David Currie

Yesterday’s run from Canadian War Memorial largely stayed in the Inclosures which resulted in a bit more track running than usual. This in turn meant that we ended up crossing over ourselves a couple of times. I heard my first cuckoo of the year whilst we were out running; the less welcome wildlife were the midges waiting for us back at the car park. Driving home I experienced another truly English experience: Lyndhurst high street appeared to be closed due to Morris Dancing!

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With a different pair of shoes on I decided that my blister from the weekend could cope with an outing to the Forest. This month our start (and finish) point moved to the Canadian War Memorial, north of Emery Down. This week’s designated run was the “other two underpasses (backwards)”. Backwards meant anti-clockwise and for some reason no-one could remember ever having run the route that way before. One side effect was that we usually add a bit of a loop on to the end to kill some time – we tried to compensate for this by adding a bit of a loop on the start but failed to take long enough and therefore had to add another loop on at the other end (with some adding a bigger loop than others). Afterwards we repaired to the New Forest Inn to hear Stuart’s tails of daring do at the Marathon des Sables.

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After an enforced couple of weeks I made it back to Fritham for the last run of the month. Thankfully the afternoon rain cleared and we had a pleasant enough tour around the six ponds (clockwise this time). Canadian War Memorial next month…

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We made the most of the passing of the British Champs and tonight’s run returned to the previously embargoed Hampton Ridge. Numbers were down a bit on last week but still riding high. Unfortunately we enjoyed running across the clear forest floors rather too much and came out on the plain rather too far north. In an attempt to recoup some time we then didn’t head as far west which made things a little scrappy going south.

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As tradition dictates, with the clocks changed it was time to return to Fritham this evening for the first Tuesday night run of the summer. There was a cracking turnout with, if I counted correctly, 16 people running including a few new faces. The pace was a little faster than usual, particularly for myself, Neil Broderick, Ian Moran and Sam Massey, as the three of us had waited five minutes for Sam to turn up and get changed. Consequently, we spent the first three of the six ponds chasing down everyone else. 53 minutes is almost certainly my fastest time for that run!

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