Most of these entries first appeared in the forum.

Thursday 5 July 2007

Has normal service been resumed? Hard to tell. It's been an undulating week.

Recovery from Saturday was scheduled for Sunday, but the fatigue bled into Monday and beyond. Yesterday I was up early to run a cautious and pensive four miles before breakfast.

This evening was cool and drizzley. Ideal for a brisk five miles with the club. But I got to the appointed place, and...? And runners were there none. I've taken to practising my scales outside the sports centre while the rest of the club orchestra and its craggy conductors muster inside. So I sploshed through the puddles, feeling pretty loose and keen.

Waiting...

The time came and went. Waited some more...

Eventually, the final drops of patience drained away, so I marched inside to drag them out. But the meeting room was empty.

Eh?

Inexplicable.

I cleared my throat, and began: "Thank you for coming along. I'm very glad you could make it. Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the Marie Celeste Striders...."

So I trotted off into the distance. Puzzled and forlorn, like an abandoned dog. The first mile was a damp and droopy experience, but I plodded on, the puddled pavements twinkling in the car headlights. No iPod, as I'd been expecting company. So no soundtrack but the traffic, and a chorus of muffled cat-calls from the kids chomping outside the chip shop.

As always, I soon warmed to the task. On Mile 2, I thought I saw a yellow club singlet in the distance. More than that, I recognised the distinctive, rangey lope of one of the girls who runs in my usual group. Ay-ay? Was she the entire club run?

She was way off in the distance. I was going to struggle to catch her, but decided to take the same path in case she stopped for a breather. So I headed down the hill, along the main road, then into the local park, a decent-sized, semi-wooded 'municipal facility' that I'd never explored before.

I saw another distant runner. And then there seemed to be another, coming up behind me. Finally it dawned on me. Every third Thursday, the club holds an informal handicap. Two or three times round the park. It explained the empty meeting room, as they head straight for the park. It was too late to enter the handicap, but I felt better about knowing what had happened.

The good news is that it introduced me to a new running venue. I've been on hill-watch recently, and this place has a couple of 'em going spare, and some pleasant paths. It could do with being bigger. I'm not sure it's expansive enough to crowbar enough miles out without multiple laps -- but it could be a target. Run there and back, with a couple of circuits thrown in. Could make a half-decent... 6 or 7 miler.

The grim news of the day is a letter from a debt-collection company, threatening me with the full weight of the law for not paying a slab of money to the appalling Carphone Warehouse. I've written about these sharks before. Last summer, I took out a contract with these people. I had a reasonably trouble-free month of use with the new phone, then it began to falter, and eventually expired in my loving arms. Complained. Was told by one of their snotty call-centre staff that they couldn't replace it as I'd had it more than 14 days. Ordered to trek into Reading where I had to visit two of their shops, being treated like a piece of excrement in both. Dropped it off at their repair centre.

Two weeks later, they called to say the phone was fixed. Another afternoon off work (during my time as a contractor, thus losing money), another visit to Reading. They told me it had needed a software upgrade, but the phone had been checked and was working fine. Got it home. Dead as the proverbial dodo. This time, it wouldn't even charge up. Perhaps the charger was at fault? M then took it to Carphone Warehouse next time she was in Reading, a few days later. They tried another charger. Still didn't work.

I cancelled my direct debit. Wrote to them, explaining that they had not fulfilled their side of the bargain, and that the contract was therefore annulled. We traded letters. I'd paid them a total of £134 in charges for less than two months of patchy service. Enough was enough. I told them that if I hadn't heard back from them within a fortnight, I'd take that as an acknowledgement that the contract was annulled.

And that was about 9 months ago. Since then, not a whisper. Until today. It's like one of those horror films where the baddy keeps getting killed... but no, he gets up again for another clumsy swipe.

I can see another round of acrimonious correspondence coming on. In the meantime, anyone with a fully-marbled head should make this promise to themselves: I will never, ever do business with Carphone Warehouse. Say it out loud now. Listen carefully as you chant those liberating words: I will never, ever do business with Carphone Warehouse.

Smile. You just made one of the best decisions of your life.

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Friday 6 July 2007 - Jam Tomorrow

And so, as the first week of fiftyhood hobbles to a close, it's time to review how life has changed so far...

