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| South Downs Way sign near Littleton Farm |
Last weekend Claire and I grabbed a rare day in the bank holiday weekend sun on Sunday to run from checkpoint 3 at Littleton Farm to Checkpoint 4 near the River Arun.
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| Claire running up towards Glatting Beacon on the South Downs Way |
We set off with the aim to run a fast pace of under 12 minute miles again. We have also been mixing up our training by taking advantage of some of the fitness classes at Charterhouse Gym as we got 2 weeks free memebership for helping to marshall the 1k, 4k and 10k Godalming fun run recently. These various classes are all helping us to run faster over longer distances.
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| Lee running over Bignor Hill on the South Downs Way |
We’ve been learning more and more about Gurkhas lately , and although everyone knows who Oxfam is we took some time this week to learn more about their history and what they do as they are an equal part to this years fundraising.
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| Claire crossing the busy main road near Coombe Wood on the South Downs Way |
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| Lee running towards Houghton on the South Downs Way |
As we ran down to Houghton we got to see a few open fields with Oil Seed Rape in, which reminded me of our long runs through Kent on the Greensand Way this time last year.
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| Claire running towards Coombe Wood on the South Downs Way |
We managed to find the place where checkpoint 4 will be (despite forgetting to take the trailwalker guidebook with us) and we had maintained a good pace for the first half of our 12 mile run.
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| Mountain Biker on the South Downs Way on Bignor Hill |
On our way back over bignor hill we stopped to have a better look at Tobys Stone. This turns out to not be a grave but actually a mounting block for horseback hunters. From Tobys stone we could see clearly to Hascombe Hill to the north near where I live whilst at the same time being able to look to the coast in the south with Bognor in the distance. This was our first run on the South Downs Way where we could actually see the sea.
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| Tobys Stone on Bignor Hill – South Downs Way |
There is also a Roman Villa nearby in Bignor which is famous for its mosiac floors.
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| Roman Villa sign on Bignor Hill on the South Downs Way |
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| Roman Villa at Bignor on the South Downs Way |
The return run felt much harder than the run outwards. When we looked at the guide later we realised this stretch of trailwalker has a strong downhill bias from checkpoint 3 to 4 so the run back was far more tiring.
I munched 5 trail bars on the drive back home whilst Claire noticed that there are a couple of Antique shops in Petworth. (by a couple I mean mainly )
Our next run we have decided will be to run to checkpoint 5 and 6 and back which will be about 22 miles. I realised that I’ve entered a new stage in my life, age and running when I’ve spent all week being excited about buying a new lightweight small Osprey rucksack.
Please remember to visit our fundraising page here
