Somehow I seem to have torn up the first week of the training schedule, which required two three-mile runs and two four-mile runs, and substituted one seven mile and one eight mile run. Still, the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.
I was lucky enough to be invited by Connemara ultra-running legend Ash, aka Sweder, to join him and other runners who go under the soubriquets of MSilv, Moylebird, Gillybean, Fiona and Janet for an event last run two years ago over the Seven Sisters from east to west, and then back through Friston Forest. We assembled at 9 in Birling Gap car park, setting off up the first Sister.
These are not Sisters of Mercy. The start is an ascent, and for the first two miles we went up and down the cliffs, the litany of names well-known to every contestant in the Beachy Head marathon. In the order we took them today, they are Went Hill Brow, Michel Dean, Baily's Hill, Flathill Bottom, Flat Hill, Flagstaff Bottom, Flagstaff Brow, Flagstaff Point, Gap Bottom, Brass Point, Rough Bottom, Rough Brow, Limekiln Bottom, Short Brow, Short Bottom, Haven Brow. It became clear that I was out of my depth. While Ash scampered merrily up and down, taking photographs and tweeting like mad, and the ladies ran as if they did this sort of thing everyday, I was struggling. My legs hurt and my lungs, never at their best in the morning, seemed to have gone on strike.
After the Sisters we descended to the Cuckmere valley, running along to the road where we crossed and headed into Friston Forest. After climbing some steps we found ourselves on a long wooded section and the ladies, sure-footed as gazelles, set a challenging pace along a path littered with tree-trunks. Ash took a fall, while I had a near-miss. Then we emerged at Friston church, a pretty Sussex 11th century church where Frank Bridge is buried, and ran down a field of sheep and goats to return to Birling Gap by the road.
Then we dipped our hot and tired feet in the sea, while Ash, no man for half-measures, swam. We refreshed ourselves with coffee in the National Trust café, though the sausage in a roll one of us ordered, though advertised as local, took so long to arrive that it must have come from the next county.
Mere words; for a more graphic idea of the days, see Ash's pictures and the twitterstream tagged #mini7sisters
Time: 1:36:58
Distance: 8.22
Pace: 11.18 (best 6.58)
Elevation gain: 256m
Total miles this week: 15.09
Nine weeks till the Firle Half Marathon
