Running down the W last night with BGG just as the last kiss of the sun was fading away into the night, he started to reminisce how it was on this very hill that he first noticed me… he was running down it as I was biking up it. I could see a small tear form in the corner of his eye as he reflected on how this chance passing (a runner and mountain biker) led to the friendship and bond of running we share today. How this bud of shared interest grew and flourished into the Moyleman and ultimately to me giving up the biking and becoming a runner.
The bastard! If only on that fateful day, I had set off 10 minutes earlier.
Back to the present… two weeks of holiday had taken their toll on the running. I had managed a series of hot (really hot) runs in Italy putting 16 miles in the bank… but France only provided a short, but fiery 3.5 miles… and over the two week period, I failed to achieve anything over 5 miles which is a long way short of what I need at the moment.
My plan tells me I need to be pushing 15 miles now; I have dropped below the line just as the JS20 starts to loom on the horizon. So what I should have done (and I can hear Marathondan and Glaconman’s voices in the back of my head telling me this) is headed out for a slow easy one, probably around 6 miles to ease myself back in – perhaps to Blackcap and back. But no, not me. I decided to get back into it by running 12 miles with 420 metres of elevation. And not only that, I invited BGG to join me.
By the time we were on the last mile back into Lewes my calf muscles were doing a pretty good impression of a set of bagpipes, with my lungs resembling the dying drone of the airbag as it deflates for the final time before being put away in its box.
It was a beautiful run (in terms of sunsets and views) but a tough one in terms of the running. Other than waiting for the big man at the top of the hills, we pretty much kept going the whole way. And as he said, we’re not doing too badly if we can knock off a half marathon over these hills on a Monday evening.
August lashes out in volcanic fury
