Bury St Edmunds Town Centre Five Mile Run

Saturday morning and the weather was set fair with a little drizzle in the air.

I was tired this morning before I started to run and consequently I ran a very slow five miles. It was however at the half marathon schedule pace of 9.09 miles.

I decided to run around the centre of the town which is possible on a Saturday before 8.30am as although the market stalls are set up there was very few people about .

I had the Abbey Gardens more or less to myself but unless you are going to run in circles over and over you need to venture a bit further afield if you are running five miles. So running out of the Abbey Gardens you pass through the old graveyard next to the St Edmundsbury cathedral shown in the  photo on this post.



There are many interesting old gravestones particularly in the old charnel. Mary Hasleton in the photo on this post was said to have been struck and killed by lightening in the act of prayer at the age of nine.

 The second photo is an epitaph to the prime mover and founder of Jamestown North America - Captain Gosnold. His daughter Mary is buried in this churchyard hence the naming of the place known as Martha's Vineyard

1st January 2010 - New Year Day Run in Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

As I set out for my run a heavy snow shower had just begun.This if anything hastened me out of the door not knowing if we would get several inches of snow thus making the pathways too slippery to run on. As it turned out it was just a shower and blue sky arrived 10 minutes later.

My route through Bury St Edmunds is depicted in these photos below . The water meadows along Cullum Road are  still frozen as temperatures continue to hover around freezing.

There was no problems with slipping this morning despite the tiny covering of snow if anything temperatures were a little warmer than of recent.

It was good to get in my first run of the new year. I still haven't got round to planning out a training schedule and haven't yet signed up to any races but I want to do that in the next few days.

Last night I believe more fireworks went off in our area than on the 5th November bonfire night. Eventually these ceased around 1.30am ,so I should have felt a little jaded for this run as theses kept me awake but I didn't have any problems.

I am continuing with my push ups programe and have completed week 2 of the training which finishes with what is called an exhaustion test . Basically you do as many push ups as you can until your arms won't do any more.

It has turned into a bit of a competition with my son who isn't doing the training programme. As he had recently done 35 that was my target and some how I managed to just do 36 to become the champion for all of five minutes. Until that is Tom did 40 oh well it gives me a new target to beat and hopefully I can do this in a week or so.

As I get further into the run the snow continued to melt and I stoped to take this photo of St Johns Church in the centre of Bury St Edmunds - you can just see the spire.

My last photo is taken along Eastgate Street and has a view of St Edmundsbury Cathedral

Abbey Gardens Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

7.50am 7.4 miles in 1 hr mins 2 seconds
Week to date mileage 40.6 miles
Month to date mileage 18
Average weekly rate 30.2 miles
Average monthly rate 131
Year to date 1056
Lifetime 10649

After a good weeks running and feeling a little tired I decided to take it easy on my hour run by doing a circuit of my nearly measured circular run. Starting at the Ouida memorial at the bottom of Vinery Road I head up hill along Hardwick Lane.Following the road around in a circle to take back towards town along Cullum Road before heading back along Out Westgate Street and back to the Ouida memorial. Has any read or got an Ouida novel? A 2.21 mile circuit according to mapmyrun.com. I didn't run very quickly but ran an 18.20 time.

After this I turned back along Out Westgate Street and into Bury. The Albert Buildings and the Chapel both date from 1840. At this time Bury St Edmunds had just gained its first Police Force in 1836 the gas works had just been built but the town had yet to be connected by rail to any other towns.

We are very fortunate to live in Bury St Edmunds and have the wonderful Abbey Gardens on our door step. It is a place I never tire of visiting and it makes a great place for a run. It was here I headed next.

It was quite at this time of the morning with just a few early bird families heading for the swings and one or two tourists consulting maps. Running here doesn't feel like work at all as you are totally distracted by everything around you and time passes though the benches looked tempting.

Bury Town v Ipswich Town Reserves

Bury Town Ram Meadow - St Edmundsbury Cathedral in the distance.


Bury Town 1 Ipswich Town Res 0

I visited the Ram Meadow in Bury St Edmunds to watch Bury Town play Ipswich Town Reserves in a pre season friendly. Just over a 1000 attended this match which is about 5 times the normal gate for a Bury match. The kick off was put back to 8pm as most people like me arrived at the ground just 10 minutes before kick off as you never usually get any que to get in.




These are exciting times at Bury Town as they have been promoted to a higher tier of non league football to play in the Rymans Divison 1 North. They certainly seem to have a decent squad and one that is capable of doing well in this league.




Daniel Cunningham scored the only goal of the game which was a well taken volley after 20 mins. For long periods Bury defended in depth and played counter attack. Barber in goal for Bury was man of the match.



For Ipswich Scott Baron and Danny Haynes were given full games. Jim Magilton was there to view his young players of whom it is hoped 1 or 2 will make the step up and start pushing for the 1st team.

