Category: Short run

Posted on

Hedging my bets

With all the rain, last weekend was the first opportunity this year to cut the hedges… a six-foot one at the front and a ten-foot one at the back.  Not doing this as a day-job means that I ached so much after the first one that I had the leave the other to the next day!

So when it came to deciding how far to run in between, I hedged my bets and chose a short distance of intervals on the machine.

I set the base level at 6mph, then increased the other quarter-mile each time from 7mph to 10mph by which time I had covered 2 miles.  I repeated this and then did 6-7-8-7 in the final mile.

5 miles in just under 43 minutes, averaging about 7mph.

I did have lots of thoughts at the time, but I somehow managed to forget to post and any thoughts have been deleted from my (very) short-term memory!

Posted on

Ministry of Silly Walks

After yesterday’s sudden jolt back into running, I thought I would give my legs a ‘hair of the dog’ run this morning.  It turned out to be a painful idea and although I completed a mile in a shade over 11 minutes, I’ve been walking around the rest of the day as if I’m on a pair of stilts!

Which is worrying since the worst impact for me is usually on the second day after a run!  Maybe I should order a crane to get me out of bed tomorrow morning?

Posted on

Six of the best

I was a bit miserable this morning, having missed a 40th birthday party that I was really looking forward to last night.  Kim thought it was later in the month and I didn’t realise until too late.

My neighbour’s wonderful cats cheered me up a little (I occasionally act as their food-on-feet service when my neighbours are away), a quadespresso and a little guitar playing brightened me further still and finally a great friend called from the other side of the world for a catch up, which was top banana and improved my morning no end!

It was raining persistently outside which, though GREAT for the garden and water-table, since we’ve been on drought alert, was not so appealing to run in.  So, risking the mirth of Cliff & Co, I opted for a run on the machine.

I’d still not had breakfast at this point so I downed a banana (the largest I’ve seen in an age) by way of sustenance before  jumping straight on and winding the speed up… somewhat against Kim’s advice.  As normal I moved the speed up, up, up or down at each quarter-mile and by the time I reached 9mph had decided that I would complete 6 miles… which is about the time that I got the stitch, that big banana fighting back against being digested!

My plans for greater speed disrupted, I was adamant that I wasn’t going to acquiesce to my subconscious by stopping at 4 miles and calling it a day.  Instead I just lowered the speed until I managed to catch my breath and then started increasing it again, this time every eighth of a mile.

I crossed the 6-mile line in 48 minutes, an average of 7.5mph on the nose, before cooling down for a quarter mile at a sedentary 3mph.

Cooling down is a misnomer… I was so wet with sweat when I finally stepped off that I looked like I had just stepped out of the shower.  Realising that I wasn’t going to cool down for quite some time, I capitalised on the rain outside by going to wash Kim’s car… using less water than normal in the process and saving me the effort of rinsing or drying it!

I’m now finally back down to normal working temperature and am also actually really glad that I didn’t go to the party last night.  I’m pretty certain that it would have been a tediously boring evening…

…without all those people, including the host, who will be attending it next weekend!  Needless to say that I’ve not yet told Kim… I reckon I’m going to get six of the well-deserved best when she reads this!

Posted on

Five months between blinks

BIG man Daren is ever-present in our thoughts and our conversations so, although I’ve not run with him since September (can that be so?), it seemed like we’d only seen each other yesterday.

We met at Jack & Jill windmills (we call it ‘Upstairs’, for obvious reasons… huh?) which this morning was as windswept as a windswept thing, with a powerful South-South-Westerly blowing straight down the car park!  So much so that I actually changed into my muddy runners IN my car, which is pretty-much unheard of!

We followed our normal 10km circuit, which took in Pycombe, Wolstonbury Hill, the ‘Downstairs’ car park at Clayton Rec, and the Tank Tracks, which we goaded ourselves to the top of without stopping.    At the top we had our cobwebs blasted away by the wind, before running back down to Jack & Jill.

I note that our 1.14 time for the 6.2 miles was slightly slower than September, but averaging 5mph with a couple of serious hills to contend with (not to mention 5-months of conversation to catch up on) is not at all bad going.

As ever, a thoroughly enjoyable run!

Posted on

Chubby rides again!

Slightly unfair, I feel, the comment from Cliff on last Monday’s post, but the least I can do is to roll with it when I’ve blatantly blanked his excellent advice for such a long time.

