The loneliness of a long distance hasher

Spring has sprung, and so a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of ....

Here in 'la France profonde' something strange has happened to the weather. It hasn't rained for weeks, and every day dawns brightly without a cloud in the sky. Daffodils are in profusion and butterflies are a common sight. The prospect of a little light training seemed quite attractive, so I slipped out of the house this afternoon planning to spend about an hour trotting through the surrounding forest. I headed south initially, and after 30 minutes I spotted an interesting looking chateau high on the hill above me. I figured a short hill climb wouldn't do me any harm so I ran up to have a quick look. Just another fairy tale castle, one of hundreds in the region but still an impressive piece of engineering given its antiquity. I didn't want to run back the way I'd come, but I figured I could drop into the next valley, and heading east and then north I'd be home in about an hour. It was such a beautiful setting, so quiet, no cars and no people, that I slipped into a sort of a trance .... hello sky, hello trees, hello sun ... hello sun ! I was running towards the setting sun. Having lived in Australia for a while I sometimes get a bit confused about the sun, because at midday in Australia the sun is in the north, which takes a bit getting used to .... but it still sets in the west ? ... which is the same here in the northern hemisphere right ? I'm running west, and I need to run east ... and the sun is setting and it will be completely dark in less than an hour. At this stage I was running through thick forest with tracks leading off in all directions. I figured the best thing to do was to head downhill ... so I did, and after about 30 minutes I found myself back below the chateau (I later discovered that I had run a 10km loop). Now the sun had set it was getting cold. I was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and fortunately a light-weight fluorescent vest. I wear it all the time over here because it makes it less likely that the regularly inebriated local gun club will mistake you for something edible. There was no way I was going back into the forest. The shortest way back to the house was along a fast 'D' road that hugs the side of a steep sided valley. Dodging the traffic in the pitch dark was no fun but I managed to avoid any major conflict. I got home after 3.5hrs (about 35km) and I hadn't realised how cold I was until I found that I didn't have feeling in my fingers to turn the key in the lock. Now feeling much better having consumed half a bottle of local plonk, but I might need a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning.

posted by Steve @ 10:18 PM