The Long And Winding Road . . . Again

[Sweder]

Summertime, and the livin' is easy . . . nice sentiment but useless if you're planning a fairly major run later in the year. It's a little early to set off on a dedicated schedule for the Jog Shop Jog in October, but I am determined to set up a decent platform from which to launch my assault next month.

Monday 4th July
3 to 4 miles offroad plod
Time: 34:01
Conditions: cold, wind and rain

I like the winter weather. We all moan about the cold, rain, high winds, especially when they invade our summer evenings. Not me, not last night; this was a welcome break from recent sauna-like conditions; it was a pleasure to be out running.

Black Cap was my approximate target, but ths was a recovery run after the British 10K on Sunday, so there was never any danger of pushing myself. I'd considered my stodgy performance in London throughout the day, and avowed to put things right by increasing the number of mid-week runs. This is not the challenge it may seem, as currently my average mid-week total is nil.

Rather than pin myself to a rigid schedule I will endeavour to run a minimum of four times a week, between 3 and 5 miles in the week with a longer weekend lope, probably around 10 miles to start with.

Tonights' run went reasonably well, although once again I found my lungs could not keep up with my legs. I managed just shy of 2 miles on the outward circuit, pulling up at the gate leading to the last half mile ascent to Black Cap to take on water and catch my breath. The horse track leading back towards the stables ran slick with mud and rain, the earth yielding to every heavily planted foot, each flint boulder a potential ankle-turner. I danced like a horribly over-weight ballerina, my canine companions close to heel, finally relieved to return to the relative security of the grass.

Home again and pleased with the time, but more impressed with the coating of mud plastered up my legs. I do love a mud-plug!

[El Gordo]

Glad you're getting back into the swing of race preparation, Sweder. I need some company to try to keep me on the straight and narrow. Have had a little slip recently. It's not totally inconceivable that I'll join you on the JSJ, but it comes just 2 weeks after the Loch Ness Marathon, which could be good preparation, or it could mean that a 20 mile hilly race is the last thing I want to face. We'll see.

[Sweder]

It seems to be the week for lost sheep to return to the fold. I'm planning a sojourn with SP this week - nothing spectacular, just a gentle offroad plod; but as you say, Andy, it's time to straighten up and fly right.

[Seafront Plodder]

......and I'm gonna be crap. Haven't been out for about a month.

Either I've consumed far too much beer, or I've been impregnated by aliens.

Frankly only one of those solutions is the likely reason for my expanding girth. And come to think of it.......I did 'lose' a few hours in the armchair last friday night. Hmmm....

[Sweder]

OK, it's time to pay the piper.
I had strong words with myself at the start of the week, some sort of stern nonsense about a minimum of four runs per week from now on. I managed two. My third should have been on Tuesday with Nigel and the Oil Patch Hash, but the JDRF Marathon awards intervened; could have been on Wednesday night with SP, but this was postponed so that I could enjoy the fabulous production of Jospeh and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at my daughter's school - it was magnificent, but it didn't help the training. Thursday night I worked late to make up for the hours lost glued to the radio in the aftermath of the attacks on London, and Friday night I went down the pub.

What happened this weekend I can't really say, except that I spent a lot of today on Seaford beach gently cooking and occasionally dousing in the cold sea, glad that I wasn't sweltering up on the downs.

Then tonight I took a stroll with the hounds. I could have run, but I'm frankly too knackered after a week of stress, little sleep and a whole host of fabulous excuses that I really should have saved up and used over a longer period.

Walking along the South Downs Way tonight, with the pink tendrils of sunset over the hills and the warmth of the earth washed over me by a gentle twilight zephyr, I realised I'd missed a trick.

No more Mr Nice Guy: it's four runs this week, or there's no Guinness.
Now that oughta do it.

_______________________
Sweder, Hillside Pontificator

[Seafront Plodder]

Mrs SP did have a moan about the fact that the washing she'd innocently put on the line this morning smelt of fried onions and burgers!

