Club Class

A slightly early Saturday morning for me, particularly after my late run, and dinner last night. By eight o'clock I was at Javed's house in Odiham saying hello to a few Hart Road Runners club members I've not seen this year, and being happily hounded by happy hounds (either because they appreciate my doggish "eat-play-run-sleep" mentality.... or because I smell of cat).

Andy , Fiona, Huw, Andy, Javed
Maisy, Pippa

Javed's dogs, Maisy and Pippa, put in a fair few miles, and regularly join a run with a familiar group. Maisy's heavier coat and steadier pace means she fares better in cooler weather, whereas the younger Pip isn't averse to clearing the odd gate, or chasing an errant pheasant.

Once everyone arrived, Javed lead us out on a regular route of his. Within minutes from his door you can find yourself in wide open fields, separated by flinty (or often muddy) green lanes and farm tracks, and Javed can string together a route of almost any distance by adding or removing loops from key junctions.
Today we headed west initially, for what became a twelve mile excursion, and took turns to sharing the lead and bringing up the rear, happily chatting between us as we went.

Of the group, three of us are "dark-siders", in that we regularly sign up to ultra-marathons of thirty miles or more, plus an ultra-dabbler, a triathlon-dabbler, and a marathon-dabbler. The dogs favour ultra-duathlon events, in that they'll happily run for several hours at a time, but whenever the see water, they'll be swimming.

At this stage in my Janathon campaign, it's refreshing to be running with a good sized, mixed group. Not only is it great to chat to other runners about their plans for the year, but it's also a good reference for seeing how well (or not) I'm running after twenty two days straight. The body's definitely still feeling as good as it was two and a half weeks ago, which supports my plan to look after my joints from day one; but I'm itching to get a bit of rest & recovery, so I can start using some higher gears again. The bathroom scales suggest a noticeable drop in weight, and a reduced fat percentage since Janathon began, which means I should be well set for some faster long runs throughout spring, and fitting in all my suits for another year.

The run concluded with a social coffee, and runners departed for busy days of taxi-ing kids around and visiting family. Me? I have an appointment with a lazy lunch and a comfy sofa, plus a couple of hours of television I have no intention of staying awake for.....


Summary:
Today: 12.2 miles, 1:55 hrs, 1391 cals
January: 305.3 miles, 44.39 hrs, 41183 cals

Deep mud and green sand

So the laptop appears to be holding up, so I'm blogging while the illusion is maintained.

Great run this evening. A few weeks ago I'd looked into a circular trail run starting from Tom's house in Godalming. Trouble was, I couldn't find any decent trails to get us back to his house. However, running along the Wey towing path a fortnight ago, I realised we could simply bolt the final part of that onto the loop, do a bit of mappery to get the ends to meet, and hey presto, a beautiful looking twelve and a bit mile run.

So tonight we ran it, in temperatures hovering either side of freezing.

Private - no access!

I have to say, the start wasn't particularly auspicious. We found some amazing running across a wooded hillside, but not on the trail we were looking for. An early glitch never bodes well, and by the time we found the place we should have been, and ominous sign warned that a key footbridge across Busbridge Lakes was closed. Just two miles in, and the route would have to be detoured. Thankfully, Tom suggested we go for it anyway.

Half a mile further along the trail, we started to run past remains of the old footbridge, and with the sound of running water coming from far beneath our feet, we came upon security fencing with signage stating "Private - no access". Since Tom and I are both quite private people, we figured this meant we could go ahead, so we squeezed past the barriers and tiptoed across the semi-constructed scaffolding that had been erected in the bridge's place. Fortune favours the brave.

Running continued, mostly using well worn, and incredibly muddy bridlepaths, south over Hydon Heath, and the highest point on the route, Hydon's Ball. Seizing the opportunity to guest-bag another trig point for my running buddy Pyro, we had a quick squint at the view, and starry sky above.

From this point we picked up the Greensand Way, which is predominantly very poorly waymarked bridlepath. We alternated between stop-starting with map and compass to determine which of many tree-littered micro-trails we should be taking, and slogging uphill in steep sided, hoof-poached gullies. I kept thinking how depressed somebody like me would be if they'd included any of these trails in a biking route...



