Friends, hills, vistas, sheep, seaside, chips, and ice cream. Count me in.

Rich kindly invited us all down to his place last weekend for a run to the seaside, Homeward Round VII as it’s called these days, was planned to take a scenic (read: hilly) route from Hassocks to Hove with the usual amounts of new friends, old friends, and haribo.

As were waiting for our GPS signals it started to pour rain, even though we all had rain kit, we all chose to wait out the shower in the garage like sensible people.

After winding up and around the town we hit the trails and open skies.

I’m not going to lie, even at the social pace I wasn’t telling many long winded stories as we jogged up the hills (which is probably a good thing for everyone else) and used the trick “So, what was your last race like?” to keep the other people talking more than me. (seriously, runners love to talk about their past races and they wont notice you’re barely keeping up!) But overall it was a great run with lots of stops for stiles and bramble avoidance.

At the top of the first hill we took a few photos and then everyone absolutely bombed it down the hill. I mean, I thought I’d have a hard time keeping up on the uphills but wow, these were the real mountain goat deals I was running with. We all let loose and just flew down the path thinking for 0.00000001 second where to put your foot before trusting it and moving on to the next. It. Was. Awesome.

After some mud (it wouldn’t be the South Downs if there wasn’t) and a climb up Devil’s Dyke we could see the sea and headed straight for it.

Rich is not only a wonderful route planner, but also gives every passing runner and cyclist a hello and thumbs up, which just melts my crusty London heart.

A quick pitstop to say hello to Twitter friend Kurt at the Run Store, we spilled into Ramsbottoms making it just in time for the weekend happy hour fish special. Our table was quickly filled with fish, chips, mushy peas, buttered bread, tea, and fantas and we finally stopped talking for 30 seconds to take it all in.

Part to help the massive meal settle, and part because it was such a nice day, we all walked down to the seaside for one more indulgence at Marrocco’s.

With 3 scoops for £4.50 it wasn’t much of a question how much, just what 3 of the amazing flavours to have.

Peanut Butter Banana and Chocolate was my personal winner and would 10/10 get it again.  Proof is in the blurry selfies I tried to take but couldn’t be bothered to wait long enough for it to focus since it was melting before I could eat it!

Summer running for the win!