I've not yet taken out my subscription to Saga Magazine, thank god. But two things happened this week that made me stop and think. The trouble is, they seem to be highlighting moves in opposite directions.

The first came when I was running through Prospect Park on Wednesday. Struggling along one steep path, I ran alongside a bowling green where a gang of older chaps were standing over a constellation of bowls, deep in analysis. Perhaps you have to be 50 to pick up on it -- something about the tree-fringed setting, the twilit incandescence of the green, the apparent culture of agreeable disagreement. It made a mark on me. And the skill involved tweaked the competitive streak in me. It wasn't a moment of revelation, because I'm not ashamed to admit that I've liked this game for years. Subtler than that, like a mild gust shivering through a distant wind chime. The clincher was a sign propped against the gate: WANT TO LEARN ABOUT BOWLS? COME ALONG TO OUR OPEN DAY ON JULY 22nd. I'll confess to having often watched, and been absorbed by, the televised World Bowls Championship, thinking I'd like to have a go. This could be my big opportunity. If I can slip across there without anyone knowing, I might just chance my arm.

If this is a slightly embarrassing confession, arguably a worse one is about to follow. A little more street cred, but that's the problem. At what age, should we start to move away from trying to cling to our youth (whoever he or she may be)? The truth is, I jettisoned most of that mindset quite a while ago. It's a natural move. I suppose that stable relationships and marriage, and having to get up in the morning to cultivate a career, move most of us away from frantic pursuit of the opposite sex (or whatever your thing happens to be), and the excess that gets attached to it.

I've never been a clubber. Or not since university days, when visits to the Swinging Sporran (sic), the Cypress Tavern, or any of those late-night dives in Central Manchester were as regular as the rainfall in that great city. It was the chance to drink, rather than dance, all night that drew us there.

Going to see recklessly loud and discordant guitar bands was a habit that stuck with me much longer, enduring even through my long dalliance with the Yorkshire folk club scene in the nineties. You tend never to renounce the music you cut your teeth on, even when those same teeth are starting to vanish.

I read recently of a middle-aged craze shuffling its way across the USA. While their worried sons hold the ladder, guys in their 40s, 50s and 60s are creeping up into the loft to retrieve their redundant axes. Those old valve amps in the garage that have been used as work-bench supports for thirty years, are being dusted down and dragged out. Then they congregate and thrash out an hour or two of rock 'n' roll to enrich and excite their mid-lives. I like this idea.

My little-used Fender Stratocaster has been winking at me recently. An electric guitar isn't much fun on its own, and I never did find (or look for) others to play with. It was a medicinal purchase more a musical one, perhaps. I'd get home from work, plug it in, stick the headphones on, and thrash out some distorted 12-bar blues or a few power chords, then put it down again. It helped to remove the day from my head.

But I've not done that for years. I'm not ready to get together with others to play. I may never want to. But I did discover an interesting gadget a while ago that might give me some fun. The Rifftracker. You plug it into a PC, pick a drum track, and off you thrash. Or you can jam along with Hendrix and Led Zeppelin, or pretty much anyone else. Move over Jimi and Jimmy, there's a new bad boy in town. Gulp, is that the time? Nearly ready for my Omega 3 supplement...

Excellent run this evening. 6½ sprightly miles along the canal, chewing flies most of the way. Track du Jour : Idiot Wind from His Bobness. This is hard core Dylan.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

Great stuff. Could have been written about me.

In the meantime, I have a decision to make. What's it to be — genteel evenings on the bowling green, then home to a glass of amontillado and an early night? Or will I be snorting a line or two of Sanatogen before heading round to the back room at the The Red Lion with the Strat under my arm?

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Sunday 8 July 2007

Nine miles today. Sounds impressive, but it was a bad run. If it was a run at all.

The brisk 6½ miles I did on Friday won't have helped, but I suspect it was yesterday's annual spousal duty (stop sniggering at the back) — a day trudging round the Hampton Court Flower Show — that played a bigger part in my lack of energy and poor performance today. But there were other things.

I was out by 10 o'clock. It was already hot by then, so for the first time this year (races aside), wore a singlet and slapped on plenty of sun-block.

It's part of the frustration, yet fascination, of running that I'm still having to experiment with pre-run food and hydration. Today, something told me to keep myself light by drinking nothing whatsoever before the run, and taking no fluid with me.

