A new high

I have to tell you about yesterday evening's run - the longest run I've ever done mid-week, and another step towards the 70-mile-per-week barrier.

My club were meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park in the South Downs at 6:45pm - a bit late for a 15-mile run, and fiendishly hilly anyway. I decided I would set out from work at 5:00pm, run up there, and meet them at 7:30pm after their run, stop for the pub social, and get a lift back home afterwards. It would have been nice to run with them, but it was going to be 15 miles just to get there, and in any case, doing another 500ft climb at the end of a hilly 15 mile run is not my idea of fun.

So I set out, a few minutes late, and headed off over the marshes in an uncomfortable heat. After 6 miles at sea-level, the climb started towards the South Downs 9 miles distant horizontally, and 400ft vertically. By 6:30pm it was starting to cool down and the run was starting to come together. As the run went on, housing estates turned to pretty villages, to agricultural land, to downland, and finally to forest. Though there was plenty of flat running, progress was gradually uphill, the gradient increasing as I neared my goal.

With the increased gradient though, came the reward: the last couple of miles through the forest were staggering beautiful. I was alone on a narrow single-track road, completely free from traffic. To the left of me, shade from the hill, to the right of me the sun breaking over the brow, illuminating the lush carpet of green under the immense trees. Something was managing this environment - maybe man or, perhaps more likely, the deer and rabbits, trimming the carpet and keeping everything neat, tidy, and picture perfect.

The narrow width of the road, and the lack of kerb, fence, hedgerow or other devices meant that you felt part of the forest. This wasn't a dividing line separating the forest into 2 halves with you in limbo between them; this was more like a forest track. You were part of the forest: the light, the shade, the colours, the smells, the silence. Fabulous!

Perhaps this is the true runner's high?

15.3 miles slow. Schedule continues.