Saturday Night Sunday Morning

[OutAlongTheRiver]

Sunday morning for me in Lewes has become Twitten Run morning. Invented as a regular thing in late November 2015, it involves running quick up and slow down all 12 or 13 twittens in Lewes. The joy of it is that anyone can join in - since the faster ones wait at the top of every twitten for the slower ones to catch up and then head slowly down to start together at the bottom of the next one along. The real joy of it is in fact finishing and having the best coffee shop in Lewes - Ground Coffee - to end at, since it is en route at the bottom of the fourth twitten along.

So this morning saw five of us braving the end of the rain to slog up and down the 3 miles involved. The sprints up are a pretty good measure of fitness, since if you can manage all 12 ups at a good pace, you're in a good place. And apart from the very last one when my legs gave up, it was a good day for me.

And my legs gave up I think because I ended the week in danger of plunging into illness - so my Thursday run was nixed. And my Saturday run was just a slow 10k.

So the Saturday run was going to be the belated Thursday - which would have been 4 x 3.2k fast, with 3.2k warm ups. But I was only just feeling good enough by Sat afternoon to even contemplate heading out. And I decided that pushing myself too hard just 2 weeks before the HM would be foolish. So I opted for 10k slow,  but with plenty of climb.

Fortunately, there is a route with plenty of climb to the top of Kingston Ridge and back - and thus I set out. Two joys of the run:

- finding another new route to reach the windmill (which involves running on a little overhanging allotment path alongside the railway/road, and then crossing by Hope in the Valley stables, and heading up a hill that's something out of Little House in the Prairie)

- using a garmin watch for the first time to produce nice pretty profile with cadence overlay.

Two less joyful aspects:

- the relentless rain and wind which blew on the top of the Downs leaving me more chilled than I wanted to be; and

- the effect of rain on chalk paths making them akin to ski slopes. Which would be fine had I been wearing skis. I was not wearing skis.

Still, the overall effect of these two runs is good - setting me up for 20k later today as I taper down to the HM.