Category: Short run

Despite not having any intention of running this morning, I somehow found myself warming to the idea over my morning espresso… and was out just after seven.

It was a [I’m actually unsure of correct adjective for a change] morning, warm enough for t-shirt & shorts, windy, fresh etc.  It seems to have been raining for days so I was expecting wall to wall mud… but was not looking forward to it.

As it turned out there was very little mud around at all, the ground having comprehensively soaked up any rainwater.  I did my standard 5.2 mile circuit out past the Royal Oak, through the woods & back down the magical path and actually found myself really enjoying it.

At one point in the woods I felt that I had been joined by some of my friends, particularly Nick & Daren, who have run through here with me before and I also had the sense that Ric was there too.  Ever present, if only in spirit.  He would have enjoyed running through there.

It was a lovely little run with plenty to see and think about but no drama… what a great way to spend 45 minutes at the start of the day!

I don’t know why it should be, but whenever I think of the word fartlek I get a really clear picture of Dai Thomas first explaining it to me.  Thus he was out there on the Common this morning with me, in spirit at least.

I was off to London, so I had to squeeze in a short run and based on my realisation that I’m currently running too slow to better 3.45 in the marathon, I thought I’d better use the time working on speed.

It was a stunning morning, hot even at 7am, with a slight breeze.

Fortunately the really fast side of the oblong was in the shade and unlike previous trips to the common, I managed to do four circuits without stopping for a breather, which I thought would surely give me a better time.  For some inexplicable reason however, the overall 4.5 run still took me 42 minutes, EXACTLY the same as last time I ran it on 20th May.

And despite the breathlessness and the sweat pouring from me, this speed (6.4mph) kept up across 26.2 miles will not even give me a sub-four-hour marathon.  Oh boy!  I have a LOT of training to do!

After a really fun but quite intense week at work, I have pretty much collapsed this weekend.  However, I was up at six this morning and sitting in a chilly tea-house by half past planning for next week.  In stark contrast to last weekend, I did not want to run and this was reinforced by how incredibly clunky I felt when I finally did jog off down the road.

It had been raining and I was not in the mood for mud, so a plan formed to run round a few pavements and go back.  I was soon enticed off down a little path however and ended up running on the paths that frame the south-west ring road.  

For a small town set in beautiful scenery, there are fewer paths than I would ideally like.  It’s easy to follow paths from Ockley Lane (and all points to the east of the town) to Malthouse Lane, but then it all goes wrong.  There is no way for a runner to safely get from there to Isaacs Lane, other than coming in to town or going for miles out into the country in a most convoluted way.  It’s a double shame, as the Triangle Leisure Centre is in the middle of this section, which means that more people drive to it than is absolutely necessary.  Just one more mile of pathways here would make it possible to circumnavigate the town and encourage a much more outdoorsey culture.

I did not have the energy for the alternatives, so I ran along the verge on the ring-road, dodging onto the road where necessary to avoid the low signage.  At Isaacs Lane I cut through the industrial Estate, behind the football club and across to Valebridge Road, going round behind Steve & Maria’s place.  I then took a detour to run past my old house, looking in amazement at the overgrown garden, before running home up Junction Lane.

My one hour 12 minute, 6.5mph run had only been 7.8 miles, but I was worn out as if I had run twice that distance.  Still, at least the sun was out, a real bonus on a day that was forecast to be gloomy.  Unless of course you were running the Seaford half marathon and wishing it were a little cooler!  Hey ho, can’t please everyone!

Have a great week everyone peops!

The morning was overcast and once again, I felt not at all like running.  This is the little routine that my conscious and unconscious go through from time to time… the unconscious, like a child, testing the boundaries to see how flexible they are.

It doesn’t always go down this way, but on this occasion I consciously made a black espresso, ate a banana and got out there.

There had been much rain the night before last and I half expected a mud-bath, but I was pleasantly surprised at how firm the going was.  This said, there were patches of mud to slide about on, or plough through, all over the place.

I should point out that, like the Inuit with snow and ice, I have become accustomed to many different types of mud.  The mud today was not ‘skating’, which is when there’s a really thin, super slippery layer of liquid mud on a firm base, but rather ‘graceful’, where the mud is a little thicker and gives you a better chance to stay upright.

Which I needed at one point when my left foot slid to the right, in front of my right leg coming through.  Because the slide was graceful, I had time to arch like a cat, extricate my right leg and apply traction to push me in the direction I was falling.  I felt the distinctive pang of overstretched back muscles and observed my first two fingers on my left hand sink half an inch into the mud, before the momentum kicked in and I righted myself.  Fun, especially in slow-motion like that!

It was only a quick run around the (increasingly) normal 5.2 mile circuit (Royal Oak, West Wood, Magical Path) and this morning it took me 44 minutes.  And despite the unconscious protestations, the running itself was pretty easy.

I’m quite often not in the mood to run on an early mid-week morning, but usually the feeling goes within the first mile or so.  Not this morning.  I forced myself to run and had to cajole myself to keep going virtually every step of the way.

Part of this was that it was foggy and very chilly… such that my hands were cold (even having dug out my winter gloves from the bottom of the drawer) whilst the air in my nostrils was actually painful.

I ran out onto the common and after a warm-up lap, did a further three laps: each with two sides at a normal jog (albeit trying to keep my knees up), one at a faster run and then one stretching out down the final hill.  On the last circuit I had to be content to walk the first side on account of being knackered!

The fast side cannot be more than 300m and is slightly uphill and though I try to hold a good pace the whole way, I really  don’t understand why this relatively simple task should affect me so badly… I’ll obviously just have to keep going back to see if it passes over time.

I’m having second thoughts on whether the circuit is 900m or only 800m so I’m not sure whether I ran 4.25 miles or 4.5 miles, but the time was 45 minutes… all I could manage today.  At least the sun came out when I got back.