For Eastbourne athletes like me, there are stretches of the local coastal path that neatly lend themselves to primitive plodding tasks. Holywell to the Redoubt (2.2 miles). The Redoubt to Sovereign Harbour (2.2 miles). Sovereign Harbour to Pevensey Bay (2 miles). Pevensey Bay to Normans Bay (2.2 miles). As these are straight point-to-point routes, you obviously double these distances if you want to arrive back at the place you started from. Around 4 or 4.5 miles is, or used to be, a decent midweek running distance for me. Perhaps they’ll become so again though my current half-hour-or-so C25K legs don’t yet stretch to a full out-and-back trip. At the moment, about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through my running assignment, I turn round and head back. Logic dictates that the turning point should be 50% of the way through but logic has no place in the running universe I inhabit.
Today it was the turn of Pevensey Bay eastwards, a much more remote and windswept landscape than the more westerly stages along Eastbourne seafront. It’s like loping westward through Las Vegas and out into Red Rock Canyon. Up to a point, at least. In which case, Normans Bay will become Death Valley. This sounds about right if my flickering recollections of Normans Bay resemble reality.
The relative wildness of this part of the coast is significant, as the maintained concrete walkways of the town-centre Promenade gradually crumble into bumpy tracks and open shingle, creating a more hazardous and strength-sapping challenge for the coastal stroller and jogger. And so the underfoot conditions weren’t ideal for assessing the benefits of my new running shoes, bought yesterday from Tempo, Eastbourne’s commendable running shop.
The last time I bought a pair of runners was at the Berlin Expo in 2013, the day before the race. It’s an unbreakable law of marathoning that you don’t buy new shoes, particularly unfamiliar ones, the day before. I broke that unbreakable law. It was one of many problems with my preparation for that event, and no doubt contributed to my herniated disk, sciatica, and the need for epidural spinal injections.
Shoe technology has moved on since those days. The items I eventually left the shop with, Saucony Guide 18s, are large and light and very very white. I’m guessing that for sleek, featherweight lopers, the trend is still for minimalistic, skimpy, uncushioned footwear. For athletes with the fuller figure however, the idea is mercifully still to offer as much distance as possible between your poor feet and the cruel concrete below. I’d never strapped on Sauconys before but I was immediately impressed by how they manage to combine lightness with a sense of stability. One shoe is a mere 325g.
In trying to offer the reader a helpful indication of how light that really is, Google A1 tells us that among the things that weigh 325g are sweetcorn, wool, marmalade, cake, a tripod, a candle, and meat. I asked ChatGPT the same question and was advised that things that weigh 325g include: an apple, a can of soda, a small textbook, a medium-sized paperback, a slice of thick bread with toppings, and a small chicken breast. So if you imagine running with a can of Coke strapped to the sole of one foot and a cake or chicken breast beneath the other, you’ll get a good idea of how the Sauconys feel.
Mentioning this brand reminds me that it was the great Julie Welch who advised me on how to pronounce Saucony (“soccer-knee”), 25 years or so ago, when I was chatting to her on some running forum. I was moved to check whether her great piece on running the London Marathon is still available on the Serpies website. It is. Go and read it now.
