November

[Sweder]

Faced with an unremitting schedule which involves packing, a couple of hours work, writing up my run and getting to Heathrow by 3pm, I fell out of bed and into my running shoes at what seemed like a most indecent hour.

Flanked by bewildered hounds I awoke half way up the first hill behind the house, and then it hit me.
No, I was wearing clothes. But i didn't feel like it - it was incredibly cold.
I don't mean a bit chilly, I mean Siberian Winter cold, frozen bone marrow cold. Blinkin' Brass Monkeys. I usually enjoy a laddish guffaw when I see athletes like Thierry Henri or Wayne Rooney prancing about in little woolen mittens, but I'd have swapped a bucket of frostbite for a pair of gloves this morning.

The muddy puddles strewn along the rocky path to Blackcap were treacherous pools of ice. The rutted path, festooned with the usual chunks of flint and chalk, offered extra helpings of frozen hazard. I felt like a slalom skier barely hanging on as I slipped and slid across the winterscape.

As I reached the entrance to the final climb, already determined to turn about at the gate, the winter sun, straining every pocket of molten gas in a futile effort to warm the earth, glinted off something approaching from the West. I squinted, peering into the hills. No, it couldn't be! I turned sharply and hammered back down the path, all caution thrown to the icy winds. The dogs yelped, scampering past me as I hurled myself homeward, thoughts of safety abandoned.

We passed a couple of fellow runners, buffeted by the harsh winds sweeping down the hillside. I barely managed to lift my arm in Shearer-esque greeting. The steam poured from my body, breath blasting from mouth and nostrils in great gasps as I ran full tilt for home.

I glanced over my shoulder but not once did I see the apparition that had chilled me to the core, far colder than the touch of winters' morning. The image burned in my mind I turned homeward once more.

What could cause such terror, such panic?
I realised, in that moment of horror, I'd clutched my phonecam.
Did I capture the image that would haunt me to my grave?
Oh God, there it is, on my phone.

Shaking, fingers swollen and numb, heart pounding, I raced into the house, fumbled with the USB connection and downloaded. OK, perhaps a little artistic license employed . . .
But it was bloody cold, and I was still half asleep . . .



40 minutes, somewhere a shade under 4 miles. Thawing nicely.