Well, here we are again. It's the end of August already and I suppose that heralds the end of Summer and the start of Autumn, just time for one final Hurrah, in the form of the August Bank holiday and then it's all down hill from there.
I suppose the big question this week is, what did I do with my extra day off? Well, grab a brew, pull up a chair, and I'll tell you all about it. But first, an apology for last weeks missing episode in the exciting life of Paul. And that folks, is exactly why I missed last week, because I didn't do anything exciting at all. What! I hear you say, nothing of any interest, unbelievable! Well, it's true I tell you. Ok, I'll admit that I had a few hours on the allotment, I soaked the bit of rail track that “The Emma” acquired for me to use as an anvil, in citric acid to get rid of the rust and gave it a coat of paint. I added a few running and cycling miles to the years total and I went and had a mooch around the Basingstoke Festival of Transport in the sunshine on Sunday afternoon, where “The Emma” was shoving off “Roland Brat” her new shiny play thing. I might have done some cooking and T'cut the bonnet of the Bangernomics Peugot and I might have done a few other odd jobs, but that's about it. See, I told you, nothing of any interest at all, just a dull old weekend.
More importantly though, what about this weekend? Well, seeing as we had an extra day off, it seemed rude not to throw an extra days leave either side and make a real long weekend of it. And if I'm making a long weekend of it, then I might as well make the most of it and get some running and cycling in too. But first, there was the small matter of scattering “The Old Cheese's” ashes. She's been sat, waiting patiently in her ern, alongside her beloved Peter for the right time, and as Friday would have been their wedding anniversary it just seemed right.
The trip down to Worthing to attend to those matters, gave me an opportunity to spread my sights a bit further for the weekend too. So, van packed, sad business attended too and by 5 O'Clock Friday night I was on the road heading for the Sussex/Kent border with my eyes on a bit of cycling and running. Tunes on, sun shining, brew balanced precariously in the cupholder that my flask doesn't quite fit in and I'm happy as Larry. Until, pooteling along some little county road, on route to my night spot and what's this? “Arrggghhh” it's only the red stop and battery lights shining brightly from the dashboard. Instant thoughts of impending doom and my expensive new engine flash though my head as I search franticly for somewhere safe to pull over! Stop, pop the bonnet and have a look. Well, it's still running and it sounds OK. Switch it off and have a look at all the normal suspects, Auxiliary drive belts still there, Alternators all still connected up, Batteries still got 12+ volts, fuses are all Ok. That's about the extent of my fault finding abilities by the side of the road and every thing's pointing toward Alternator failure! Backtracking a few yards along the road with my engine failure paranoia in overdrive, I find a better place to stop and call the nice man from the AA. An hour later the nice man confirms my suspicions, the alternators not charging the battery! On the plus side though, he says that It'll get me back home if he charges up the battery and I don't stop. That sort of screws my weekend plans though and for a short while I debated staying where I was and trying to find a garage to sort it out in the morning. I've been here before though, sense prevails and I run for home, getting back just in time for a quick beer to drown my sorrows with “The Emma”. As usual a good nights sleep puts things back into perspective and a quick google shows that the local motor-factors have got an alternator in stock, which puts a new plan of action in place. “I'll swap the alternator, which will hopefully fix the problem (or at least prove if it's wiring and not mechanical” and get back on the road again to resume my weekend plans. It should only take an hour or so to swap the alternators and get everything tidied away ready to head out again. Not so fast though daddy Oh. Those clever designers at Vauxhaul might have something to say about this master plan. A good look in the daylight and it doesn't look like too bad a job, whip out a couple of bolts, which I know will come out, as I only fitted them a couple of weeks ago, undo a couple of plugs and it'll lift right out of that gap. A gap that it's obviously been designed to fit through. Will it Bol***ks fit through that gap! Why oh why would you design something that you cant get out! Arrrrrggghhhhh! It would appear that the only way to get the alternator out is to move the radiator out of the way to make space. And guess what, to get the radiator out, you've got to take the Intercooler out, and to get the intercooler out, you've got to take the slam panel out, and to get that out you've got to take the bumper, grill and headlights out! I mean, why would you do that, unless you were having a laugh. I can just picture the design team Christmas dinner where they regale each other with stories of the stupid things they've designed this year and award prizes for the most frustrating! “Ha ha Giles, you should have seen what I designed this year, not only is it guaranteed to break after 5 minutes, but they'll never be able to get it out to replace it”. “Oh Tarquin, your such a card” Anyway, I digress as usual. So that little job that should have only taken an hour, actually ended up taking all morning and involved nearly as much cursing as fitting the entire engine did a short while ago. On the positive side though, once I had got it all back together, it fired up first time and the alternator now seems to be kicking out a healthy 14.7 volts, which is better than it's ever been. Another unexpected job done then and just in time for an unplanned bacon butty for lunch, washed down with a bit of “The Emma's” world famous Banana Bread. It was almost worth making the journey home just for that. But not quite worthwhile enough to keep me at home, there's still a weekend of running and cycling to try and squeeze in yet, after all!
The loss of most of Saturday obviously had a knock on effect on my plans for the remainder of the weekend, so having had a bit of a rethink on how best to make use of my time, I'd pushed down to the outskirts of Ashdown Forest, home to Pooh Bear and his friends, on Saturday evening, where I knew there was plenty of opportunity to get some good running and cycling in.
