Here comes summer - the British 10K

[Sweder]

Time of day: 7pm
Distance: appx 4 miles
Duration: 33 minutes
Terrain: off-road/ downland
Conditions: warm, dry, lovely

I wasn't looking forward to this, but it's time to get back on that horse - oh, you know what I mean. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned: it's been two weeks since my last run.

Two weeks. Blimey. There are mitigating circumstances - like Andy I drank heavily from the barrel of end-of-term football, accompanied as ever by Guinness and other fine ales. I also achieved a fairly decent result over 26.2 miles 6 weeks ago . . . frankly these excuses all seem fairly pathetic when committed to the published page. Time to move on.

So how was it tonight? It was OK, it was alright. I was fat, sluggish, had trouble getting into a rhythm, breathing all over the place, got far too hot in no time and generally felt crappy most of the way. Good, it's no less than I deserve. I had vague notions of scaling Black Cap but they faded like East Anglian playoff hopes as I climbed the downland slopes on the outward leg. I glanced to the south west. The Big W leered from across the A27, contempt shimmering off the chalk tracks that scar the steep green slopes. I blushed - well, actually I was pretty much Sweder Thermidore by this point as I struggled to suck O2 into my startled lungs.

I stopped half a mile short of Black Cap. This sounds like I ran most of the circuit, and of course in mileage terms this is true; but the final 800 metres is pure climb and by far the toughest section of the route, so I was taking it pretty easy.

I chugged back to the house in a shade over 33 minutes, happy to have got any miles under my expanded belt. Several hours later I feel pretty good, resolved to shake off this feeling of sloth that has wrapped around me like one of Mottie's old sheepskins this past fortnight.

Oh Sweder-boy, the slopes, the slopes are callin' . . .