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There's a rebellion afoot
About 4 miles into my run this morning I had to leap over a severed rabbits head which was laid out across the path with no sign of a body anywhere. I only mention this because THE WHOLE of my body has been calling for a similar thing to happen to my head since we got home this morning. I have a complete rebellion on my hands and it’s not going to be pretty.
This morning at 8:19 I set off to prove my theory about the last mile – see previous post. The result, well I ran 9.16 miles (I was going to round this down to 9 miles but my legs were quite insistence that I post the full distance) and climbed 953 feet (same point re my legs). The furthest I had run before was 6.7 miles.
It was a reasonable morning, cloudy but a decent enough temperature and at the time it didn’t really look like rain. As you will be aware, if you have been reading my moans and groans this week, I have had a chest cold and a horrible cough – but even this seemed ok when I woke up and indeed was probably one of the only things that didn’t bother me during the next hour and a half.
So off I set. One of the great, but challenging, things about living where I do in Lewes is that I live at the bottom of a valley – which means I have to hill climb quite early on in any run. From my biking exploits I have a route which takes me broadly along the flat for just over a mile before the hills start… so the first mile was ok. I was looking to run significantly further than I ever have before, so I set out a little slower – you know – pacing myself. The first hill is pretty steep (it’s the one that Sweder muttered about discovering this week, albeit he goes down it and I go up it), but it forms part of a routine run, so it was ok – I fair romped up to the top and then onto the path along the race course which takes you up to the infamous Blackcap. And again, it was ok – not brilliant, but I was doing ok.
At one point along the race course another runner cut in front of me and whilst every competitive bone in my body wanted to keep up with him, I managed to let him go and stayed focused on what I was doing. Anyway, he peeled off before long to head back to Lewes – the wuss!
So I made it to Blackcap at a pretty reasonable pace for me, doing the hill at at just under a 10 min/mile, so I stopped for a breather, a quick slosh of water and half an energy bar to celebrate my second running summit of the Cap (Josh Naylor would be proud). A quick assessment of my condition and I decided to press on heading west along the South Downs Way for another mile and a bit until I was level with Plumpton College down below at the foot of the hill (amazing views by the way).
Now the real challenge for the novice who is pushing his limits is to know when to turn around and start heading back, because although I might feel ok at the turning point, the turning point is by its very nature only half way which means there is still a long way to go – I haven’t got the hang of this yet. I’ve also discovered something else about this particular section of track – the one that runs from the gate where you join the South Downs Way gate and heads west along the top. I have had my suspicions for a while as I bike this route regularly, but today I discovered it was true… this stretch of track goes up hill whether you are travelling east or west. If you don’t believe me then get up there and try it!
The next section was still ok, back the way I had come up to Blackcap again (third summit) and then because I was feeling a little heady, I headed down and back over Mount Harry. At this point it had started to rain, not a little shower you understand, but big fat rain drops that were moving at about 70 miles per hour, sideways. But I’ve read Askwith – this was nothing – my feet were in the clouds – this was brilliant – in my head I was flying over the fells – the von Trapp family running alongside – this is living – this is what it means to be alive.
And what is brilliant, is that from the top of Mount Harry it is all downhill (well almost). So through the gates I leapt, over the puddles I flew until I reached the 6.7 mile mark. I was looking out for this because this is the furthest distance I had ever run before so to beat it was a real milestone.
But this is where the problems started… as soon as I crossed this metaphoric line I hit a metaphoric wall. It was amazing and instant. My left calf muscle started to pop, my right foot started to hurt and my left knee started to complain. A quick stop and a stretch and we (my head and the rest of me) agreed to carry on – to be honest the rest of me didn’t have much choice. So on we ran down through the woods to the top of Offham quarry. Now there is something about old quarries that I had forgotten. It’s obvious really. They go down really quickly and steeply which is fine, but then they do the opposite. This was the point when my legs tried to go their own way – rebellion was afoot (or my feet were rebelling). I have no idea how I got all my various body parts up the side of that quarry, but we got there and I didn’t walk it.
We (me and my legs - they had disowned me now) then had a relatively easy run down to the bottom of Landport bottom following Lewes Athletics Club as they were finishing their Sunday run. They all stopped at the bottom for quick refreshments and farewells – which meant horror of horrors I couldn’t stop as planned in a melted heap of lard, I had to up my pace, give them a cheery ‘good morning’ and pretend, until I was at least around the corner, that I was a proper hardened runner.
The last mile was on the pavement and I hate running on tarmac and if that wasn’t bad enough, two of the LAC runners overtook me as they waltzed home. At the bottom of Winterbottom hill I realised that I had only done 8.8 miles and I really wanted to do 9 so I had to dig deep – really deep - and run to the end of the road and back so when I finally collapsed on the doorstep I had completed 9.19 miles – the furthest I had ever run.
As for my theory about the last mile…
… what a load of bollocks.
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