A good nights sleep, tucked away safely in the van, followed by a bit of a lay in and an extra cup of tea, saw me finally up, dressed and ready to rock and roll, in my running kit for just before 9. I'd scoped out what I hoped should be a scenic, yet challenging route and with the weather looking overcast and dull, (the perfect running weather), I should have been raring to go. Somehow though, my heart just wasn't in it as I set off and from the start I had the feeling that this was going to be a long hard day.
As usual, once I'd finally got going and settled into a steady pace, things started to feel a bit better and with some glorious views to distract me, coupled with some fairly technical trails and a complicated route with numerous twists and turns to navigate, the miles soon started to pass. If there is one thing you can say about this part of the world it's “its lumpy”, which seems to go with the good views and scenic territory. East Anglia is probably quite scenic, but you can never see more than 2 feet away as it's all flat, this corner of the South East, seems to hold more in common with Devon and Cornwall though, both for breath taking scenery and breath taking hills.
Climb, descend, turn, style, gate, climb, bridge, expansive view, road crossing, descend, stop to check the map, walk the steep uphill bit whilst getting your breath back, twist and turn, pause to admire the view, and repeat endlessly as the miles tick slowly along, never a dull moment and always something to be doing or looking at.
That's the beauty of running, on paper it seems like a dull way to pass the time, but once you get out there, your fully occupied. Between the map reading, watching where your feet are going and taking in the world around you as you navigate across this beautiful country of ours, there's never a dull moment. A missed turn, just after the half way point, saw me overshoot the van, where I had planned to stop off to refill my water and pick up a sandwich. The result was one of those problems that can only be solved with an internal conversation, “do I turn back adding a mile to my day, or risk pushing on without food and water”? My rumbling belly provided the answer and I backtracked to the Van for a quick stop, refill of the water bottles and grabbed some lunch before pushing on.
With the miles mounting after lunch, so my pace was dropping, and it hadn't been fast to start with. Today had never been about fast though, more about being in the outdoors and travelling through some new countryside. Never the less, even at my slower pace I had the distinct feeling that tiredness was starting to take it's toll. It's not so much the legs that go first, but my ability to think straight that often seems to be the first indicator of tiredness. It's the little things that tell, the missed turns, the confusion when you do get off track and the inability to quickly solve the problem and get back on track, all sure signs that the energy levels are low and it's going to be a hard few miles.
And as the miles mounted I seemed to be spending far more time trying to work out where I was and get back on track than I should have been. Concentrate me, we're over 20 miles in and there's only a few more to go until we're done. Just pay attention for a few more miles and it will be a lot easier.
That seemed to do the trick for a while, but eventually coming through 26 miles, that familiar feeling of loosing the will to carry on raised its ugly head! “What are we doing this for”? “This isn't fun”, “We ran an Ultra 2 weeks ago and we're doing a marathon next week, why are we pushing ourselves today”? And so it goes on, until either you block the doubting voices out, or you let them win. In this case, I won the fight for a while, until with about a mile and a half left to go, the path in front of me went straight up. Ok, Ok, you win today voices in my head, we'll walk the last bit if it shuts you up! Sometimes, you've got to learn to pick your battles, and in this case there was no point in beasting myself and getting injured just for the sake of pride, at the end of the day what's a mile or so of walking when you've already run 26? Ignominy of walking that last bit or not though, you can be sure of one thing. I'd had a brilliant day out. It may not have been fast, it may not have been pretty, but I'd been outside, I'd seen some places that I'd never seen before and I had that well deserved feeling of tiredness that comes from a big day out and a job well done.
With my legs still clearly remembering Sundays run and the day dawning overcast, damp and chilly, Monday was going to have to involve a bit of cycling. As I mentioned earlier this part of the country's a bit lumpy so hopefully today's efforts on top of yesterdays should test my old legs a bit,. At the end of the day, there's no point in making life easy and if it's not hurting it's not doing any good, or words to that effect.
Surprisingly, as I tackled the first of the climbs straight from the van, (like I said there's no point in making it easy), my legs felt strangely good, no lingering stiffness from yesterdays efforts, in fact better than they often feel on a normal morning commute. The question was, is that a good thing or were they going to fall off at some point during the morning, probably when I was furthest from the van, if normal proceedings are anything to go by.
What goes up, must come down, and that first short climb was followed immediately by a long gradual descent and another long climb, which pretty much set a precedent for the first half of the day. Easy slow climbing up, fast descent down the other side, rinse and repeat., happy days!
A few steeper bits materialised as the morning progressed but nothing to taxing and despite the morning being somehow chilly, yet humid at the same time, the rain managed to hold off. With nothing much of note happening, 60 miles through some glorious countryside, saw me back at the van in time for a late lunch and brew before packing up and heading for home. Certainly not the weekend that I had originally planned but a mini adventure non the less despite the Van problems at the start. I suppose that these things are sent to test us and it's certainly been testing me over the past few weeks, but in the same vein, it's all been a learning experience and I'm certainly far more knowledgeable and resilient than I was a few months back so that's got to be a good thing. Saturdays kerfuffle may have dented my weekend plans but it certainly didn't ruin them and if I can encounter a problem like that and resolve it myself and still rescue something from the ashes then that's a win in my books!
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Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
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