2016 - January

[Sweder]

What a start to the year.
2015 ended with the passing of Lemmy. 2016 kicked off with his memorial service, closely followed by the Earth-shattering death of Starman David Bowie. Things, as the song has it, can only get better.

Or can they? Surely those of us of a certain age have crossed a threshold, where each new day threatens terrible news as our idols fall. Who next? One of the Zeps? A Stone? There are only two bona fide Beatles left. I hesitate to switch on the radio in the morning.

There has been one more loss already this year, for me, at least, the most personal and painful. 
Willow, our brave, cantankerous twelve-year-old Cocker, reached the end of the downland trail yesterday. Having slowed down of late, skipping more trips to the downs than she made, she took a turn for the worse at the weekend. Yesterday morning she refused to get up. A return to the vet confirmed our worst fears; cancer. Aggressive, advanced, already in the lungs. Prognosis? Pain, lots of it, and death within two weeks. There was only one humane course of action, one ironically denied our human loved ones (unless they can manage a final Swiss holiday). 

On Monday, after a day exploring Bowie's remarkable oeuvre, we took our Diamond Dog for her final ride. She passed gently into that good night surrounded by kind words and hands of love. We should all depart in such a fashion. Travel well, old friend, and please, don't bite the Thin White Duke on the journey.

In other news - pay attention, Dan, you'll like this - I've completed five runs this year and not one of them on the turf. Pavements, cobbles, tarmac, all manner of man-made surface have felt the heavy Sweder tread. Including the Twitten Runs, a tradition that gently gathers pace, with ten runners, including our first two ladies, last Sunday.

Tonight CharlieCat sang his sweet Siren's song, luring me out to run with The Herd. Not just a nocturnal urban outing, but an organised session with a Real Running Club. Askwith would spit out his herbal infusion. With an actual race on the near horizon, having run on three consecutive days (Friday a CC5 Town Thrash/ Saturday Preston Park Parkrun/ Sunday Les Twittens) I needed a light session. The notion of tapering, given my lack of mileage, is risible, yet I wanted to avoid injury or strain. So I hooked up with a gentle-looking bunch. CC5 tagged along, as much to keep an eye on me as to rest is own well-honed bones.

So. Twitten Run is 12x up-hills sprints with walks and jogs on the links and downs. Tonight, our intermediate group went to Rotten Row. Rotten Row is, pretty much, a Twitten. A little wider and, at first, more gently inclined. However, having completed a set of six sprints up and easy jogs down, I learned we were to complete a second set and, provided no-one had actually thrown up, a third. I mentally extracted my fingers and toes. That's ... eighteen hill sprints. 50 percent more than a Sunday Twitten run. Bloody hell.

As it turned out we completed fifteen. Duncan scorched off up the hill time after time. I stuck stoically with the Herd (ten in all), careful not to tweak or strain anything. We notched a total of 8.01 kilometres, much of it vertical. Great fun.

For those wondering I plan to return to the slick mud and slippery grass after the half this Sunday. The downs are currently all but impassable in places, rain-sodden topsoil as loose and liable to slip as Donald Trump's hair. It's an accident waiting to happen, one I can't afford this week, having downgraded last year's race following my ill-advised football adventure and subsequent knee surgery. 

Running Is Happening. It's not terribly impressive and my longest run in the past six months has been barely over an hour. I'll easily double that on Sunday, albeit very much a 'get round' walk/ run effort. I've no ambition, time-wise, but if pressed I'd say 2:20 is acceptable, 2:15 would be satisfying and if I make 2:10 you'll know the stars have aligned, the winds blown fair and I'll have caught up with all the sleep lost thanks to BBC Four's exemplary series of late-night Rockumentaries.

If the last week or so has a lesson for us, surely it's this.
We're not here for long. Make it count, and be good to one another.

On, on.

[Sweder]

Key West Half Marathon

Sunday 14th January 2016
Key West, Florida

There were so many reasons not to head to the start line.
First up, I was ill. Not kiss-me-Hardy, Rosebud, Carlito's Way ill, but feeling pretty lousy. Cold in the back of the throat, bunged up, not sleeping well, that kind of thing. Then there was the weather. Doppler radar showed an apocalyptic front bearing down on the Keys. Strong winds hammered hard rain into the windows. Tornado warnings flashed up on the TV, flights were cancelled, 'Baton down the hatches' was the cry. I thought about the race director, weighing all this up against the cost of cancelling the race. Poor bastard, he must have been pulling his hair out.

But it was too late for me. I'd pinned my race number to my specially-prepared CWD running vest the night before, laid out my kit in traditional RC style, set aside my margarita-flavoured energy gels and said my prayers. I was going.

