Tis The Season

[Sweder]

I was due a tough outing and it duly arrived with the mid-winter thaw. In a horrible parody of Sports Review of the Year my body revisited a number of ailments from earlier races. My stomach, suffering the after effects of a seasonal thrashing on Friday, was flipping like pancakes on shrove Tuesday. Showing remarkable solidarity with another symptom that last appeared during the TOM my right calf tightened up six miles in; all that was missing was the 30 degree heat.

A modest group set off this morning. Having shed last week's wonderful winter coat the downs bathed in gently warming sunshine. Trails slithered in treacherous mud, twelve and a half miles of slip-sliding fun along our regular Sunday route. Despite my protestations my much swifter long-run colleagues, Remmy, Steve and Irish Michael, insisted on waiting for me at every gate. I elected to plough on with the dodgy limb, figuring that modest pace would not exacerbate what might or might not be an injury. This stop-start progress lead us to review one of the unwritten laws of downland running: how long should one wait (for following runners) before closing a gate and moving on? What is the acceptable length of gap to the next runner that makes it OK to slam the gate and move on as opposed to standing there whilst cooling faster than an Eskimo streaker until your colleague lumbers through? We decided there was no hard and fast rule and it all depends on eye contact, signals from the straggler and the patience - or lack thereof - of the leading runners.

As it turned out we covered the route in the same time as last week - 1:57 for 12.34 miles. Having blasted home at breakneck speed last Sunday I can only surmise that we started a lot quicker today, possibly explaining the appearance of mild calf-knack half way in.

I'm off now to round up the Christmas turkey and sniff out those last 'difficult' gifts. Season's greetings to all RCers. I hope to catch up with many of you before too long, maybe for a lope, definitely for a glass of ale.