Tom Roper's Running Training

The end of the cross country season: Pett

Goodbye, number 33. You served me well 

Today I ran the last race in the East Sussex Cross Country League for 2015-16. I pre-entered, and a mere £12.50 entitled me to race in six events, and use the same number for each. Put that in your pipe, expensive events, and smoke it. In the event I only ran five of them, as I was away for the foggy Firle Beacon event.

Pett was a fitting climax, with lashings of mud. To compare and contrast with the Twitten runs, if you were to take Lewes’s twittens, slather them in mud to the depth of a metre, have the King’s Troop of the Royal Horse Artillery ride up and down a few times, import ferocious badgers from the countryside and have them dig their setts along the way, and embed roots and fallen boughs, you would have something like the right effect.  We darted in and out of woodland, up and down hills, and round the perimeters of fields. It was warm but windy, and the gusts pulled at my number. Fortunately it stayed on, unlike some events when I have finished holding my number across my chest, as if making obeisance to some Asiatic despot. 

At the end, the prize-giving. Lewes AC won the club championship by one point, and I am delighted to report that my Seaford Striders comrade Peter Weeks was first in the over 65 category. 

The return to Bevendean Down

This could become addictive. The second running of the Bevendean Down #parkrun drew a smaller field than last week. It was bound to, for as well as losing the first-nighters, the foul weather would have deterred many. Nevertheless, enough of us attended to make a quorum and, in precipitation that was sometimes rain, sometimes sleet, we made our way to the dew pond for the start. I could have sworn I’d put gloves in my pocket, but no. As well as 75% of the Courage family, I was delighted to see abradypus (read her blog). But where could Sweder be? 

Off we went, and after travelling a couple of hundred metres or so, we met Sweder running towards the start. As I began the climb for the first time, he passed me, wished me good morning and disappeared into the clouds, like George Mallory on Everest. When I too reached the top, there was Camilla Moyle, in the most exposed marshalling point on the course. Down to the dew pond, and then we did it all over again. 

My time, 34:54, was slower than last week’s, which I put down to heavier going, and I was glad of my trail shoes. Nevertheless, I was delighted to be first in my age group (M60-64). That only happens in small fields of runners. 

Afterward we thawed out in the Bevy, Bevendean’s community pub. For other perspectives see Sweder’s account, and I shall link to Abradypus’s too, when it’s up. 

 

Bevendean Down #parkrun

Just like any publicity hungry actor. I would attend the opening of an envelope, if invited. So the first running of a new Brighton parkrun was not something I could miss. Better still, this one, at Bevendean Down, was advertised as off-road, hilly and trail shoes were advised. And, when I used to work at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, I sometimes used to run at lunchtimes from the University to Bevendean Down. So, with the redoubtable Sweder, I decided to be there for this historic moment.

I had worried that it would be hard to find, but the marshals had put clear signs in place to direct us. At the start, a number of runners and organisers milled around, and I spotted among them some of the aristocracy of Brighton and Sussex running. We were addressed through a megaphone by the race director, and taken to the start, near a dew-pond. This is a two-lap course, following the edge of the down, and we set off on a flat stretch, turning to start a long slow ascent that makes up two sides of the quadrilateral. A not inconsiderable wind was behind us as we climbed, and then in our faces as, having reached the top, we ran down again to the dew-pond. Then we did it all over again.

The views were splendid, inland over the downs, and out to sea across the Brighton roof-tops. Sweder set up ahead of me, tanned from his recent trip to Florida to wrestle marlins, and other Hemingwayesque feats. I was puzzled, therefore, on our second lap, when he passed me on the hill. For an explanation of this paradox, I refer you to his own account of the event. 

On the last downhill I let myself go, trusting in the trail shoes, and overtook a couple of runners, but they fought back. My final time, 32:20, is a personal worst as far as parkruns go, but on this course the laws of physics as we know them do not apply. The going was not nearly as boggy as the organisers had suggested, and, though I had put on my trail shoes, I think I could easily have run it in road shoes. 

 

So much more interesting than the conventional park runs, which are usually crowded dashes round suburban parks on paved surfaces, this is a splendid run and one I shall revisit — indeed I have volunteered to marshal it on my 61st birthday a few weeks hence.