Race start delayed, said the e-mail at 05:00. An 08:00 start would allow the inconvenient tropical storm to have its tantrum and jog on. And so it came to pass. Come 8 o'clock, come dry skies and streets filled with colourful shirts and bubbly chatter. I lined up with the hopeful hoards, bouncing gently on my toes in the after-mizzle, feeling every ache and pain in every nook and cranny. So, this was it. Two years since my last race in Almeria, my first half marathon since an ill-advised showing for the Lewes FC Mental Wellbeing side and that fateful, knee-mashing tackle. Virtually no training, definitely no distance work, a heart full of hope and a head full of anxiety. Game time.

We set off, a gently bobbing stream of coloured lycra. Cheered noisily along Duval street by revellers barely aware that night had fled, out east towards the long and lonely coastal highway. The weather that had threatened to end our race left a legacy of still impressively strong gusting wind. In the early stages that scooted us along, lifting us, shoving us northward along A1A towards the airport. The path was strewn with battered palm fronds and decapitated coconuts, lined with occasional cheerers and the odd, very odd, musician. 

I felt great. Unusually I'd opted to go with earphones, Motorhead's back-catalogue on shuffle. I danced along, relishing each new aural arrival like a long-lost friend. Around me runners came and went. My pace was modest - how else to take this on? - yet I still managed to pass a few flagging folk. Lycra-clad bottoms of all denominations bounced jauntily, keeping me focused on foreword momentum. Around 8ks in we saw the leaders approach, coming back to us on our left. They looked pained, teeth clenched, eyes squinting into the near-distance, arms pumping. I bounced easily, dodging puddles, skipping flotsam. I laughed. Ha ha! Well, if you will push so hard ...

And then we turned. We crossed a bridge - the only measurably rise and fall on the course - before turning 180 and heading back, straight into a 35 miles-per-hour headwind. Oh my days. Five straight kilometres into the teeth of a raging, howling BEAST. It felt like running the gauntlet through an army of plywood-wielding miscreants, each step greeted by a resounding slap across the forehead. I ploughed on, taking walk breaks at the water stations, sucking on a combination of (rather tasty) margarita-flavoured energy gels and thick, warm air. Grinning runners and walkers streamed by to our left, still buoyed by their tail-wind, waving and clapping as we fought past. Poor fools.

We struggled on for what seemed like an eternity. I got into a tit-for-tat battle with a couple of fit-looking ladies. I'd pass them, cruising easily as they succumbed to the relentless blast, only for them to pass me minutes later as I ran out of steam. Finally, mercifully, we turned inland, onto the sheltered roads between the wood-clad homesteads, bars and motels of east Key West. My legs complained bitterly at the concrete pounding. As I glanced down to admonish them I spied a tell-tale streak of claret leaking from my left nipple. Damn. Schoolboy error; new shirt, no vaseline, nipple down. No, wait - a crimson blush formed above my right teat. Nipples, plural.

I held my form, such as it was, right through to the finish. I spied Jake and Shayne, the former clutching a well-filled, most apropos Bloody Mary, the latter flushed from her 5K exertions, both cheering wildly. I grinned, straightened my hunched back and blasted round the last bend, pointing proudly to my gushing breasts before striding boldly for home.

   

2:04:58 (official chip time). Happy with that, given the lack of suitable training.
I joined my fellow CWDers to cheer home the last few, quaffing my free IPA courtesy of the the Concrete Brewing Co. I'd thanked the chap who'd handed it to me - 'thank you - not just for free beer, but really good free beer' - having inadvertently jumped the queue. Bob, a friend based in Florida, made the peace on my behalf.
'Sorry, he's from overseas'.
This was accepted with nodded heads and a gentle murmur. I couldn't have cared less. I'd stopped running, I had beer. Life was good.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Oh my. I'm lacing up my shoes even now.

Great race, great race report. Great as ever. Thanks, big guy. Keep running now mind, but don't forget the Vaseline.

[Antonio247]

Congratulations, S. ! In spite of feeling ill and the very windy day you managed to do a half marathon after two years without taking part in one in a nearly sub 2 hour. That´s really amazing. Well done and congrats to Shayne for her 5 K too and get better from your illness soon.


Saludos desde Almería

[Bierzo Baggie]

Heroic stuff ....great running and writing and I certainly felt your nipple pain. Great to see you back in the thick of it!

[The Beast of Bevendean]

Bravo! I'm intrigued by margarita-flavoured gels. I wonder if I could perfect a Laphroaig flavoured one?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Bravo! I'm intrigued by margarita-flavoured gels. I wonder if I could perfect a Laphroaig flavoured one?

Islay have to look into that.

[Sweder]

Bravo! I'm intrigued by margarita-flavoured gels. I wonder if I could perfect a Laphroaig flavoured one?