This week I had a moment to celebrate.  In the past I have, on possibly two occasions, half-heartedly set out to write something longer than a post… and even longer than a letter to the Right Honourable Nicholas Soames MP containing yet more of my ideas that he really doesn’t want.  On each occasion my effort has fizzled out and quite rightly so.

However, at 3pm on 10th February, I set fingers to keyboard to write the inaugural words of my first proper book, on a subject that I have been teaching and writing about for a couple of years.  I know how long the book will be (thanks to Aidan Berry, Dean of Brighton Business School), have created the structure of sections and chapters, and in a little over 11 hours writing, over the last three days, have already clocked up 3,419 words.

I have also already had half a dozen helpful tips from my fellow alumni at London Business School, having replied to a fortuitously-timed post from someone else in the community who also just started writing a book.

There’s a long, long way to go, and writing it is only a small part of the challenge, but it feels great to have finally reached clarity about this project… I’ve effectively been preparing myself from it since 2007!

So my run this morning had to be shoehorned into a busy day, which is why (here comes the crux of the excuse that you were waiting for) I chose to run on the machine again rather than facing the seemingly sub-zero temperatures outside!

Based on my experience last Sunday, I didn’t bother to even put a tee-shirt on today, but I equally didn’t open the door either.  It’s FAR too cold outside!  I set the fan to blow air at me, filled a bottle with water and set off in the general direction of the cheese plant.

My approach mirrored that of last week, starting at 6mph and increasing by 0.5mph every quarter mile until I reached a mile.  Then I reduced by 1mph and repeated, eventually reaching a terminal speed of 9.5mph as I ran towards the 5 mile mark.

 

The Monday circuits have definitely improved my footing and although the last half mile was undoubtedly hard work, I was quick to feel a sense of recovery afterwards… albeit through a thick layer of sweat that even a shower couldn’t abate!

So 5 miles in 39.28, an average of 7.6mph.  And if nothing else, all this exercise is at least increasing the speed of my writing!

Posted on

Observations of a cheese plant

I always love the way that a covering of snow on the ground outside reflects the day onto the ceilings inside the house and enhances the quality of the light. I would be a very happy guineapig for a dimmable ceiling full of LED lights, but in the meantime I enjoy our occasional snowy days all the more for the change in light.

I’m not averse to running in the snow, but only if it’s off-road. There is far too little traction on snowy pavements and the risk of injury outweighs any other considerations… including any adverse comments from my more… er, manly friends.

So instead I put on my shorts and climbed aboard the running machine. I’m sure that visitors think it’s an odd piece of furniture to have in the middle of an otherwise Zen-ish environment like ours, but I think more houses should have one… in fact, one of my neighbours clearly agrees and has recently bought one, albeit a bit flashier than our rather purposeful machine.

The downside of its location is that it faces a wall with only the leaves of a cheese plant to break the view. Two winters ago when I was training for the Brighton marathon and the world outside was deep with snow, I clocked up a number of long runs including one at 20 miles. It seems odd in retrospect that the subsequent marathon would break my mind in under two hours, when my mental muscle was strong enough to keep running whilst staring at the leaves of a cheese plant for three hours!

Today my aims were much more modest… a mere five miles. The machine shows progress around a quarter-mile track of LED lights and I decided to change the speed at each completed circuit. Starting at 6mph I increased through 6.5 and 7 to 7.5mph, before dropping back to 6.5 at the start of the next mile and repeating the process again.

This meant that at the end of mile four I was running at 9mph. In the final mile I reduced to 8.5, then to 8 and 7.5, but realising that I had the opportunity to run a sub 40-minute time, then increased the speed to 10mph to sprint to the end in 39.47, averaging just over 7.5mph overall.

Early on, Kim had noticed my get-on-and-run lack of preparation and had opened the door to the snowy garden, turned on the fan and had brought me a bottle of water… just as well since I had shed my shirt within a mile and by the end was dripping as if I was in a sauna.

Posted on

Conversational pace

Whilst I am generally up at 6am weekdays, I was clearly out of practice for early morning running, since Nick was gently tapping on the front door before I had even finished getting ready on Friday morning.

We took a road run around Burgess Hill that started at a pace that I had also forgotten… fast… such that I had to quickly deploy the sea anchors to slow us down to to a more conversational pace.  It was cold enough for longs, two layers and a jacket, hat and gloves… but of course the irrepressible Nick was wearing shorts!