Extreme Trig Hugging

The Greensand Way turned us north again, and the running finally picked up, as wooded trails became enclosed footpaths between level fields.

Edging towards Bramley we saw our third owl of the run, swooping ahead of us between the natural archway of beech trees, but kindly perching on a branch to our left, to let us have a better look at him. I don't think it's any coincidence that we saw no rabbits tonight.

Eventually Tom recognised our position as we honed in on Godalming, and picked up the pace. Including half a mile of faffing about at the beginning, we'd been out a little longer than planned, and our wives were beginning to wonder whether we were going to make it to dinner.

Tom and I are both running early tomorrow morning, in different places. As much as our wives support us in our foolhardy endeavours, with what they already put up with, we know better than to bug them for a lift home.


Summary:
Today: 13.0 miles, 1:58 hrs, 1757 cals
January: 293.1 miles, 32.44 hrs, 36792 cals

Injury!

Bad news today - so an early post from me.

I've not run yet, but am looking forward to a decent yomp on a new trail with Tom tonight.

But right now, I'm feeling very edgy about a core member of the Local Adventures team, that may hamper our Janathon chances.

The laptop is injured.

Earlier this afternoon, my Explorer went haywire with security warnings, something it's never done before. A call to IT support suggested a full backup and reformat would be required. Backup now complete, it'll have to limp through this weekend, before being collected by courier on Monday, and sent up north. I have reservations as to how well it'll operate until then, let alone what I'm going to do without it for three days, in a world of working from home, Janathon, and self assessment tax returns.

It would be typical of my relationship with technology, if 280 miles of legwork were to amount to nothing due to some internet virus crap.

---sigh---

On my command....unleash hill!

Getting through today's work day was a good feeling. Lots of "call me backs" logged with people who never call me back, and a clutch of emails hurled into the ether, and by seven thirty it felt like I'd been banging my head against a wall since breakfast.

However, text messages had been good to me. By eight o'clock it looked like I'd managed to line up a bunch of great runs over the course of the next few days, and as I leafed through my Janathon maps, I realised I'd yet to run my "normal" loop. Tonight's run sorted - excellent!

Everybody looks old at the top

That meant lightweight shoes (since I knew I'd be ankledeep in water in at least one section) and a little headtorch (I tend to remember where I trip up), and the only thing I'd do different for Janathon, would be to run it the "other" way round. I know, crazy.

It also would mean that for once that I could laugh in the face of Old Man's Hill, by going from top to bottom. This hill is usually the penultimate proper climb on a loop that gets progressively hillier, as the body inevitably tires. It's an enclosed footpath squeezed between high closeboard fences, and whilst it's reasonably short, from almost any point on the climb it has the light-bending qualities of an optical illusion. Particularly running it at night, whenever you think it can't get any steeper, you look up from your thigh-burning purgatory, and the path is still rising up front of you! With only twenty yards ahead of you ever visible beneath overhanging branches, you would be forgiven for thinking that eventually you'll be running up a cliff face. I love taking the uninitiated up it - the incredulous looks as they breathlessly creak their way out of the top - simply priceless.

The second good hill I got to run down today is in a location called Bourne Woods, and I use the word location for good reason. It's a patch of hilly, coniferous forest that is frequently used by film crews for creating ancient battle scenes. Russell Crowe is a regular, since many scenes of both Gladiator and Robin Hood were filmed here. About eighteen months ago, running buddy James took a group from our club for a bimble through Bourne Woods, which included a wide-eyed tour of a convincing medieval village, overlooked by a convincing castle, under the watchful eye of a convincing hi-viz-wearing security guard.

The "wet bit" of the run was indeed very wet, along a section of green lane where 4x4s tear up and down to see who's passengers can feel sick first. The result is a mile of track comprised of a neverending series of randomly spaced pits and peaks. The pits are almost always wet at the bottom, and the peaks are often loose, where they've been chewed by the undercarriages of a thousand ego-friendly futility-vehicles. Running this section is excellent training for core and lower body strength, which means for non-trail runners it's a baptism of fire. With no two steps the same, it's a constant test of balance, traction and stamina, as every body part is engaged to overcome deep sand, deeper water, and constant ups and downs in between. Every time I've been lazy here, I've tripped or stumbled, and on every occasion, I've landed in water. I love it.

