July 2010

[Sweder]

A happier end to the running month thanks to a timely text message from Gillybean. Would I like to join a small group to take on the Seven Sisters from Birling Gap to Cuckmere on Sunday? Thankfully I gave no pause for thought before saying 'yes'. So it was that this morning I found myself loitering in the kitchen munching on an obscenely early breakfast wondering 'why?'

I needn't have worried. The 8.22 undulating miles in a shade over 1:22 (run time) certainly proved tough enough to rattle my cage but I finished upright, if breathless. The opening 2.5 mile rollercoaster, riding parched waves of scorched, flat grass across the clifftops, had my heaving lungs up in my throat. Tom Roper joined us - read his account here - and I gamely suggested we Tweetcast the event 'live' on Twitter. The results can be found here or if you just want to see the photos they're at http://yfrog.com/epkt6uj or on my Facebook page. Like me Tom was slightly concerned at this impromptu ramping up of his intermittent training, not to mention the pedigree of our horribly fit-looking companions, all reasonably fresh from their recent triumph in the 100-mile South Downs Way relay.



In order to capture our group for posterity (rather than solely from the posterior) I wound up running the opening miles as a sort of Fartlek, dropping back to post updates then dashing wildly ahead to snap wobbly photos. At the end of the Sisters we turned inland along Cuckmere Haven and into Friston Forest. Here I demonstrated the folly of carrying (I wasn't using it at the fateful moment) a phone whilst not paying attention to my own off-road running rules. Always keep an eye out for the ground immediately ahead and (so as to do this) never get too close to the runner in front. Fail! Reduced to single file along a narrow path through heavy foliage I managed to get too close to Gillybean. A malevolent root snaked out to snare my right foot and before I knew it whump! I hit the trail as if shot (or, if Italian/ Portuguese/ Spanish, lightly nudged). Lucky for me my summer lard-bag deployed and I bounced straight up with nothing more than a scraped knee and a badly bruised ego.

On, on through the forest. How could we be going ever upwards? I asked myself/ whined at anyone within earshot. Despite the never-ending incline MSilv set a stern pace. I admired her perfect posture as we scampered through dense, shaded bracken. Upright, shoulders squared, elbows out, a beautifully economic, metronomic style with more than a hint of another, even better-known lady of distance running. Must have a good core I thought as I surveyed my own hunched, shuffling gait. By comparison I run like Quasimodo having an asthma attack, and that's being unkind to Parisian bell-ringers.

The last few hundred metres of the forest climb bobbed and weaved through a series of slaloms around increasingly dense woodland. We whooped and hollered as we leant this way and that, dry-land skiers excited by the lively twists and turns. I felt better and realised I would finish, and do so feeling OK.

We crossed the main road, dashed through the church yard (of a most beautiful Sussex stone church), down through a steep field populated by a tribe of goats and out onto the long road home. After a little more fartlek to capture the run in we were outside the clifftop car park, gasping for breath, grinning like loons and, in my case, splashing copious amounts of sweat onto the dusty, stone-strewn soil. After a moment's careful deliberation we descended the cliff via a set of impossibly rickety steps to the pebble beach, pulling off runners and socks to tip-toe gingerly into the cool ocean. The water felt good on my aching legs so I waded further out, got caught/ soaked by a boistrous wave, tore off my shirt and dove in. Heaven!

A good run on a perfect day for running. A step or two (thousand) in the right direction along the long road back to running fitness.
Here's to a few more of those in August.