After the very wintry weather all week, I was a little fearful of turning out to run, especially after a couple of weeks with lots of stress and zero exercise. The weather was not a problem, being fairly mild and damp (at 4C) without wind, and I like the Hyde very much, so despite the temptation to have a lie-in, I went along.
The Hyde is a classic Sussex Estate. Very well kept small roads and tracks run through a patchwork of different kinds of woodland, plantations and open land to serve the large house and cottages. Some tightly packed plantations and newly planted fields put areas of “out of bounds” close to the centre of the map, meaning that there is bound to be a longish run down a narrow corridor at some point, but this is more than made up for by the deep valleys, winding streams, lakes and sheer variety of terrain, from mature beech, through classic silver birch or conifer plantations a great deal of which is very runnable.
I found myself in all kinds of physical trouble, fairly early on. My chest was tight, I felt I was struggling for air and I just could not keep moving. I just felt under the weather. By evening this developed into tummy upset, shivering and headache – maybe I had eaten something that did not agree with me. On top of this I made a ghastly mistake leaving two for three, which cost me at least 10 minutes. I am not sure how it happened, but I went round in a huge loop, starting off in about 90 degrees to where I wanted to go. I ended up completing at something like 19 mins/km the slowest for a long time and not surprisingly 29th. I was more surprised to see that I still beat a number of the regulars I compare myself with. Winsplits suggests that almost everyone had at least one or two controls which went badly for them.
There were some great moments out on the run. I followed the very steep path downhill from the bottom of the ride near 4 and found myself hurtling downhill across very slippery mud through thick trees, with no real way to control things, just hoping I would not fall – exhilarating. Somewhere else, I found myself running down a gulley filled to the top with beech leaves – it was like running across an air matress: with each step I was up to my knees in leaves, but as I pushed up to move forward I felt cushioned, almost bouncing.
I was pleased to find control 12 without any trouble. Last time I was at the Hyde I spent ages looking for the ride on which it was sited, and never found it, despite it looking that it should be obvious. Interestingly, the ride was obvious when you were in it, but I did not see it until I arrived there, the way the trees were lined up meant it looked like plain forest from a distance.