Redbush Runner

Being partially deaf I don't tend to hear the really high-pitched birdsong.  However, the wood pigeons with their 'coo cooo coo cu cu' can always be guaranteed to have me pushing my head under the pillow. Not this morning, however.  By 6.30 a.m. I was running round Scout Dike Reservoir, enjoying the cooler air.  It seems a long time since I ran in anything remotely resembling a breeze.  The weather forecasters are assuring us that by 10 o clock it's going to be baking, so it was a case of now or never. It was beautifully tranquil, a bit too early for the dog walkers but not for the handful of anglers who were already casting their lines.  I'm always reassured by the presence of the anglers somehow.  I wouldn't want to be running anywhere too deserted.  On I ran, past the windmills, the cattle, the geese, over wooden bridges, along the slightly undulating path, ducking the low-hanging branches, dodging the odd stinging nettle, trying not to swallow ...

I've spoken to enough fellow runners to know that there's something in our thought processes along the lines of, "I'm only as good as my last race."  If the last run was a terrible one, we're inclined to fixate on it and forget about all the great ones we had prior to that. It's a ridiculous mindset, but I'm as guilty of it as the next person.  I know that I've come a long way this year.  I've gradually built up my fitness again after a painful thigh injury laid me low from November to early January.  My pace is finally back at the sort of level it was last summer - not blisteringly fast, of course, but quite decent for someone like me who (as my mum constantly reminds me) is "no spring chicken."  What's more, I've even managed to tick off a fairly significant item on my running 'to do' list, completing my first half marathon, which made me very proud. But this weekend it was time to tackle our notoriously hilly lo...