1400hrs 11 Jul 2005 UTC Lymington
For the runners and walkers – I was shamed this morning by an email from the editor of the Sydney Striders Blister magazine asking for a contribution. ‘Nothing to say – not running much’ was about all I could think of. [Ed: http://www.sydneystriders.org.au/ ]
So climbed into the sweaty gear and took off around the Salterns – lovely run from the yacht haven around the dykes to Keyhaven. And back down the shady lanes – it was very hot indeed – never thought I’d need Oz marathon runners’ techniques here – run in the shade, find the headwind, wear a hat…shady lanes a bit of a relief, but lots of nettles along the edges. About 12k as a rough estimate and it took me about 75 minutes – handicapper please note. Fat – corpulent even and very unfit.
The Salterns are a bit of feudal history – they are salt pans formed from ancient gravel pits with dykes and sluices and they were used to evaporate sea water and collect salt. But – big but – the water, the land and the salt belonged to the King so the collectors were taxed and had to front at the Exchequer to pay their taxes. The exchequer is now a very nice pub called Chequers which can be fallen into if dehydration gets too severe.
And Keyhaven was where I had my first and for a very long time my only sailing race win in a serious race – possibly even until 1998. In a Mirror dinghy with Margaret and Judi – wonder where they are now. Ahh – nostalgia!
The to do list is about to be revised and I will start a pre-Fastnet diary for the countdown – it’s a month away from Yesterday.
The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added: