David Currie

Yesterday evening I left work late, forgot that one our local roads is temporarily closed, drove past the junction I wanted on the dual carriageway whilst thinking about work, got stuck in traffic, and discovered that the usual entrance to the car park was closed. It’s therefore perhaps not surprising that I arrived at Wilverley more than 10 minutes late to find no-one in the car park. Thankfully though, you can see a long way across the plain and I just caught site of a group of runners heading north-west along the edge of the inclosure. You can see from the start of the GPX track below how long it took me to catch them and hence pause long enough for my watch to find a satellite or two.

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It was our last run from Godshill yesterday and for once it wasn’t raining. This week we had two people with maps (it seems to have become fashionable in recent weeks) and, perhaps not surprisingly, we finished the run in (at least) two separate groups. Sam’s party took the long track route back to the car whilst Neil and Peter led a select group of us in search of a small pond with an island in the middle of it! No idea why we had to find it and it would have been easier if we’d had Sam’s orienteering map rather than Neil’s OS map but we found it eventually. On the way back to the car I failed to believe my watch and instead followed Peter hence the figure of eight shape to the GPS track below. Neil, I’m fairly sure, took a straighter route!

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Tonight’s RR10 was out in the New Forest at Janesmoor Pond. The race started at a fast pace along the gravel tracks through the inclosure. My left knee was continuing to give me grief, particularly when trying to stride out on the downhills. There was too much gravel for my liking with only a short detour along a muddy ride in the middle (which is probably what most of the rest of the field complained about) and then the last climb back up the hill towards the pond offering a respite from the pounding. I’d hoped to be able to do some overtaking on that last incline but, despite having four runners lined up in front of me, I had nothing left in my legs and was overtaken by one other runner. I still finished in 18th place which is my best position so far this year.

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To continue a recent theme, I got wet again tonight when running from Godshill. Neil led the way with map in hand so we could weave an intricate route around the local footpaths and roads. There was a minor revolt when, having just climbed to the top of the hill, Neil disappeared off down to the River Avon again. Neil and Roderick did actually manage to make it back to the car before us but then they did have a map!

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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.

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This 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.

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