It’s a gorgeous sunny day here on the South Downs, so after taking the dogs for a quick walk round the park, I left them with the husband and set off.
Because I was already warm from walking them, but didn’t have the dogs with me, I could start running as soon as my Garmin had found satellites. Which I duly did, sticking to the grass verges as much as possible, and starting my audio drama playing as I went. Down the hill I live almost at the top of, along towards my running buddy’s house and then a quick zig zag behind it so I could take the least steep route to the top of the next hill. Reach the top of the hill and start down the other side. I’d been resisting the urge to look at my Garmin since the top of the hill, but gave in now-
-only to find it hadn’t started! I could have sworn I’d pressed start 🤦♀️
So now I had no idea how long I’d been running for, or how far I’d come 🤦♀️🤦♀️ On the plus side I knew my audio drama was 51 minutes and some seconds long as I’d chosen it specifically to be longer than the 50 minute run I’d been hoping to accomplish.
I pressed start on the Garmin and made sure it had actually started this time, and continued on: along the bottom edge of the field, past the ponies on the left, up the far side of the field, through the hedge onto the bridal way beyond - onwards and ever upwards - past a dog walker with her Irish Brace of dogs (a really big mastiff type guy and a little shih tzu). Got to the point where I expected to be able to come back onto the hill proper, only to find it has new barbed wire strung across the gap left by a broken gate; ran to the next gate where I had to stop to wrestle it open and then closed again. Only a small amount of - oh so very slight - uphill left before I could start back home. Reached the bench at the end of the path, and turned. Woohoo! Down hill or flat for the rest of the way now and I’m feeling fine. In fact it was one of those morning’s where I felt like a gazelle as ran downhill, with my feet light on the ground. I probably look like a hippo - a very red faced hippo! - but I don’t care.
I had to take a phone call from my son as I ran the last section (eldest grandsprocket has been poorly this week) and even managed to run (slowly!) down the flight of steps that marks the end of the countryside while I did so. Phone call finished I ran till the credits started on the audio drama and called it a day.
After a bit of mental arithmetic, I reckon I was running for close to 54 minutes, of which Garmin tracked me for 33 mins and says I ran 3.69km.
Next run is the Salomon beginners trail running ‘How To’ session on Saturday morning. It says it’s 7k, but I suppose I’ll find out on the day.
Two very different runs
Another NRC Run 
Interval run - experiment