So on top of achey legs and insufficient sleep, I'd had no liquid in my system for 12 hours. Despite all this, I went for a 9 mile run on a day that was hot and sunny. Can you see where this is going?

I felt fatigued and hollow from the start, but blind optimism told me to carry on. After three miles, things got markedly worse. This was probably where dehydration was starting to kick in. At 3½ miles I had to take my first walk break. I was overheating, and my legs were shot. Walked 2 minutes, then jogged to the 4.6 mile mark (Aldermaston), where there's a water tap outside the canal visitor centre. Glugged big water.

Entered shop, where old lady behind counter was frowning, and saying to old lady in front of counter: "It's quite shocking really, isn't it?"

These lines must be on some sort of chip that gets inserted into people over the age of 70.

I bought a bottle of water to take with me, but it was too late to salvage the run. The return journey was stop-start all the way. It reminded me just how different summer training is from winter. I've had to do this only once before — for Chicago in 2002, and I remembered how tough I'd found some of the long runs. But it wasn't just the heat that was the problem here. It really wasn't the cause of my problem, but it exacerbated them.

That's it. A boring, listless report of a boring, listless run.

Must do better.

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Thursday 19 July 2007

So what's gone wrong?

As usual, my stupidity has turned an enforced break into something much worse. Last weekend I was in Manchester, enjoying too much Champagne and Timothy Taylor's Landlord, and barbecued animal. I returned without a weekend long run to log in my spreadsheet, and with extra corporeal ballast to lug around the mean streets of West Berkshire.

That was bad enough, but worse was a painful toe that gave me the excuse I needed to take a few days off. This was then compounded by a dose of man-flu that no one has been very sympathetic about. Huh!

Man, it's so comfortable in this swamp. It's warm and moist and green and comfy, and you meet interesting creatures here. They even have a bar with beer and wine and crisps and cheese....

But hang on, I'm sinking.... Help! I'm sinking I tell you...! Help!!! .......HELP!!!

gloop -- gloop -- glurrupp!

Most of us seem a bit down at the moment. Inertia oozes from these pages. Why? I don't know. What I do know is that I have to shake out of it, and fast. I recently updated my profile on the Runners World website, changing the answer to the question of how long I'd been running, from "1-5 years" to "5 to 10 years". This reinforced my suspicion that I'd been doing this for quite a while now. Long enough to have been here many times before. Long enough to know that every marathon campaign has the odd down week. As the well-known observation goes, don't judge on whether someone has problems, but on how they respond to them.

Bear with me.

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Saturday 21 July 2007

Hasn't happened yet. The pub intervened.

I was suckered into a very rare visit to that grotty boozer next door where they were hosting an outfit describing themselves as a "Jam tribute band". Had to be worth investigating, and it was.

I've got a soft spot for the Jam, even if I can't get on with the solo Weller. I remember seeing them performing on a stage by the side of the road on some Anti-Nazi League march I went on in 1980. I didn't get on with most of the rawer punk performers (though I came back to the Clash years later, and began to understand what they were all about), but some of the bands that came in with the punk movement, like the Jam and the Undertones, struck a chord with me. Some songs just capture the zeitgeist. "That's Entertainment" in 1981 was a wonderfully vivid evocation of the sour Thatcherite world we were drifting through. I was a student at the time. It seemed to sum up the bleakness of those awful post-Saturday night comedowns. It's a song that would hover round the fringes of my all-time top ten.

Anyway, so I went to the pub and had a few beers and listened to the band, who were pretty good. I wondered if any of them were alive in 1981.

I dusted down my Stratocaster a week or two back, and blasted out a few powerchords. I enjoyed it enough to buy some recording software and started to have some fun with da blues. Then I thought bugger it, and bought a bass guitar. It followed Sweder's mention of wanting a Rickenbacker bass. It got me thinking. I'd never even touched a bass but if I'm going to put a few tunes together, I need one. Not, alas, a Rickenbacker, whose price tag reflects its legendary status, but a humble Yamaha RBX374.