I'll bring a pack along on Sunday if you're a-Twittening

[Charliecat5]

Bravo! I'm intrigued by margarita-flavoured gels. I wonder if I could perfect a Laphroaig flavoured one?

Islay have to look into that.

   

[The Beast of Bevendean]

I've struggled to come up with more malt whisky puns, but failed. A rum business. That's a very generous offer, Sweder, but I'm not sure if I can make Sunday. Depends on Mrs R's dispositions.

[Charliecat5]

I've struggled to come up with more malt whisky puns, but failed. A rum business. That's a very generous offer, Sweder, but I'm not sure if I can make Sunday. Depends on Mrs R's dispositions.

Coming up with decent puns is a whiskey business. 

[Sweder]

I've struggled to come up with more malt whisky puns, but failed. A rum business. That's a very generous offer, Sweder, but I'm not sure if I can make Sunday. Depends on Mrs R's dispositions.

Coming up with decent puns is a whiskey business. 

I'd like to scotch these rumours. I'm laphroaig people will get the wrong idea about this group.

[Sweder]

Another good, if challenging, Twittens session this morning. I wowed* the throng with my colourful Key West Half finisher's shirt, lush green, sun-drenched palms on the front, iridescent ocean sun-set on the back. My performance was somewhat less dazzling, lungs tight and wheezy from a chesty post-run cold and legs still a little fatigued after the exertions of last Sunday.

   

Duncan had had the good grace to knock off three muddy downland miles beforehand, knackering himself just enough that I didn't fall too far behind. On the lung-bursting ascent of Keere Street, just after our halfway rest and obligatory 'selfie', a gentleman on his way down lost his footing on the wet cobbles, crashing backwards onto his slung tennis racquet. To a person we halted our climb to attend to the fallen. Now, I'm not one to suggest that we're not all jolly decent sorts, but I'll wager I'm not alone in thinking, immediately after 'oh no!', 'thank God for that, I'm knackered'. The respite was short and the man mildly embarassed but otherwise fine.

A gathering of ten today, including two newbies. This Twitten Run lark has legs, it seems.
52.9 kilometres so far this month, ten more than the whole of December with a week to go. 

*horrified

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Crikey, you and CC5 are rapidly elevating RC to "serious runners" club status. You're certainly putting me to shame - I'll either have to pull my finger out or go and sign up somewhere else.

Great work, though!

[Charliecat5]

Crikey, you and CC5 are rapidly elevating RC to "serious runners" club status. You're certainly putting me to shame - I'll either have to pull my finger out or go and sign up somewhere else.

Great work, though!

We write a good tale... but you should see the actual running... it's not pretty.  This week on the Twittens, the pounding of feet behind me was much closer than normal.  Due to the anxiety of the pack bravely trying to escape that ghastly shirt. 

A shirt that BGG seems to consider the height of fashion.   I had an apology from Mrs Sweder about the shirt later on in the day. She has promised to hide it... if she can find a lead case to put it in. 

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A shirt that BGG seems to consider the height of fashion.   I had an apology from Mrs Sweder about the shirt later on in the day. She has promised to hide it... if she can find a lead case to put it in. 

Couldn't she just use the same one she makes him keep his running shoes in?

[Sweder]

Jeez Cobber, having some grief with the old Quote button this morning, eh? ?
Any more flack about that shirt and I'll dig out some bright ones.

[Sweder]

A couple of things happened today.
First up, I signed up with Lewes AC, my first 3D running club. There's not much behind it, other than to take advantage of their enjoyable and inclusive midweek sessions and help advance local Moyleman connections. Quite a few Lewes AC regulars have signed up for our March Madness, others have pledged marshalling services.

Secondly, I slipped out with some of Charliecat's new friends for some nocturnal speed work. Well, whilst the cat's away, and all that ... 6 miles, including some tough sprints through the estates on the western edge of town. We passed the Cat's house on the way. I gave him a wave, but later learned he was jetting home from foreign lands (Scotland).

I bumped into Andrea and Tall Simon, fellow veterans of the Almeria Half. They're club regulars, so I'll be seeing a bit more of them in the weeks ahead. As Dan will no doubt observe, this is yet more hard-top pounding. In fact, pretty much every running step since the end of November has been on man-made surfaces. So long as the Downs remain a treacherous sludgefest, that will continue.

   

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Jeez Cobber, having some grief with the old Quote button this morning, eh? ?

So, I was drunk at the time. At least I'm drinking... someone has to keep the breweries in business.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

First up, I signed up with Lewes AC, my first 3D running club.

Gadzooks... you really ARE taking this seriously, aren't you? I might have some catching up to do. Well, actually, there's no *might* about it.

Huge gulp.