After an enjoyable run we stopped for a brief chat before we went our seperate ways for breakfast and I then ran on back to the house.  A total of 5.2 miles in 46 minutes including our stationary chat, 6.78mph.

Posted on

Good and Muddy

After a really fun, relaxing and generally somewhat studious Christmas and New Year break, FosterRuns got back to business this morning with a delicious run on a BEAUTIFUL sunny day!

I had decided on the title above as I sat studying this morning, so there was little question about where I was going to run… it was back to the old midweek circuit.

I set off with considerable aplomb, charging down the road section in a manner which might have suggested, to the casual observer, that I hadn’t just spent two weeks laid low with a cold and unshakable cough.

I was well into the woods before my conscious mind put pay to the speed, but I had already started to deliberately splash through the middle of the mud by then so the fun continued.  As I’ve written in these pages before, there is a difference in frame of mind between avoiding the mud and plugging on through regardless and on this simple scale I was well off the latter end.

The mud today was thin and wet, so my socks were quickly wet through, but the upside was that my runners didn’t clog up.

I went out past the (currently boarded-up) Royal Oak, touched on Wivelsfield and then ran up through West Wood where the gradient had me slithering all over the place… with a big smile on my face.  Other folk mashing through the puddles were sensibly wearing Wellington boots… they must have thought I was crazy!

Once around the industrial estate it was on to the magical path… as magical as ever with the sun filtering through the trees!

And then across a sun-stroked Common, before heading for home.

5.2 miles took me 51 minutes, so a merest shade over 6mph and a great start to 2012.  I hope that you all have a most amazing year!

And PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Cliff who is forty-something today!

Posted on

An absence of mince pies

We were at a FAB party at Clive & Nat’s last night, during which time Pete & Cliff reminded me about the Mince Pie ten mile race this morning. Though I remember saying that I ‘might’ see them there, even then I was somewhat doubtful… I could list the reasons for my doubt, but it will make no difference since they will still harangue me for not turning up to compete!

Suffice to say that I wasn’t there this morning: I made it only as far as my folks’ place by the start time.

It had been raining all morning north of the Downs as I sat re-reading Michael Apter’s Reversal Theory, both reading and raining being factors in my considerable prevarication. However, in sight of the sea to the south of the both the Downs and the coastal ridge, the day was chilly and overcast but dry and optimistic… sufficiently so that I opted to wear shorts.

I had a vague thought about running to the finish line in Peacehaven, but I honestly didn’t feel that energetic, so I sufficed by running down to Rottingdean and along the Undercliff Walk to its easterly end at Saltdean.

The sea was heaving magnificently and I paused several times to take photos and then to take a longer video… which I would share with you if Google hadn’t bought YouTube and messed up my passwords in the process.

I then simply retraced my steps back up the hill to Woodingdean, all the while feeling guilty thinking about Pete, who would have competed having already run from Brighton and then, in the absence of my car, may well have had to run home again afterwards! Heck, he’s the one who should be writing the running blog!

I notice from the results sheet that out of a record 327 entries, Cliff came 95th (average speed 7.4mph) and Pete 66th (7.7mph).  Good show boys!

For me, around 7 miles took me 1.17 (5.45mph), but this included all the pauses for 21 photos and an almost three-minute video, so I was running a smidge faster… and comfortably so, even though I took the Falmer Road in a relaxed fashion.  After all, it wasn’t the day for racing!

There are only a few days left to submit your humorous incidents for the competition ahead of the deadline!  Though if I hear one more person claim they’ve not had the time to spend five minutes writing a few words and sending them to me, I’ll be forced to, er, sob… publically!

Posted on

Et tu, beaut day

The LED starlights were out in force in the sky last night and that translated into a chilly but beautifully clear morning.  Apart from Thursday, where there might be a little rain, this is supposed to set the pattern for the week in the South, with some chilly nights but temperatures generally above average.

As I pounded away to relax my muscles after yesterday’s run, the temperature underfoot on the running machine was considerably hotter still.

I know this because I tend to run barefoot and having managed to get up to 7.5mph during my normal mile, I felt so comfortable that I continued on at that speed for a second mile too… the belt warming all the time!

So warm feet and two miles in 17.04.  Have a GREAT week peops!