Apart from the final numeral, I don't know why it's called RBX374. (The 5 string version is RBX375.) I did think about buying the 5 string until I discovered that the extra string was likely to prove more confusing that I'd thought. The 4 strings of the usual bass are the same as the bottom 4 of a standard 6 string guitar (albeit an octave lower). I'd assumed that a 5 string bass would be the bottom 5 strings of a 6 string guitar. But no. The extra string is a low B, coming below the low E. It's easy enough to transfer your knowledge from the bottom four strings of a normal guitar, to a bass. But adding a new and unfamiliar string, would have fried my booze-shrivelled brain.

So. So this black beauty arrived last weekend, and I've been having a good old pluck this week. It's been quite easy to pick up because I used to play finger-style guitar, so the right hand plucking techniques feel pretty natural. I've been trying to recall the stuff I used to play years ago -- with mixed success. I wish I'd had all this recording gear back then.

I think it's one of the reasons my running has gone off the boil a little. I've got sorta diverted. I've been up in the back bedroom, chugging away on my four guitars, headphones clamped to the side of my head, like a serious teenager. It's been fun, but I have to reinvent myself as a runner yet again.

Tomorrow is Sunday. I have to get up early to meet up with my parents as they motor along the M4 at about 6:45 on their way to Ireland. If I'm up that early, I may as well make use of the time to go for a run. That's the plan.

Let's rock, then let's roll.

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Sunday 22 July 2007

11.35 miles tucked away.

Yes, you heard that right.

The day started early. My body clock woke me at 5 a.m., anxious that I shouldn't miss my folks, who were passing through at about 7, on their way to Fishguard and Ireland. I'd hoped to fly out for a couple of days myself, but it's looking unlikely now. The old family house by the sea, mentioned a couple of times in these pages, is to be put up for sale. My old Uncle Paddy died last year, and the sister he lived with isn't sure she can keep the house up to scratch and look after the livestock at her age, so will probably head for a flat in the local village, a couple of miles away. I understand her decision, but it's a sad moment in the life our family, and the end of a lengthy era by the standards of most of us. We're not sure how long it's been in the family, but certainly my great-grandfather was brought up there.

I'd thought of flying out for a couple of days after next weekend's running-beer-football-beer-barbecue engagement chez Sweder, but in the first week or so of the school holidays, air fares are unreasonable. Or they seem unreasonable in these days of cheap flights. A few years ago, £200 return was probably the going rate. Now it seems £150 too much. But we'll see.

The folks came and went. The plan was to get off on my run straight away, and with the sun creeping up the sky, it was tempting. But not quite as tempting as going for a magical wander round the garden, checking on the burgeoning grapes, pears, apples and gooseberries, and to cast a paternal eye over the goldfish. They must have been asleep somewhere. I could only see two of them. We started with ten, which very quickly became nine. In fact I suspect I was short-changed at the garden centre. I was trying to count them as I queued at the check-out but the buggers wouldn't stay still, despite my threats. A day or two later I could count only eight in the pond, and recently this has dwindled to seven. Maybe we have a heron issue.

Then it was high time I buggered about for a couple of hours on t'Internet. Doing what? Doing nothing very much, as usual. Do I give up on my High Yield Portfolio and switch back into Emerging Markets Funds? Have QPR bought Ronaldinho yet? Anything going on at RunningCommentary? Runners World? What's the BBC saying? And the Guardian? And New York Times? Any bargains at Fine and Rare Wines these days? And so it goes on. Surfing is a good word. It suggests skimming the surface at speed, occasionally capsizing and getting immersed for a while.

At ten o'clock I could justify my inertia no longer. So I jumped from my swivel chair, strapped on my lycra underpants and shot through the back door in search of adventure.

As I set off, I was mindful of something Moyleman said in a recent entry about hoping the (unintended) rest would do him good. It was a more positive sentiment than my assumption that I wouldn't make it to the end of the street. Thinking about it now, this wasn't a rational fear. Most fears aren't, I suppose. I'd not run this week, and I managed only a couple last week, but the last one was a fairly satisfying seven miler, nine days ago. Not an ideal marathon training week, but I've had darker periods than this.

I chugged off up the street, realising I'd no idea where I was going. Or even how far I was aiming to run. A sensible approach after a lay-off and a cold might have been a short run to start with, but I'm getting anxious about a dearth of successful long runs in my training spreadsheet.

The recent torrential rain narrowed my options. A drive round my usual short route yesterday, showed half the lanes submerged. Decided to head for the Canal, but then proceed in an easterly direction towards September's holiday destination -- Tokyo.

