Category: Short run

We had a great weekend, but the consequence of having a delicious meal at Philip & Isabelle’s in London on Saturday night, followed by an early morning drive home, was that I had no appetite for running on Sunday morning.

And once I had finished the novel I had been reading, I sat & read HBR instead… although it was not exactly Sunday reading!

Last thing last night I decided that, if the weather was clement this morning, I would go out for a run rather than sit & read (since I had already made a good start on HBR!).

It took me a few minutes to remember my plan when I got up at 6am, but by a quarter past I was running off down the road into a shepherds warning morning.

I took my default short route (Royal Oak, Wivelsfield, West Wood, Magical Path) to the accompaniment of six bars from the end of Stairway to Heaven which I’ve been driving Kim mad by playing repeatedly on my guitar… by the end of the run, I was going mad listening to it go around in my head too!

The sun made an appearance while I was running around, at one point vividly lighting up two or three trees in the relative gloom ahead of me.  I couldn’t help but smile!

Bearing in mind I had got up and gone out with nothing more than a banana for sustenance (no, no time even for a quadspresso!), I felt pretty good, butI knew I was not running especially quickly.

As I came across the backlit Common, I stretched out my stride a little, but soon returned to a more circumspect pace.

So 5.2 miles in 48 minutes is a great way to start the week and at 6.5mph, is not such a bad pace either.. especially for a pre-7am run!

It had been hissing down with rain all last night and generally blowing a hoolie, so it was with some surprise that the day was glorious by the time Daren and I met at Jack & Jill.  That doesn’t mean fabulously sunny, mind, but rather just that it was marvellous to be out in!

We followed the same route as last week, the only difference being the amount of mud and general slipperyness underfoot… requiring a degree of circumspection lest one of us oldies did ourselves an injury.  [you can see already that I’m setting the scene for a slower time!]

We chatted amiably as we ran up on to Wolstonbury where the view was sublime.

We ran gently down the rather slippery grass side of Wolstonbury and into the next valley… the one that would be great for sledging.

It’s hard to believe how deceptive this looks… what may look like a short bank is actually a deep valley with steep sides.  In fact, the other side was steep enough to cause us to stop just beyond the stile to get our breath back… not even the tank tracks do that!

Then it was across through Clayton and up, up and more up the tank tracks, up to the very top, from where we looked across and down onto Wolstonbury.

From here it was all downhill to the cars.

In fact, the round trip was something like 900 feet of descent, so apart from it being slippery underfoot, it was probably pretty easy.

So 6.25 miles in 1.10 or 5.35mph.

Can I just say, that despite all the downhill, I had SUCH an enjoyable run… thanks Daren!

Earlier in the year circumstances conspired to prevent me from accompanying Daren on one of his new running circuits and rather than try to figure it out on my own, I waited patiently for his return.

Today we ran that circuit.

Daren was describing how amazing it was swimming in the sea this morning despite the low water temperature… and how quickly he changes into dry clothes on the beach afterwards.  He said it was a small pleasure, although I might have got this muddled up (as if), and maybe it was Claire who called it a small pleasure.  I know it might seem like a trivial point, but if the water was cold then it’s probably a little wonder.

Our route took us down through the golf club and into Pyecombe village before we started the long drag up to the top of Wolstenbury Hill.  Daren had persuaded me that it was warmer out than the car-park at Jack & Jill would indicate and by the time we reached this point I was inclined to agree.

From there we dropped down into a valley that would make a perfect bowl in which to sledge in the snow… before we found how hard it was to run up the other side.

We soon got back to Clayton at the bottom of the hill beneath the windmills and then, opting for a slightly longer return, we ran along to the tank tracks.  Readers might remember that this was the location for the Blighty Grouse Grind (inspired by the route that Daren found in Vancouver), but fortunately we chose to make only one ascent today.

It was a good job that we were both there, as we each suspected that we would have otherwise paused for a rest half way up.

The great thing about the top of the tank tracks is that it’s all downhill back to the cars.. just as well!

Daren’s delightful circuit was 6.3 miles and we completed it in 1.06 (my watch said 1.10, but the difference is that he stops his Garmin when he pauses to look at the view).  A great pace either way, bearing in mind the severity of the hills that were included and a fantastic start to the year!