And those are the highlights.

Which is the thing I most love about routes with character. They're like an old sweater, the more times you use them, the better they feel.


Summary:
Today: 13.1 miles, 1:52 hrs, 1841 cals
January: 280.0 miles, 40:46 hrs, 38035 cals

Oh no, it's training again.

Commuter day again today, which meant another round of jumping on and off trains, from bleary o'clock in the morning until half past knackered at night. Still, it's a straightforward (phew - I almost wrote "easy" then), way of chucking on a bunch of miles, and running to catch a train is a great motivator.

Stop start running is also a sure-fire way to get plenty of room on a train. I take a change of clothes to wear in the office, but the stinkies go back on again for the run home. Nice.

The weather on the way out this morning was surprisingly chilly, with dozens of icy boobytraps, left by men in transits who've tried fixing water leaks by ramming tarmac into wet potholes.

A couple of miles of running with my 15lb (I weighed it) pack soon warmed me up however, and by the time I sat in a warm train I was glowing buckets.
  

Local Adventures Chocolate Deliveries
(castles a speciality)
~ ~ 



London was wonderful again. I'd love to have been able to capture the panorama from Waterloo Bridge. In every direction, the city was waking up: floodlights still shining against a tapestry of architecture, but with the stone and glass facades warmed by a lilac sky. Truly beautiful in every direction, from County Hall, the Savoy, and the twinkling embankments up close, to the hazy Houses of Parliament and dome of St Pauls beyond. What a place.

Then onto York once again, and the three mile stint to my client's office. Today, running along the River Ouse (Ooze?), I appeared to have just missed the flooding: the tarmac path was an inch deep in silt, and the playing fields all around still feet deep in floodwater.

A day in the office, meetings over-running again, and true to form, I left the building about three minutes after I should have done. Hotfooting to the station at an uncomfortably rapid pace, I was constantly tempted to just throw in the towel and pay a zillion pounds for a later train, but kept on it, and arrived in a record twenty one minutes. Whereupon I had to cling to a noticeboard, as sweat poured, legs trembled, and the overhead signs advised me that my train had been delayed for over thirty minutes. Hmmm.

A good plod across London again, and by the time I alighted at Farnham for the last leg of the journey, the moon was really going for it. Having left a headtorch at home, I decided I'd make the best of the moonlight, and my low-viz clothing, and headed home past Farnham Castle for a quick photo, and a stealthy bimble across the park, under a moon so bright you could count the rabbits.


Summary:
Today: 15.1 miles, 2:06 hrs, 2062 cals
January: 266.9 miles, 38.53 hrs, 36194 cals

"This country is my canvas...."

"...I leave paint trails as I go. I'm painting a picture you can only see from outer space". According to Frank Turner, who was obviously dreaming up Janathon when he wrote it. I'm confident that this is the only rational explanation, because it's too much of a coincidence that the lyrics define my Janathon so far, and pretty much sum up my running, but also, when I'm running well, it's the perfect cadence for a compact trail runner like me (okay, so I so it's only 90bpm - but I do move both legs per beat).

Tonight, it never sounded better, running under a clear sky with a full moon, and never more pertinent:

It occurred to me today that if I overlaid all the routes I've run in the last eighteen days onto the same map, it would probably look a bit like Mr Messy, but with Mr Tickle's arms. Maybe about four arms actually, possibly with a few spare bits laying around.

I figured I might be able to connect a couple of those dismembered limbs to the Messy middle, which suits my OCD proclivities, and tonight's run was part of the process.

So I drove to Farnham Station with a heatproof-bag (explains why later) and caught a train to Guildford, from where I hopped onto the underwater Wey tow path heading south, until I reached the footbridge that marks the crossing point of the North Downs Way, whereupon I turned right.

Okay, so maybe I'll leave some for later

Run run run run run. Tonight I got completely lost. Not in a navigational sense, but in a consciousness sense. And it was great. Totally zoned out, mind wandering, as I just relaxed into miles of natural running. This is a familiar trail for me, and tonight it was running firm considering all the wet nonsense we've had. Oak leaves are finally piling on the ground, just starting to frost over, which seems a bit weird after two weeks of mildness, but I had nothing to grumble about. My feet felt like they were picking themselves up, I just had to keep putting them down again.