10 miles today. More laters.......possibly.

[Sweder]

Following a nice swim at the weekend off Seaford beach which involved a rather tasty barbeque, a couple of bottles of Duvel (chilled) and a bottle of White Grenache (very chilled) I decided to go for an evening plod across the downs.

Perhaps not the wisest decision I've ever made, but there we are. A picture perfect evening, the three-quarter moon shedding ghostly light onto the Big W across the valley, the sculpted western horizon thrown into sharp relief by the deep orange glow of the freshly departed sun.

I took the hounds up past the stables and onto the rutted track to Black Cap. Part way along I assessed the encroaching darkness and elected to return. The air around my ankles was a good 5 degrees warmer than that around my ears, a variance unique to this time of day at this time of year.

Home again, hot and sweaty, in around 35 minutes, just over 3 miles under my (expanded) belt. Sometimes it's lovely to just chuck on the trainers and run.

[Sweder]

I don't know what they were thinking of.
The last time they saw me I was trudging through the foothills of the Snake, exhausted, dehydrated, searching for shade on a brutally hot Sunday morning, 8 miles into a 12 mile slog.

And yet, they thought of me.
Nigel e-mailed me to invite me to join himself, Remmy and Jill to form a team for the Jog Shop 2.5 K relay challenge. I thought: well, if they're dumb enough to want me on the team, I'm just dumb enough to join 'em!

So we met up after work just alongside Brighton marina, outside the (temporary) World Sandcastle Championships Marquee (Brighton council have actually requested planning permission for one of the sand castles because it's 7 metres tall - for the love of God . . . ) 30 teams of apsiring athletes, numbered up in teams of 4. We were team number 36, I was runner A.

'Put your duffer out first, so's he's got most time to recover' growled Sam.
I looked down at the white sheet pinned to my ample belly.
36A. It's a fair cop.

OK, here's the skinny: Runner A sets off from the start/ finish line on a 45 degree grass slope uphill. He climbs 200 metres straight up to the main road, runs another 300 metres down Duke's Mound and does a 180 at the bottom. Along Madiera Drive (flat) for 800 metres (past the start tent and cheering team-mates), up the slope, through the passage to the marina car park and up the zig-zag stairs, a brutally steep 200 metre climb to the clifftop. Left and down the cycle tunnel, sharp right along the top tier (directly above the finish) for 150 metres, double back and down onto the secoind tier, down the grass slope at the end, U-turn into the taped 100 metres finish.

At this point, for me some 12.5 minutes from the start, whilst gasping for air, runner A slaps the hand of runner B, who promtly sets off around the course. Runner A then collapses in a heap, looking like a whale out of water, chest heaving like a ham-actress tart. At least, that's what I did.

And so it goes.
Runner B hands off to runner C, who hands over to runner D . . . yada yada yada, you get the Picture.

By the time our runner D (Remmy) set off on the last lap, my wonderful team-mates had undone most of the damage imparted by my sedantry plodding in the first heat, and we'd moved up to somewhere near the middle.

'We're doing OK!' I beamed at Nigel and Jill, the former still puce from his runner C duties.
'Be time for a beer soon' I grinned. The look they gave me sent a shiver down my spine, despite the gentle warmth of the evening seaside air.

'We've still got one leg to go' rasped Nigel, struggling to conceal the contempt in his voice.

'You ARE ***in' kidding me!??'
I mean, if we've all done a lap each . . . Jill chimed in to clarify.

'When Remmy gets to the finish we all line up. As he reaches us we ALL set off on the final lap . . . '
her voice continued, but I could no longer hear over the pounding of my tortured heart.
Another lap??? Me?? Lardy-boy, who can't believe he finished the first one on his feet??? NOOOOooooooo . . . .

' . . . cross the line together and the last one across gets the team time'.

'Oh, yeah, right you are then. Errr, better stretch a bit then'.

