Birling Beachy Beautiful

Okey dokey, it’s been a little while since I last wrote a blog post – I have been a bit of a busy-Lizzie. So, here we go:

I can’t really describe how exciting my casual running wanders have been in the last few weeks. Yep, I have been full of every type of cold and bug, but when I have gotten out on those South Downs, it has been absolutely amazing. I love it. I think it might be one of my favourite places to run ever.

It’s so calm and beautiful up there, all your worries just flow out to sea. Last week, I ran a little further than Beachy Head, past the lighthouse and onto Birling Gap. It was quite astonishing to see the extent of the coastal erosion at Birling Gap and how destructive the sea can be. 

As we ran I noticed a lot of ‘Endurance Life’ race event markers, since it was their South Downs race series the other weekend. Unfortunately, it was sold out by the time I got the job in Eastbourne. However, I feel so thankful and so happy that I can run this route all of the time, for free. Okay, Eastbourne is a pretty small seaside town and there’s nothing amazingly special about some bits of it. To be quite frank, some of its inhabitants seem downright miserable. However, the surrounding scenery is just beautiful. 

In the last few weeks I also got to visit: Smuggler's Cave, Stone Henge, The Roman Baths, Brighton - lots of cool places :)

Running through the forest & mince pies :)

Ahhh, it’s nearly Christmas woooo 

I have been feeling particularly festive today. A friend from my old local running club asked me along on a trail run with a club of local runners - The Delamere Spartans - who do a lot of running on the trail. So, I got up early & he picked me up and we drove to Delamere Forest, which is about 15 minutes away, but really rural and very popular with cyclists, runners and dog walkers.

Mega sleepy eyes...

I was promised tea and cake at the end, so I was determined to join them... So, we arrived at one of the forest car parks for 8.30ish am and met all the other runners and we did a really lovely undulating 5 ½ mile run through the forest and off the beaten track. We also ran up some hills and went over some stiles and ran up by some farmland also. I had such a great time. It was so much prettier and more challenging than running up by the main road all of the time. However, I did go out for a nice run yesterday evening and I got caught in the torrential downpour, and that was pretty fun. I expected there to be lots of mud on the trail today. It was indeed pretty muddy, but there is nothing better than running off road and coming back with your legs splattered in mud 

There were so many nice people out and about this morning as well and friendly walkers saying ‘Merry Christmas’.

At the end of the run, one of the members who hadn't joined us on the run had pulled up his car in the car park and in his boot he had massive containers of tea and coffee, homemade mince pies and some Christmas cake. It was an awesome idea. I will definitely be going running lots more with these guys in 2014 for sure.

So, now I’m sat at home, chilling out with a bottle of Doombar. I’ve packed most of my stuff for London tomorrow, although I did have a stress before and I’m a little bit concerned about these supposed stormy winds and torrential rain that is forecast. The Virgin Trains website says there will be major disruption and my train is booked for 2.35pm, but their Twitter feed and website says that no restrictions will apply on advance tickets and that we can get any train tomorrow, preferably as early as possible, to avoid disruptions. So, I did some manic packing and I’m going to get the 7.35am train into London 

Well I hope everyone has a lovely and amazing Christmas, with lots of scrumptious food, some nice festive running and lots of loveliness.