Club Run

Hello blog lovers.

I am so glad I have a club to go to!  It's flipping freezing out there having my club to run with is what gets me out there on these cold evenings!  A couple of the usual ladies are not here today, J.J. is off sunning herself and Tracy is not very well!  But LittleJ is going to be there so no one will be left behind!

The roads were very slippery out there, I wasn't sure which would be the best route to go! I know some of the ladies were a bit worried about slipping over.  I don't know about you, but way back when we were kids a fall would be followed by a quick cry, pat on the head and we were off playing, knowing that in a couple of days time you will have a scab to pick at!  These days, being a bit taller, the fall blimmin hurts!  My leg has some lovely colours going on after my fall last Thursday!  I decided on one of our regularly routes, as it has a couple of short cuts to get back to the rec.  I was going to go a bit slower than usual so we don't feel to worried about slipping!

I couldn't wait to start running, that first hill should have us nicely warmed up!  We can have a quick walk once at the top and then keep on going.  It was difficult to decide if running on the pavement or the road was better.  They grit the roads but the pavements don't get even an accidental dusting from the gritters! that go by! And then it's not all the roads!  But we did it, some on the road, some on the pavement!  It was the very shiny bits that we had to be careful off.

I felt nicely warmed up by the time we got to the top of Birchwood, just as well as I had forgotten my buff and my gloves!  But luckily my running top had sleeves that you can pull over your hands and put your thumb though the hole to keep them there!  The others all were nicely warmed up as well.  I got them all to walk briskly pass the first tree.  The roots on there could easily trip us up if we were not concentrating!  We ran to the crossing and crossed over.  Our next little hill is the one near Tillingbourne Green.  We were not going to run around there this time.  I think some of the ladies were pleased about that!  But we were going to do this little hill twice!  Not 'eye-balls' out (quote stolen from Tim the 'Headband King!') like we usually do, but just the same pace that we have been doing!  It's much to slippy to put on too much of a sprint!

After we did that we started on the long road all the way to the end, near Petts Wood Memorial Hall!   Just one little stop at the bottom of the hill at Crossways we ran all the way to the top.  I checked my Garmin when were were at the top, the time, not the distance, and I realised that we had plenty of time to go all the way around, Woodland Way, Great Thrift and Hazelmere!  I don't know about the others but that bit of our route I just getting fed up with!  I am not sure why!  Maybe I am going to have to do it in the opposite direction!  Familiarity and all that!  You know what's coming, you know what to expect, you can even predict your thoughts as you're running along it!  There is no cutting it out though, it's right in the middle of our meeting place! We ran along it, I chatted, I listened then I just ran it.  Not thinking about anything, just ran it.  We ran passed Little Thrift, I didn't even notice it.  If I did then the thought of "There is still three more roads that we have to run pass".  But I didn't see it, I didn't even notice the roads that we passed, I was just running along thinking Little Thrift  would be coming up soon.  So I felt really pleased to see that the first road that I really noticed was Towncourt Crescent, which means that Crossways was the next road, our road, the road that has the park entrance on!  It's finished.  That bit of road wasn't as bad this time around.  Sometimes you can just run!

So geeky stats for our slow, slippy run today