Twelve miles later I materialise close to Farnham Station, jump into the car, unzip the heatproof-bag, and insert into it a fine example of a Special Chow Mein, courtesy of the Tasty House Chinese Takeaway, in front of which I had parked. Nothing keeps you motivated like a kitchen about to close.

Joined up thinking - joined up running.


Summary:
Today: 12.0 miles, 1:41 hrs, 1675 cals
January: 251.8 miles, 36:47 hrs, 34132 cals

Perfect Ten

I subscribe to the Billy Connolly school of meteorology/fashion:

"There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes. Get yourself a sexy raincoat and live little!"

I also like to liberally paste the same principles over subjects like "the dark", "strange territory" and "unwelcoming terrain".

And so, this evening, I set off into a torrential downpour with a laminated section of map in one hand, compass in the other, and gert headtorch on ma heed. My goal? A ten mile(ish) loop of south west Farnham, following footpaths onto new ground, that the map suggested might be a little tricky to navigate at night.

Slightly damp underfoot



It started easy enough, with a little warm up along the top edge of Farnham Park, and on unmade roads I've run, and ridden my bike along before. Where tonight's route differed, was at a T junction in a minor lane, where I would normally turn left. This evening, while the rain limited visibility to maybe 30yds, I was going straight on, through an overgrown hedge, over the most rickety stile you could ever hope to break your neck on, into a vast and featureless grassy pasture, in the vain attempt of finding a distant fence crossing.

Now that the clouds had run out of cats and dogs, and had begun to rain old women and sticks, some canny mapology lead me straight to the fence crossing. The map revealed the line of the footpath followed a very slight depression, so all I had to do was splosh downhill, following the rainwater as it poured from the field. Another couple of stiles to negotiate, and the now enclosed footpath was becoming a torrent, scouring the gully clear of mud and leaves, and stirring up yellow silt from the sandstone beneath. Widened to meet the main A31, the slowing waters bulged into the near carriagway, where cars and trucks took turns to hurl it into the trees along the roadside. I decided not to hang about for the next one, and splashed my way across the tarmac to the comparative shelter of the driveway opposite.

Taking time to consult the map as water trickled from my nose in a steady stream, I considered that this evening's route may not have been best considered, given the weather. I realised I was about to cross the land belonging to a building called Willey Mill, which would indicate more water, and I recalled how this whole corridor of land was currently locked in a conservation row, during which it had been entitled "Farnham Water Meadows". Hmmmm.

Which this evening, turned out to be a quite accurate description. Once I'd negotiated the very un-waymarked Mill (if people worry about men in headtorches snooping around their expensive houses late at night, a few signposts might help), I crossed the mill race and overflow, set my compass, vaulted a four bar gate (there may have been a fifth underwater) and proceeded to ford a large field, disguised as a shallow lake, which stretched further than my headtorch could pick out in the rain. I figured I could always turn back now, but I was wet already, the ground underfoot was grippy enough, if a little damp, and whilst the water which surrounded me for hundreds of metres was all quite clearly flowing, it was doing so quite slowly. If I live long enough to have any, I shan't recommend this kind of activity to my kids, but I'm also unlikely to forget it.

With the water rising as far as my knees, and then gradually receding, I finally emerged onto visible land after crossing beneath the railway, through a concrete floored tunnel in which the photo above was taken. My route then rose to track level, and against the lights of Farnham in the distance, I could see islands of grass and hedge poking from a great string of black lakes, and the form of the river itself emerging and disappearing as the ground changed height.

My run continued, joined and rejoined by tonight's running partner, the Upper Wey river. Through Farnham, it raged under ornamental footbridges where children paddle in summer, and to the east in steeper ground, it enveloped the narrow riverside footpath, forcing me up into the ivy of the railway enbankment.

With memories of crappy runs washed away by the rising waters, I finished tonight's outing stood in a puddle outside my house, with a big grin on my face, rinsing my sexy running shoes.

Some days you train for the medals. Some days are the medals.

Summary:
Today: 10.1 miles, 1:32 hrs, 1388 cals
January: 239.8 miles, 35.06 hrs, 32457 cals