Sheepish didn't quite cover it. It wasn't my fault that I didn't know the score - I was drafted in at the eleventh hour. Making up the numbers. Helping out a mate . . .

'Here he comes!' yelled Nigel, leaping to his feet in an un necessary display of vitality. And here he came; Remmy, metronome, tick-tocking his way down the last slope. Bloody hell.

We roared him on to the finish, setting off as one as he heaved himself across the line. He begged us to take it easy from the outset, but Nigel had a cunning plan.
'We're going to do these b*st*rds on the stairs!' he cried, saliva gathering on his lower lip, eyes staring back at Remy and I as we matched each other stride for painful stride up the grassy slope. The persons of dubious parantage to whom Nigel referred were a team of horribly fit young women about 50 yards ahead. No chance mate, I thought.

I vowed to keep pace with Remmy; after all, I'd been sat on my derriere for the best part of half an hour since my first lung-busting effort; this guy was going straight through, having scalped 2 minutes off my lap time. Nigel and Jill maintained a solid pace a few yards ahead of us. Slowly, painfully, we reeled the girls in, finally plodding passed as we reached the start tent just before the horrible stair climb.

'Let's break 'em on the stairs' growled Nigel.
It occurred to me that the 'them' in question were barely 12 paces behind us. We hardly needed to give them further incentive - they'd already been passed by a puffing bloated old geezer.

'Tell him' - I puffed to Remmy - 'that I'll bloody' - puff pant - 'well break him - gasp rasp - 'if he doesn't bloody' - heave, pant - 'shut up!'

We crunched up the zig-zag stairs, heart & lungs running full throttle, the soft yet persistant footfalls of our pursuers frighteningly close. On through the tunnel and into the last switch-back. the gravel crunched under foot, eight sets of trainers pounding as one as the ladies caught us.

'Come on!' screamed Nigel as he accelerated down the last slope. '200 to go!'
I wanted to yell something ultruistic about finishing as a team, about this being the whole idea, that you get your mates 'round . . . but I had no air in my lungs with which to shout. Instead I focused on the 200 to go.

'Come on Remmy, we can do 200' I gasped to my ailing companion.
Just then a vision appeared in my minds' eye; a half-empty stadium on a cool yet sunny January morning in Southern Spain; two men, friends clad in black, bursting for the line . . . Almeria!

'COME ON!!!!' I bellowed, shameless, competitve: fat!
I thrashed my legs like it was my last 150 metres on earth - it might have been for all I knew - and Remmy responded. The girls chased hard, but not hard enough - we pipped them by 2 metres, finishing in a whirling blob of limbs and flying sweat.

You'd have thought we'd won Olympic gold.
Hugging, gasping, grasping knees, grinning like fools, eyes sparkling, chests heaving. Victory!
Well, not quite . . . 12th place, and an incredible aggregate 10 minutes behind the winners, a group of youths who had gleefully burned past the senior club team with 400 to go.

So: 5 kilometres, hilly urban/ flat seafront combo.
Time: combined laps (for me) 24:54
Condition: mullered
Reward: 2 pints of Harveys Best Bitter in the Bristol.
Finishing 12th instead of 13th: Priceless.

[Sweder]

Just popped in mid-hols to say contrary to the Laws of Sod (as discussed with SP on several occasions recently) I not only took my running shoes on Holiday to Dorset, I actually ran in them! OK, nothing Earth-shattering (sorry Brummies) but a couple of hilly 3-milers in warm conditions, including close proximity to a Badger Brewery pub (repleat with Tanglefoot and Fursty Ferret ON DRAUGHT) - without stopping for a quick snort (I did return at leisure to sample deeply from their stock).

Chuffed, I was. Also swam in the (fairly boistrous) ocean every day. I'm counting it as cross-training.

Now the true test - two weeks in La Belle France (Givrezac). The shoes are packed, and the temperature expected to be somewhat more challenging than in Weymouth . . . we'll see.