Despite being flat, the first mile was pretty tough. I just didn't fancy it. All I could think of was to take it easy.

Two miles, three miles... of course, any distance run in one direction along the canal has to be doubled to take account of the return journey, so I have to judge it carefully. But I was feeling OK, so I pressed on.

This is a rather featureless stretch of towpath: overgrown and not well-defined. Worse, it passes under the M4, then for a mile or so fringes the motorway, so it's noisy and slightly stressful. Not as scenic and as calming as my more usual route in the other direction, where you are heading through open countryside as soon as you hit the path.

Into my fourth mile, and a dog-walker wearing wellies and a faintly sadistic smile tells me: "You'll get your feet wet up there!" I thanked him, but said I'd continue as far as I could.

Two hundred yards further, I swing round a bend and am confronted by a waterlogged path as far as the eye could see. Damn. Do I go on? Or turn back?

I know if I turn back I'll end up heading home and regretting it. So I tip-toed through the water as best I could, though I couldn't prevent it sloshing into my shoes. I got clear, and squelched on for another half mile or so before I hit another, even deeper stretch of water. No option but to carry on, I decided. My feet were already wet, and if I turned back I'd have to go through the previous long bit of flooded path. This time the water was up to my ankles.

And it got worse. I'd decided to turn off the canal at the next road -- but the next road didn't come until I had six miles on the watch. I could see the bridge, and the road, but I stopped a hundred yards away. Because I could also see the lagoon that separated us. Bugger it, here we go. This time, the water was up to just above my knees. I waded down to the bridge. By the time I was half way to my destination, I realised I'd drawn a small group of spectators on the bridge. Someone was taking a picture. Someone else pointed at me from a car.

The trouble wasn't over at the bridge. To reach the road, I had to get up a long ramp, at least fifty yards of which was also under water. But by now I didn't care. I was already drenched, so it made no difference.

I made it up to the road and squelched on up the main A33 into Reading. This isn't the most secluded or tranquil stretch of road in the area, so there was nothing for it but to crank up the iPod and carry on until I hit the cut-through to the A4 and headed home.

Apart from the wading interludes, I managed to run for 9.5 miles without a break. Then I stopped at a garage to buy a drink, and struggled a bit when I set off again. I could feel my right calf tightening, and the previously troublesome toe was making itself known, even though I wouldn't quite describe it as pain. I'm always paranoid about that calf. It's floored me a couple of times before. If it pops again, I can write off six weeks. No point in risking it, so I sort of walk-shuffled the final mile or two. But 11:35 is what it said on the watch when I got home, and that's what I'm taking.

I'm pleased with this, even if it was a rather squalid sort of a run. I didn't get the big endorphin hit I might have expected but I'm not complaining. It was the miles that were important.

Track du jour? There were some great candidates today but the one that popped up as I emerged from one of the liquid sections was James Taylor's lovely rendition of The Water Is Wide, a wistful English folk song from the 16th century. When I hear it, I can't help visualising a distant view of a runner on a long straight road, silhouetted against the sea. Today it had a funnier resonance, but it's still a great song that also reminds me of Ireland, and of the tranquility of the modest family home in the wilds of County Mayo, sandwiched betweeen a lake and the sea, and surrounded by mountains.

Music and running, eh? What dreams a man may have.

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Wednesday 25 July 2007

Dateline: Yesterday, A Sun-Flooded England. A sinewy, early-morning lope to report. Highly agreeable stuff. Four miles of sub-10:30 miles: decent for me at that time in the morning, when my calfs are cold and brittle, like a pack of bread sticks fresh from the freezer.

I was in training for more than my marathon. A couple of hours later I would be somewhat gingerly climbing aboard the first day of one of these team-building thingummies at work. I'll suspend comment till after the second and final day, as long as I have sufficient dignity intact. I've managed to cling onto most of it, but it's been a struggle at times.

Wish me luck.

Geronimo!

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Thursday 26 July 2007

I'm not going to dwell too long on my team-building experience, except to say that most of the bonding took place in the restaurant last night rather than over two days in the classroom.

I call it a "classroom" but it was actually a function room at a golf club. I'm not a big golf fan, as people will know, but there was a point this morning when, staring through the window, I noticed a chap preparing to tee off. Just at that moment, one of my colleagues was gushing to the drink-ravaged assembly: "I see my job as.... as spreading the love around..."

