Being a lady of a certain age, I am very used to waking early in the morning a split second before I have a hot flush (come to that I’m used to waking up every couple of hours some nights). As it happened this morning that pre daylight wake up coincided with my alarm being just about to go off, so I could fit my planned 7k in before my friend’s dogs joined me for the day. I left my husband in bed - I even remembered to cancel my second alarm so he could enjoy some extra shut eye, left the dogs in the living room and headed out, into the dark, zipping my hi-viz running gilet as I went.
Another hot flush hit me as I walked to the car to grab my trail shoes, which made the slight chill feel refreshing rather than cold. As I sat on the driver’s seat tying my shoes, I wondered whether I should grab my chest torch, but decided against it as the moon was still quite bright and even on the Downs there’s generally enough light from town to see enough not to fall over, plus the sun would be rising before I got home. That said, I was grateful when the security light at the local livery stables clicked on at my approach which made it easier to negotiate the very rough patch of path that turns into a permanent puddle in the winter. Though it came on a couple of minutes after I accidentally ran into their car park, instead of passing it 🤫
I did make use of the light from my phone a couple of times, but then I popped it in my pocket. I mention this because, for a change, I was listening to an audiobook while I ran and with my phone in my pocket the lead to my headphones kept flapping against my hand. And... Most peculiarly... that is what made me feel like I was in danger of tripping over 🧐
That’s weird, right? I’m running along in the gloom, on trails and rough finished paths, and it’s not the ground under my feet that has me worried, but my headphone wires 😲
After one short walk break near the golf course club house, 3.5k took me to the other side of the road along the top - which is useful to know, as I think I now have my 8k route for next week.
It was definitely getting lighter by the time I was on my way home, so I felt safe to pick up my pace on the slight downhill alongside the ‘fox’ field. Then to make life a little more interesting, I played with the remaining up hill sections -attacking one of them by just trying to pick up my pace the way I would do normally, and the other one by taking tiny steps more quickly. By the way? tiny steps more quickly felt really weird but wasn’t as exhausting, and did improve my pace, so I may have to work on that.
7K Today 
Round and round and round..... to 7K!!
Soggy 7k.
Unexpected 7k