A good fitness work out for both sides

Rushbrooke Suffolk

9am 10 miles in 1 hour 20 minutes

Week to date mileage 36

Month to date mileage 146

Average weekly rate 35.2

Average Monthly rate 153

Weather: Cold hard frost clear skies and sunny

Course:- Set out from Bury along Cullum Road and through the water meadows. Past the Haberden where many people were gathering for
a rugby match and out on to Rushbrooke Lane. This was rather slippery this morning and the road was white with frost.

Along this road near Southgate Farm I expect to normally disturb the animal kennels and set the dogs barking but of course it being the winter presumably no boarding animals and all was quite.

The road starts to rise as you reach North Hill Cottage and today I decided to follow the pathway over North Hill Covert. I don't think I have been over this path since I used to
regularly visit as a boy to earn some money fruit picking. I believe we used to generally pick raspberries on this farm and although it was quite hard work and you would get spiked a lot on the thorns you could also eat as much as you liked. I think we filled plastic buckets which were then emptied at a farmers trailer to be weighed and if you had too much stalk or leaf you were sent back till it was filled properly. When the farmer was satisfied I seem to recall we were given some metal tokens. At the end of the day you queued to exchange these for real money. Looking back these were great times! However now
all this has seemingly been replaced with pigs and what a paradise they live in. Plenty of mud to wallow in lots of straw and the very fashionable outdoor metal hut. These are springing up all over Suffolk and must be a good earner for the farmer.

Home Farm at Rushbrooke is known as a model farm village. The thatched houses are in a beautiful quiet setting.

Returning home over the North Covert height being all of 65 meters above sea level there is now a terrific view of St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Something that obviously wasn't there when I was a boy fruit picking. I was tired running today but I have had a really good month of training so far and I have beaten my highest total mileage in a month already. My best being 145 last year. In February I expect my mileage to slip a bit as I prepare for 2 and may be 3 races if I run the Lakenheath 5 next week.

Cullum Road/Ramada Hotel and Newmarket Rd Bury St Edmunds

12.45pm 5.4 miles in 42 minutes 42 seconds.

Year to date mileage 10.8

Month to date 10.8 miles

Weather: dry mild and sunny.

An easy but slow run around the centre of Bury. I haven't dared due anything longer or harder as I still have a rotten cold.

Forthcoming races I am considering entering include the following:

5th February Lakenheath 5 - Anyone have any details on this race ? I can't find anything on it but presume it starts from the cricket ground.

19th February St Peters Brewery Great East Run 20k at Bungay . This year they have dropped the 10k race which is a pity as 20k seems an odd distance. However this is a great race and must be recommended to anyone who has never entered before. An added attraction is at the finish you are well looked after with hot soup and a free bottle of the distinctive beer from
St Peters Brewery. Even if you don't immediately recognise the name you will know if you have had one of these real ale beers from a supermarket because they come in an unusual oval shape bottle. Some of their best beers include Suffolk Gold and Golden Ale. That's three great breweries in Suffolk along with Adnams and Greene King.

26th February Muscular Dystrophy Bury 20 & Nearly Ten from Nowton Park Bury. As I am planning to do the Bungay race and I don't think I am ready to run 20 miles just yet I am going to enter the nearly ten. Yes I am whimping out but its more realistic.

Horringer & The Abbey Gardens

9.30am10.5 miles in 1 hour 25 minutes 38 seconds .

Year to date mileage 1231

Month to date 34 miles

Average miles per month 109

Average weekly rate 25.2

Weather: Dry weak sunshine.

I decided to run out to Ickworth Park but changed my mind as the section I have to run on road beyond Horringer Farm was too busy with cars.

Instead I double backed on myself and got another surprise. Another bra has appeared in the trees at Horringer Farm this time a bright red one. There was no sign of the previous one which I photographed on Sunday. Very curious obviously bras grow on trees!

I ran up to Hardwick Heath and then down to Bury Rugby Club at the Haberden. Went along by the River Lark and into the Abbey Gardens. If you visit Bury St Edmunds you can walk among the ruins of a once great Benedictine Abbey. One of my photos shows the ruins and beyond St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Bury's cathedral was originally the parish church of St James. Building works were completed this year on the tower. The cathedral dates from 1503 so it has only taken 502 years to complete.

The Abbey Gate with the portcullis dates from the middle of the 14th century. The original gate was destroyed by poor Bury folks in 1327 on an attack on the rich inhabitants of the abbey which resulted in the Abbot being kidnapped.

Bury St Edmunds Town Centre

5.30pm 5.5 miles in 45 minutes

Year to date mileage 1008

Month to date 63 miles

Average miles per month 108

Average weekly rate 24.8

Weather: A very wet day damp and cool - lovely!

Course: Another run around the town centre which didn't follow any particular course. This is quite refreshing in a way not to follow any particular route as you don't have any particular times in your mind as to how quickly you should reach a certain point. The downside of running without a route is it can lead you up blind alleys.

Running around 6pm means competing with busy rush hour traffic. You can't easily cross roads which means you end up hanging around for a gap in the traffic to nip across in between cars. So having a route planned out for the dark nights which avoids traffic is a must.

The photo is the Abbey Gardens Cathedral during the height of summer. I'm missing the sunshine already.

Roll on the week end !