Man, I realised at that precise moment just how fascinating a golf swing can be.

It's all a terrible dilemma, this sort of caper. I'm actually quite keen on the idea of team-building days, if the time is used wisely. People sometimes mistakenly think I'm not a team player, because I like to just get on with my job once I know what I'm supposed to be doing. But I know all about not sweating the small stuff, and pursuing excellence, and managing everything in one minute, and not worrying about who moved my cheese, and all that. I've devoured these lessons, and more -- many, many more.

I even believe most of it. I was a card-carrying Tom Peters acolyte for a long time. I'm not as cynical as I must seem to my colleagues. I'm probably just resentful that I don't rule the world. I'm rarely endowed with genuine responsibility, which pisses me off. The power dealers hear that I'm pissed off, so decide that I can't be trusted with anything. It becomes a circle of mutual disappointment and exasperation. That seems to be how it works.

I ran a big wine shop in the Fulham Road once. I inherited a young guy called Steve, from Ladbroke Grove. A pretty stroppy character. Always late, not very co-operative. The area manager wanted to sack him, as he was "more trouble than he's worth". I wasn't keen to do that as he was married with a baby. We talked about it. I remember reading something that Winston Churchill said, that "the way to deal with a rebel is to give him responsibility". So after a rather fractious discussion with the area manager, we decided to make him a key-holder and sort of assistant manager. He responded brilliantly, and his behaviour changed overnight. It was deeply heartening. I've never forgotten it.

It's a while since someone took that sort of chance with me, but I've become sanguine about the whole cycle. I'm realistic. I get paid OK, and to stay sane and satisfied I've learnt to shine the light of my ambitions away from work, pointing it instead through the wire fence into my personal life. Plodding marathons, and writing about the experience, is just one great way to start feeling stimulated -- and occasionally even fulfilled. Someone asked me the other day about the plan for the book. It's still there. I open the file 2 or 3 times a week, usually early in the morning, and write another few paragraphs. Perhaps I'll never reach that particular finishing line, but the race itself is a thrill. Trying to keep the non-work self topped up with creative diversions seems to do the trick.

Let's talk about running, because I've had two excellent jaunts in the last two days. I've already mentioned yesterday's early morning bounce through the sun. It left me buzzing and keen all day.

This evening's was good too. Later than usual (8:30), but there are advantages with this. It's cleansing to run through the first fringes of twilight; to feel the wild unwinding of the day; the untightening of the tensions. To run at this time, in the cool of the pre-night, is to set yourself free. It feels like a privilege.

I was out there for a shade under an hour. Sixty minutes is a great length for a brisk, non-stop midweek run. Those 30 or 40 minute outings are sometimes unavoidable, particularly before work, but if the escape can be stretched to an hour, so much the better. The extra 20 minutes are where the detail is hiding. This is where the real work is done. I managed about 5.5 miles, including a couple of stiff upward slopes. I daren't call them hills in the presence of the teeth-glinting, Sussex masochists.

Track du jour? Corny, but Ron Goodwin's The Trap -- better known as the theme tune of the BBC's coverage of the London Marathon. It popped up just as I was entering the final half mile, and beginning to feel a little fatigue. It's a corny tune, and a corny arrangement, but it jangles something inside, and it gave me the little spurt I needed to get home feeling strong and confident again.

It seems we're getting back in the groove.

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Sunday 29 July 2007

The morning after the day before and I'm feeling strangely human. Surprisingly normal. Slightly woolly headed, but nothing severe. It seems to be mixing drinks that causes those next-day difficulties. Yesterday it was just beer-beer-beer, and this simple strategy has paid off.

We arrived at Sweder's around 10:30. Our first time in Lewes, but the trip down the A23 from the known world was pretty painless. It puzzles me that so many people get anxious and disorientated about having to find a place they've not been to before. I'd put the address into Google maps, saw immediately the best route, made a one-line note on the back of an envelope, and didn't give it a further thought. 'Other people' would have spent half the previous evening poring over maps, writing up and printing directions, and fretting about alterntive strategies in case of roadworks.

