Running again, then stopping

 

The photo here is taken from the Suzy Smith Racing Stables web site, isn’t it lovely.

There was nothing preventing my copy of the photo, so a presume they don’t mind a small extra bit of free advertising.

I try very hard not to say things like “I hate this time of year”, because actually it wouldn’t be true, I love the colours of autumn.

It is also true though, that having so much less light, as Winter draws on, is something I am not at all fond of.

Good gracious, I thought this morning as I made our morning coffee before we got ready for our run today; its 7am and not properly light yet.

How I gloried in the full light mornings of Summer when we were being woken by the alarm clock at 4.30 am.

The early sunrise’s as we ran, casting our shadows so that we looked like very tall skinny people and having the woods to ourselves that early.

Now as soon as it is light, there are a lot more people out enjoying Angmering Park Estate’s probably nigh on 7000 acres of woodland and downland, hikers, dog walkers, runners and mountain bikers.

This morning Steve suggested that we might try a route that would take us through the horse racing stables.

We had not covered that part exactly for some time, he suggested it because he wondered if they still had any Parakeets in the grounds.

Weak story that, but true.

There is a bridle-path through the stables and beautiful house area.

Although it was the William Knight racing stables, they moved some time ago, to Newmarket I believe.

The new tenants are Suzy Smith Racing who are national hunt racehorse trainers.

We had started to notice the new strings of horses and riders out in the woods and on the gallops a while back.

We both love to see the horses and it was a relief to see race horses there again after the William Knight group departed.

 

Once we had passed by the stables area, we continued along the path, knowing it of old.

We have dog walked, hiked, run and ridden through there for many years, probably as many as fifty years or so.

We knew that we would eventually come out on the Monarchs Ways, that is the most commonly used track through Angmering Park Estate.

As we continued on our run, we met a muddy patch and Steve did a jerky slip.

He didn’t think he had done any damage at first until we started to run again and he clutched his Hamstring on his left leg.

Very sensibly, we stopped running and walked the rest of the route.

Once home Steve took a long soak in the bath and decided to rest the leg for the day.

He has used our old favourite cure all, the hot water bottle and put on some gel muscle relief.

Luckily there was something on TV to keep him seated, which was the Giro D’Italia.

To keep an eye on him, I brought my enormous pile of ironing downstairs and got on with that to keep him company.

He says the injury is not that bad but is just pulling a bit.

There is no urgency right now with our training and no events on the horizon until 2021 so now it is best to properly rest and recover properly.