I woke up feeling a bit weird this morning - I went out for supper last night for my lovely friend Flora's birthday and I think I ate too much pasta. It was really good pasta though ... but I felt so FULL! The last thing I wanted to do was eat before I ran, but with the memories of bonking a couple of weeks back sharply in my mind, I knew I had to choke it down. I got the usual Pret porridge with mango and seeds, my traintime favorite!
I'd wanted to head back to the South Coast and do my favorite run, which is also the first one I ever did - Seaford to Eastbourne. However, I also wanted to add a bit to it because I wanted to do about 25K, so I decided to start from Peacehaven. My friend Debbie and I walked from Peacehaven to Newhaven at Christmas and it was sooo lovely! Luckily the trains and buses were working fine today so I managed to get down there in a reasonable time, and I could set off over the cliff top path pretty much on time at 09:30.
My first surprise of the day arrived when it was beautiful weather - it's bank holiday weekend, so obviously the weather should have been awful, and that was what had been predicted. However, it was lovely! This was good, but I'd only brought a sweater to change into and I'd left my sunglasses behind which was a bit of a rookie error - let's face it, when has the weather forecast ever been right?! - but in the grand scheme of things my sunglasses were an okay thing to forget and I thought I'd be cold after the run anyway as my body cooled. Since I was heading east though, I spent a lot of time looking at my eyelashes due to excessive squinting!
My second surprise was much better! More blackberries! I've only been over that path in winter but I tell ya what, it is FULL of natural goodness. I'm never sure if you can eat the berries that look like blackcurrants here, so I avoided them, but I got totally stuck into the blackberries (all thoughts of feeling a sick faded into insignificance beside the blackberries - I love wild blackberries!).
My third surprise came when I got to Newhaven and realised that you can't just keep going over the path, because there's an inconvenient harbor in the way. I consulted GoogleMaps, and it diverted me up and over a bridge, which was cool, and then back down on the other side of the inlet. I was a bit confused because instead of the perfectly normal residential street I'd been on on the other side, I was in some kind of industrial estate, but I figured GoogleMaps knew what it was doing. However, when it started to take me down what looked like a locked off alley I began to lose a bit of faith ... but then it diverted me onto a path along the railway lines. At first that was fine, but just when I got too far along to turn back, the path turned into ... well, not a path. More like a faint trail between brambles and thistles and cutty grass!!!! I couldn't see what on earth I was stepping on, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Eventually the brambles and grasses faded down a bit, but I still wouldn't call this a path!
Even though I was watching the path like a hawk and I was running incredibly slowly, I did take a comedy fall at one point - there was a hidden hole which of course I stood on with my bad foot and literally simply fell straight forward like a cartoon. If anyone else had been there to see, obviously I would've bounced straight back up like I was on a trampoline, but since I was entirely hidden by the long grass I lay there for a bit to assess. No damage was done - which was lucky, since how I'd have gotten out of there if there had been any damage is a mystery! I set myself back on my feet and kept going but walking this time, because it was seriously sketchy out there! Finally I hit Seaford and I've never been so glad to see it!
I hadn't eaten anything at that point, and I remember my friend Debbie telling me the other day that if she needed fuel (she's a serious cyclist) she would start to feel really down, rather than hungry. I noticed as I came into Seaford that I was feeling what I can only describe as sour! I hated everything at that point, so I tried out eating some ChiaCharge trail mix. It was actually really nice, although it took me ages to eat because I was sooooooo not hungry. It was good though because the next thing to tackle was Cuckold Mere and that is not for the faint hearted - it's enormous! I do really love it though, it's my favorite of the hills down there, so I was happy to have gotten back to it. I walked up and ran down the other side, which is pretty much perfect because it's a crazy steep ascent but a much nicer, gentler descent on the other side. I knew from the first time that that would bring me to Cuckmere Beach, the ankle-breaking beach which takes you to the Seven Sisters which are right in front of you as you're coming down the descent off Cuckold Mere.
The first time I'd gotten to Cuckmere Beach, there had been this little stream part way down the beach, but it was totally easy to get across - I just took my shoes off and wandered over, same like loads of people. Obviously, I was expecting to do the same this time. Uh-uhhhhhhh! This is what greeted me for my next surprise:
That ain't no navigable stream!!!!!!!! I did give some serious thought to just swimming it - it was boiling hot anyway and I knew I'd dry off pretty quick. However, I had my phone and all my food with me and it didn't seem that worth paying £600 or so for a new iPhone just to get over to the Seven Sisters. By that time I'd already gone 16K and I knew it was 5K back to Seaford, so I figured I might as well go back over Cuckold Mere and get the train back from Seaford since there was no way I was going down that stupid path again! It was still a 21K run which was fine, that was all I needed to do today, especially as my sketchy foot was protesting against being run on after having been fallen on (fair enough) and I have plans this evening so it was actually quite a relief to head back to London in time to have a bit more of a rest.
The sea was ALL KIND OF AMAZING today - from silvery green to a deeper green to a crazy Mediterranean blue. It definitely made my toil back over Cuckold Mere more enjoyable because believe me, that is not the direction to go in - the trek up takes forever and running down is so steep that you think you're going to kill yourself with every step, so you can't burn it down like you can the other way. Good to know for the future in case I ever want to do Eastbourne to Seaford (having checked the tides next time!).
Once I got onto the train, it was totally treat time! Of course, as soon as I stopped running I was hungry again, so I tucked into my peanut butter sandwich and ... ta dah ... banana milk!! The second I got into Seaford, something in my brain lit up like a lightbulb with the word "BANANA MILK" in bright flashing letters. I found some in the local newsagent and I have literally never been happier. That and a sparkling water (with my Whole Earth peanut butter sandwich that I'd brought with me) and I was all set for the journey home. I was also all set to be five years old again, but that is all good!
