Category Archives: Surrey and Sussex

151. Our secret space – Epsom and Ashtead Common

Posted on 10 June, 2007 by | 9 comments

When the worrying starts to hurt
And the world feels like graves of dirt
Just close your eyes until
You can imagine this place – yeah
Our secret space, at will
Snow Patrol – May 2006

New job. New town. New colleagues. New commute.

Less time to write. More time to worry.

It’s a sunny week in early June, when Epsom hosts the Derby. The biggest event in the flat-racing calendar. The original article, the horse race founded by Lord Derby, after which so many imitations are named, all around the globe.

A few weeks have passed, and it may be summer at last, but here in Epsom a new and unfamiliar mould is pressing all around me. The sun is high outside, and today I need to escape the stuffy office, the grim shopping mall and the choking traffic, and to remind myself of who I am. Just for an hour, I need to run.

On this day, of all days, I turn my back on the ladies in posh hats and the dusty punters with their champagne-soaked shoes and shredded betting tickets. I head out of Epsom the other way.

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Posted in 2007, life and times, music, summer, Surrey and Sussex, training

146. School cross-country – Clandon Park 10 km

Posted on 25 April, 2007 by | 10 comments

clandon-park-run-2007.jpgBack to the beginning.

The school playing field, on a Saturday, was a place I never knew. The only time I saw it, as substitute at hockey. we won 3-1, but the hockey coach refused to bring me on. I wasn’t picked again.

Now, thirty years later, I’m on the playing field again. I’ve picked up my number from the teachers in the gym, and ticked my name off on the list. And this time I’m ready, more or less.

There are a few of those long-nosed and lanky-legged running club runners you so often see in a local race – I can see them warming up around the track. But there are many more nervous housewives and out-of-training Dads, sipping anxiously on their water bottles. Revenge for a school career of sporting failures lies tantalisingly within my reach.
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Posted in 2007, Guildford, racing, Surrey and Sussex

138. A winter Sunday on the North Downs

Posted on 5 February, 2007 by | 12 comments

It was a perfect winter’s morning as I headed across the hills from Guildford towards Newlands Corner yesterday. The weather was just perfect for running, even if the combination of sun on frosted Chalk downland proved a tricky one.

The cinematographer duly went for a purler, very shortly after filming this clip. Fortunately, both plodder and camera emerged unscathed, if distinctly muddier.

Related articles:
58. Running in the North Downs
112. Forests of fire and iron – Surrey Hills 1
83. Seven Bridges Road – the Wey floodplain
113. The Pilgrim’s Progress – Surrey Hills 2
123. Bridge on the River Wey

2007_02_newlands-corner-006.jpg 2007_02_newlands-corner-007.jpg

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Posted in 2007, Guildford, Surrey and Sussex, winter

134. Before the mast: Pewley Down, Guildford

Posted on 19 January, 2007 by | 12 comments

pewley-down-and-st-marthas-hill-may2006.jpgI love Pewley Down.

It’s a wonderfully scenic and beautiful piece of landscape, right next to the heart of Guildford.

The land was given to the town by the Friary Brewery after World War I, so that the hillside could be protected from development and enjoyed by local people in perpetuity.

I strolled up here one lunchtime soon after starting a new job in 1995, and the outlook which greeted me that day is certainly the reason I moved to Guildford a few years later. I’ve enjoyed walking and running here ever since. With time, this place has become a part of me, and even of who I am.

The views from here, both over the Weald Basin and the Surrey Hills to the south and towards London to the north, are outstanding, as is the green prospect of the Chalk ridgeline from the fields and countryside around the town.

And so it’s disappointing to recount that Orange has long been intent on erecting a massive telephone mast high on Pewley Down.
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Posted in 2007, environment, Guildford, Surrey and Sussex

131. Brighton Rock

Posted on 4 December, 2006 by | 2 comments

The weather for this year’s Brighton 10 km was every bit as calm and sunny as in 2005, if nowhere near as cold.

brighton-rock.jpgReturning to this race made for a much more pleasant encounter with the scenic seafront esplanade, a backdrop which features so memorably in Graham Greene’s classic 1930s novel Brighton Rock.

And that tale of sordid seaside strife and natural justice found more than fleeting echo as I recalled the sad and painful script of last year’s race.
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Posted in 2006, racing, Surrey and Sussex

123. Bridge on the River Wey

Posted on 12 September, 2006 by | Leave a comment

I’ve run along the Wey towpath a thousand times. The river passes through Guildford not far below my house, and close to where I used to work.

From Guildford, I can head north or south to link with other paths and tracks on routes from 3 miles to 22. Some of my earliest, shortest and most faltering runs played out along the river bank, and some of my longest and hardest pre-marathon tests as well.

new-bridge-on-the-river-wey-shalford-guildford-2006.jpgI’ve run there in lunchtimes, mornings and evenings, from the office and at weekends, in spring, summer and autumn, and in dry winters, too.

And although the riverbank lies almost on my doorstep, it’s still one of the most beautiful places I know to run, just about anywhere.
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Posted in 2006, Guildford, history, summer, Surrey and Sussex