A belated report on the last run of the month from Beaulieu Road. This is perhaps one of the nicest loops from this venue and on Tuesday we chose to run round it clockwise. About half way round the run we stopped for a breather at the Carter memorial. For some reason we’ve previously attributed this to a horse killed during a hunt but for the first time someone spotted that it was, in fact, “S Carter” which would seem to be a more appropriate name for a two legged animal. The only reference on the internet I can find is this photo so I’d be interested if anyone knows any more of the history.
Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
Memorial run
Friday, July 3rd, 2009Run the Pubs (and Car Parks)
Sunday, June 28th, 2009As regular readers may remember, around Xmas each year the Tuesday night runners do a run that takes in all of the pubs that we have visited during the year. This, it seems, was not enough of a challenge for Neil and he proposed that we should run not only all of the pubs, but also all of the car parks that we visit. This is particularly significant when it comes to our runs from Wilverley where we usual drink at Bank afterwards. As if this still wasn’t enough, Neil wanted to make it a round trip rather than the usual linear route. And, although to be fair he wouldn’t have known this at the time, he wanted to do it on a day when the temperature was in the mid 20s.
Uphill race at Manor Farm
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009This evening’s RR10 took place at Manor Farm Country Park. My legs felt tired from the off and, after a slow start, things never really got going. It may have been my imagination but there did seem to be rather a lot of uphil in the race. Despite looking at the map beforehand, I was also slightly thrown by looping north back in to the open toward the end rather than continuing own southwards in the woods. After some encouragement from Andy Morgan-Lee I put on a spurt in the last mile but only succeeded in overtaking two other Southampton runners, dying again before I could overtake the New Forest runner in the closing straight. I finished 24th which, whilst a slight improvement on last time, still leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Jon’s run
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009Jon made possibly his second appearance of the year to lead us on tonight’s run from Beaulieu Road. It was a nice new loop with a mixture of open and woodland. We were once again treated to bright sunshine although there was no breeze this evening which made things a little unpleasant. I’m afraid I wimped out and didn’t do the extra loop down to the south-east at the end. With touch rugby at lunchtime I thought I should be saving myself for tomorrow’s RR10.
New Southampton Orienteering Course
Saturday, June 20th, 2009We went along to Southampton Common this morning for the opening of the orienteering club’s latest permanent orienteering course. The map comes with three course suggestions which I duly ignored and instead went to see how fast I could get all 26 controls visiting them in any order. It took me 29’11 over 6.1km but, given the size of the red and white markers (about 1.5″ square) and the propensity for them to be hidden on the back of something in the general vicinity of the feature, it easily could have been under 25 minutes if I hadn’t had to do so much hunting around. This is at least partly because the club was not allowed to create any new fixtures on the common. Thankfully there was no temptation to dive off down the tiny tracks through the undergrowth as we weren’t allowed to map these either! It certainly took me to corners of the common I’ve never been to in our fleeting trips across the area on Tuesday nights in the winter. If you fancy giving it a go yourself, maps can be purchased from the Hawthorns Wildlife Centre down in the south-east corner of the common (which proved a pleasant enough location for a simple lunch).
Out of Touch
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009I made it out to Beaulieu Road again this evening and we had another sunny run, this time doing a anti-clockwise loop out towards Deerleap. I was grateful for the opportunity to vote for the short route on a couple of occasions as I was aching in all sorts of strange places having played touch rugby at lunchtime. (I’m glad to say that we won the rugby but I wouldn’t claim much of the credit.)
Trig point run
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009Having given myself last Tuesday off running (donated blood in the morning and then child minding would have meant missing the pub) it was good to be out at Beaulieu Road tonight. We had a nice sensibly paced run (which had nothing to do with Neil not arriving in time I’m sure) along a pleasant route out to the trig point near Bolton’s Bench. Jon Forster even made it out for possibly the first time this year!
Less than Leaping
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Not a great deal to say about last night’s RR10. My legs were still tired from the half marathon at the weekend and I still felt a bit drained from giving blood the previous day. On top of which the course was pretty dull, winding around the gravel tracks in the Inclosure for most of the race. I wasn’t therefore particularly surprised to be handed a ticket with the number 28 on at the finish.
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