Foster Runs

It had been my intention to get up and out this morning, but a broken night’s sleep finally yielded to the day shortly after 9am and it then took me two hours to get to the start of my run… physically, yes but particularly mentally.

I ran from my folks place down to Rottingdean and then along to the Palace Pier… and back again.  It was the first day that I felt like taking a chance on the weather so it was shorts on, 2011.  The chilly wind blasting up the valley into my face caused me to ponder my decision, but once I warmed up there was no question that it was a good call.

The runners of Brighton were out in force and some of them were even friendly enough to return my greeting… the rest either being focused intently on their running, having a policy of not acknowledging strange looking men, or just being miserable gits.

Between Rottingdean and the Marina I ran along the grass rather than the road, so the views were great.

And it was presumably the day of the London to Brighton ‘old bikes’ ride, as Brighton was heaving with people and motorbikes… most of them contemporary!

It wasn’t the fastest run, to be fair.  Going out I averaged 6.6mph, but with the gradient against me coming back I managed only 5.85mph.  Overall a nice comfortable run of 12.5 miles in 2.01, 6.2mph, 9.68 minutes per mile.

It’s really interesting considering the variables that influence speed.  I always seem to run faster when I am slightly cooler, like last week: this afternoon however I was wearing an extra layer, to ward off a cooler day, which made me feel slightly too warm.  I’m not sure what effect getting up late has, but I suspect that an 11am start is always going to slow me down, not least as it meant I didn’t particularly want to go running at all!  But the big variable is how focused I am and it was running along thinking about all this stuff (and way more) that I reckon actually slowed me down.

I ran the same route as last week which, in short, took me around Burgess Hill and then down to Clayton and back… 11 miles in total.  I had a rough sense about where the mile markers were and whilst I wasn’t slavish in trying to remember the time at the different mile points, I noted enough to be interesting.  The great thing about data, as I am forever telling my clients, is the ability to get a sense of what was going on… albeit in this case, after the fact.

The first seven miles, while I allowed my mind wandered hither & thither, I ran at 6.5mph, or 9.2 minute miles.  Then I picked up the pace, pretending I was running downhill and ran the next 3 miles at 7.2mph, or 8.3 minute miles.  All of which left one final mile and no chance of equalling last weeks’ time.  No matter, as I was still determined to beat an average of 9 minutes per mile (in effect, racing Phil), so I picked up my skirts and flew, even up the hill from Wivelsfield Station, managing this final mile in 7 minutes, 8.5mph.  This gave me an overall time of 1.37 for the 11 miles, average 6.8mph or 8.8 minutes per mile.

One of the reasons that I tend to vary my route is that I don’t actually like racing myself (as a paratelic it is the journey that is of more interest), but I was curious to see whether I could repeat the time from last week.  Alas not, which means that I’ll almost certainly be returning to this route again!

On occasions I am SO ready to run on a Sunday morning, but yesterday was not one of these.  I knew that I had to be showered and ready to leave the house by 2pm and it was interesting to observe how my mind sank into Flotsametrics, the book that Nigel & Kristin gave me for Christmas, thus shortening the time available to run.

It’s a double edged sword though, as with less time you need more focus and where I would normally run out and follow my nose, I instead planned where I would run to maximum benefit.

I’ve been running sub-Phil Stupples (as in slower than) for some time now (although to be fair I do usually run off-road) and I wanted to see whether this was reversible.  So my planned route went down to Wivelsfield Station, along to London Road and then south to Clayton, where I went up the lane 400m or so to make up the mileage.  And back again, obviously.

The advantage of pre-planning was that I knew roughly where the miles fell and could thus see how I was doing for a change.  It also allowed me to be more deliberate in my choice of clothing, going for cotton socks and no jacket… all the better for running slightly faster!

En route I passed a surprised-looking Mister Matt Beermatt and also the guys from Crawley Community Payback who were tidying the grass verges.

You may be surprised at how delighted I was to see someone edging the grass, but I have been agitating with the local council, my local MP and central government since last year for this very task to be engaged with.  My suggested strategy was deeper and more involving, but this is at least a great start!

My lite set-up worked well, as though I was cold to start with, it enabled me to keep up a good pace and arrive back quite literally steaming.

The pace was not the 10 minute-miles that was my backstop to get back in time to go out.  Not even Mister Stupples 9.12 pace, but 8.64 miles per minute.

This is not far off the 8.57 pace that I used to run the 7 miles to work from Earls Court in 2004, though then I used to arrive in London Bridge ready to collapse, whereas yesterday I returned having merely enjoyed a fun run.

So 11 miles, 1.35, 6.95mph.