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| Air!! |
Blog no.2 for today. I had to do separate blogs, I think David and Pherenice's love story warranted a special blog all to them selves. What a special moment, and I was so pleased that I was there to witness two friends getting engaged in front of 566 runners!
Back to this morning though. It was particularly early, for a Sunday, for me anyway! We were getting the 08:00 train from St Mary's Cray so I had to get up before 7 just so that I can get a cuppa at least. As usual I went to bed quite late and then I tossed and turned until I eventually went to sleep! Why do I do that, whenever I have to get up particularly early then my brain refuses to shut down! When the alarm went off I really felt as if I had just put the blimmin' thing on! I had remembered to get everything I needed for today ready the night before, so it was just a matter off shoving on clothes and grabbing stuff from the table. I texted Wendimoo to see if she was going by car and fortunately she was, so she came and picked me up! Always good to car share! And then we drove to St Mary Cray train station!
We were fairly early with only one other person that there. Just a few minutes more though and then rest of the train crew started to arrive. As before, there is the 6 miler and the 17 miler, both groups will be getting on the same train tho. We, the 6 miler's will be getting off the first stop, the rest of them will be travelling on to Wrotham! Here's a pick of most of the two groups waiting at the top of the station, and down on the platform!
We always seem to fill a carriage up and there is chattering everywhere, something the other passengers probably didn't want to hear as they came home from work or maybe they were going to work, but still wanting a nice quiet journey!
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| Just some of us, check out more below! |
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| Groups 1 and 2 make a Super Group! |
IllustriousLeader was leading for the first part of our run, then we will say goodbye to the faster runners who will be running with ZippySherry and Debbie. So all that was left in our group, the group 1's and 2's were 14. Becky and Gary were doing the train run for the first time, in fact, I believe this is Becky's longest run too! How exciting is that, although she did look a bit nervous! IllustriousLeader start off running, away from the station.....at a brisk pace! "We shall just have a warm up slow run first" she said "Just gentle at first" she said "We shall all stick together" she said! Well, I know what happens really, because I have done it myself on a good few occasions. When you have faster runners next to you, you kind of forget about pace and just run with whoever is next to you! So when we come to the place where we split the group I was pretty much warmed up! We watched as ZippySherry and Debbie took off with their lot, and IllustriousLeader and I had us lot, making up the 14. Oh, by the way, I think the Swanley crew had the most partakers than the Wrotham crew, not that we are competitive or anything!
Anyway, from this point we did run along at group 1 pace, the faster group 2'ers were at the front while me and Becky were at the back, the only group 1's here, even though Carole and Michael were here, they really are group 2 or higher! This is a lovely route, it is all on road, quiet lanes, but it's so pretty. Added bonus we don't have to clean off mud when we finally finish our run! We ran passed a field at one point and if you peered through the bushes you could see Alpacas! I still find it amazing that we have these animals here. One of my fav films is called 'The Emperor's New Groove'! It's all about a Llama who used to be a prince! I just love it, I know Alpaca's and Llamas are two different animals, but I can never tell the difference between them! Here is a picture of them.
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| Honest, they are Alpacas |
We ran and chatted and walked when we needed, we also had some catch-up stops too. After all this is fun. We did some quality running though, and then that hill! Oh my goodness. The hill seemed to just go on and on! You think you are getting somewhere near the top and then just around the next bend it goes up again! We kept up with them though, well there wasn't too much of a gap between me and IllustriousLeader. I never had to whistle to let them know that we were far behind them!
It was a brilliant run, and really I was slightly, on everso slightly, sad to see that we had reached 'civilisation' again as the block of flats started to come into view. We had finished with the lovely lanes, with fields, Llamas, sheep and the dogs home. But it does mean that we are not far from coffee! As we passed by all the homes and the roads I started to think about that cheeky little blighter of a hill up to the station. I put it out of my mind and tried to enjoy the rest of the run. We had to go through a park, the last of the green places, just as we entered you could see were 'Doris' and made her mark with a tree that had half fallen across the path. We passed that and then thoughts of the little hill going up to the station started creeping into my mind again. My legs started to feel like lead, and so do Beckys! We were very close to our finish now, we just had to run to the second bridge which would take us to the Nugent Centre, the shopping centre....which was still all closed. We had a photo stop here, and this bit of the photo amused me, it's Gary, you can imagine him doing the 'Manaquin challenge'!
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| perfect mannequin challenge! |
And now its that road. We have to cross over the main road and then run straight ahead to the road that will take us to the station. When we come face to to face with it, it almost makes you nauseous! It just seems to rise up in front of you like a monster. Thankfully it's only about 30-40 meters (I am no good at guessing distances) but it is a big challenge after running 6 miles! Both me and Becky took a short walk before we got there, just to give us some extra energy, "Right, lets do this, just to the car" says Becky, and we both can see the just about a third of the way up. We ran as best we could, it felt like I was climbing a vertical wall. It was tough, but we passed the car, and then we passed the second car "Just to the lamppost" she said. And we did! We took a short walk and I could see all the others at the top of the hill waiting "Come on Becky, lets run the rest of it, we can do it" And we did!
Of course it wasn't the complete end, the end has ended until there has been some sort of liquid being consumed. As it was still early it meant Costa Coffee was our venue for a nice social. We all piled into our cars and then drove back to Petts Wood to meet up with the faster runners. This is us lot here, some had gone home, and two are from the faster group. And as you're there, why not throw in a plank! (I was demonstrating what a plank is)
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| 6 miles and a plank! |
A fabulous time, a fabulous run and fabulous running buddies. I don't think is a club that even comes close to how fabulous ours is!
Oh and check this picture at the top, did you notice?! It's me, with air!!! First one ever I think! Here are some more pictures of our run from various people! and our Geeky stats at the end.
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