Tentatively, we crept in through the open front door, and wandered round for a while. Gulp. This was like one of those movies where the music starts to get louder and more threatening, just before the corpses come into view. But hang on, here's Sweder, looking rather surprised to see us. Nice lived-in house, with dogs and kids popping up here and there, and reassuring evidence of food and drink. Moyleman of this parish was aready there, and shortly after, Nigel materialised. We said farewell to the womenfolk and set off on the run.

This was the legendary trek up to Blackcap, Sweder's much-described regular lope with the dogs. For me, it was a tough run. Nigel struggled a bit too, but coped. For Sweder and Chris it seemed little more than a casual jog.

It makes sense. I never run on grass, and a hill is a special occasion. It was never going to be easy, but that's the very reason I'm glad I did it. It seems pointless to avoid hill running. If your objective is to reduce the challenge and the difficulty, then the logical step is to make it even easier by staying at home. An even better reason for including hills in a balanced running diet is the aesthetics. The views up there are stunning, though I had to keep remembering to look. It seemed more natural to gaze at my feet as I fought to make that next step up the slope.

Sweder reminded me that for most of the year, conditions underfoot were nowhere near as friendly as they were today. Regular rain reduced the path to a muddy slick. I didn't like to imagine it.

We weren't alone. Early on, we passed a large group of horses and riders, much to the delight of Ash's three dogs. Beyond that, we passed a steady trickle of beaming walkers.

Two and a half painful miles later, I joined the others at the trig point atop Black Cap. In various stages of repose, they'd evidently been there for some time...

Superb views through the hills to Brighton and Newhaven, and down to Lewes. I could see why the lad enthuses so much about his patch of heaven with its performing clouds.

The return half was easier on the legs, and on the spirit. At last, there seemed to be some space in my head for thought. I was thinking that most runners seem to have a sort of default run, and this one is Sweder's. To do someone else's run is to learn something about them. It's a bit like meeting their family for the first time. Something falls into place. I could envisage the chap vanishing into the early-morning mist with his gleeful dogs in pursuit, and I suddenly understood a little more.

It wasn't a long outing, but pretty intense in places. I didn't find the upward leg easy, but I'm glad I did it. As I often say, it's not the doing but the having-done that I enjoy, and this was certainly true for this run. How good to see the steep stretch of track that starts the route, come back into view.

Work done, it was time to shower and relax in front of Sweder's impressive 42-incher for some brief entertainment. The cricket was just getting under way. Is disappointment more palatable in high definition? I suspect so. A short while later we were supping the first of several pints in the first of several pubs. Mainly Harvey's, the excellent local ale.

Oh god. Having a few glasses of beer in the pub, with some mates, on the way to the match. On a sunny afternoon. After a run. Does it get much better than this? I doubt it.

It was good to experience the famous, if enigmatically-monikered, Dripping Pan at first hand.

Just what is a dripping pan? According to my Google search, it is "a pan for catching drippings". What a relief to learn the truth.

OK, so it actually says "a pan for catching drippings under roasting meat", which, under a warm East Sussex sun, was actually quite an appropriate name.

For the record, the match was somewhat uneventful in the first half, but started to struggle out of its easy chair in the second, and even threatened to become exciting here and there. Two well-executed goals saw the Rooks defeat the cream of East London, despite the victors finishing with 10 men. Nigel, a Hammers fan, seemed crestfallen but unsurprised, while the other three of us chortled, enjoying his discomfiture in the way that football fans do.

Back to the pub for a few swifties before returning to Ranch Sweder to meet up with Rog and his charming daughter, Ruby, and to feast on the fruits of Sweder's barbecue. We lost track of exactly whose sausages we were wolfing down, but they were all superb. A couple more pints of Harvey's and the day was complete.

At around ten o'clock, with Nigel and Chris and Rog safely out of the way, it seemed like a good opportunity to suggest to the Swede that we should crack open the bottle of Champagne I'd brought. Shockingly, he wasn't up to it. In retrospect, almost certainly a good thing. It meant that M and I got home at a reasonable time (before midnight), and that today I can think straight.

A splendid day out, stuffed with pleasure from start to finish. One of those occasions that makes you think: this really should be an annual event.

A public thank you to the great man, his long-suffering wife, and to Nigel and Chris for a memorable day. And to M for ferrying home this grinning, gurgling humanoid. Very nice to meet Rog and Ruby too.

Flickr Pictures here: Lewes 2007 - Sweder's BBQ

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