appearing house and back to base.  The run took me 2 hours and 7 minutes, the longest for ages, and covered a distance of 10.6 miles, an average of 5 mph,  Not bad bearing in mind my recent short runs.  Mind you, I did need to imbibe some protein PDQ… before taking a cold shower (a normal feature of my life since the day before my 50th birthday) and going out to cut the grass and the green and do a load of gardening!

Well, it really was a most beautiful day!