Tom Roper's Running Training

Rest day

Rest day today, and the swimming pool still shut. Rest days in the past two weeks have been consecrated to the pleasures of the table, but as the anti-fascist marble worker is reported as replying to a blackshirt's taunts in Patience Grey's Honey from a Weed, "Credete voi che siamo soltanto affamati per il pane e la minestra? Siamo anche affamati per l"Arte"
So I went to a lunchtime piano recital instead by Richard Casey instead.  A formidable technique and fantastic performances:

Carl Nielsen: Chaconne op 32 (1917)

Györgi Ligeti: Etudes for piano (2nd book) (1988-1994) 8. Fem 10. Der Zauberlehrling 11. En Suspens 13. L'Escalier du diable

Martin Butler: On The Rocks (1992)

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Klavierstück IX (1954, 1961)

Great Wood

Cold today, fingers very numb at the end of a run to Stanmer Park and up into the wood I see is called Great Wood. Dog walkers by the ton, and a party of ramblers on a walk as a part of the University of Sussex health week.
Time: 48 minutes
Distance: 5.1 miles

A27 again

The Newmarket plantation and A27 route again today, as it was sunny, though odd patches of snow on higher bits. Nature notes: biggish green bird and a rabbit. Time: 47 minutes Distance: 4.5 miles

"I got Ford engine movements in my hips...

..ten thousand miles guaranteed". Thus sang Cleo Gibson (I thought it was Bessie Smith, but it seems not). Afraid I can't say the same after yesterday so a short run today to Stanmer Park and into the woods above. The woods seem to be a preferred haunt for professional dog-walkers.
Time: 30 minutes
Distance: 3.5 miles

Alfriston, Cuckmere, Seaford Head

A long run today, along what is roughly the route of the Seaford half marathon; up on the path to Bostal hill, along and down to Alfriston, then the Cuckmere valley to Seaford Head, up along the  cliffs and home. Very sticky, glutinous mud in the Cuckmere valley, the sort that takes shoes and never gives them back. Sheep, larks, swans, oyster-catchers.
Time: 2:25:42
Average heart rate: 147
Distance: 14.1 miles

Total distance this week: 38.9 miles
Now twelve weeks to the London marathon, four till the Sussex Beacon Half Marathon and seven till the Hastings Half Marathon

Short Seaford run

A short local run on a fine cold morning. Ran alternate two minute sessions of hard then easy.
Time: 30:00
Distance: 3.8 miles
Average heart rate: 141 (the monitor seems to have righted itself)

Juggs Road again

Up on the downs today: fine and sunny, though for some reason not always where I was . Hills bright and sharp. A dead sheep.
Time: 52 minutes
Distance: 5.8 miles

Rest day

A rest day today, and  strength-building with a Royal Society of Medicine lunch thanks to Ian Snowley's generous hospitality

To the woods

A variation on the Stanmer Park theme today, through Stanmer village up the hill but then back through the woods above the A27. Some snowdrops, also burnt-out cars (how did they get there) and assorted detritus
Time: 51 minutes
Distance: 5.6 miles

Newmarket plantation

It was gloriously bright when I started out but became cloudy and there was a cold wind today. I   ran out to the Newmarket plantation, then down the South Downs Way to the A27 and back by the side of the main road.
Time: 45 minutes
Distance: 4.5 miles