Hello blog lovers.
Have you noticed how quickly the sun is going down in the evenings now. When I want to take my group 1's through the woods I have to think about quick escape routes to be able to get out of the woods and run on pavements for the last bits. It doesn't seem that long that we have been running in the woods. A couple of weeks it has been far too wet in there, I just so love running through the woods and I miss it when I can't do it!
Today I had planned to start off in the woods, then run through the housing estate at the top and then back into Scadbury Park. I thought we would just have enough light to do that, and maybe even finish up the last bit in Petts Wood, the part that runs parallel to Orpington road.
NaggyNeighbour was driving this evening and we picked up Tracy and Ade on our way to the rec. Ade was going to join in group 2 this evening, as it's move-up week. Naggy was going to try group 5, as she wanted to take it easy!! I know, group 5, easy, it don't compute! I wasn't sure I had the right fuel inside of me today, especially as I had planned these blimmin hills! I wanted to give our group a little challenge, just going around the woods, although it is just such peace and tranquillity in there, we still need to push ourselves just a bit to get fitter.
I took the middle path to get to the path that leads out of the woods and into the estate. It's a gradual rise to the top of the woods, but I had great sweepers in place, J.J. and Auriol, who will make sure that no-one gets left behind. We had to wait at the sign in the woods for our backers. We took a little walk so that we could get past the muddiest bit of the woods so far, it's where all the horses churn it up a bit when they are ridden through the woods (that is a word isn't it, ridden?) My English and grammar ain't up to much, I should have paid more attention in school! Anyways, once we were passed the muddy bits we had to take the right hand path that lead out to the lovely houses, they are truly love houses! Of course, we were at the bottom of the road, almost, we had to run down a very small hill from the woods and then it was a nice steady plod all the way up to the main road!
I was running up here on 'empty', I literally had nothing left. It's my own fault, I should have eaten properly, two weetabix and two slices of toast all day before a run in the evening is not good fuel for a 1 k run let alone 5 k! I passed on my new found findings to my group stating "the things i do for my group so that you dont have to!" I said first "You are what you eat, and if all you are going to eat is weetabix and toast all day, then you are going to be a soggy sorry mess on a club run" I don't think anyone actually believed I did this 'experiment' just for us in group 1, but it's still a lesson to learn. A good breakfast and a decent lunch, possibly a snack late afternoon will get you around an evening 5k!
The light was was still good so I took them through Scadbury Park, I am sure it will only be a matter of weeks before that will be the end of woods running in the evening! I will be planning pavement runs again. We ran all the way through the Scadbury and then crossed over the road once out of the park. It was still just about light enough to finish off woods running with the last bit running in the woods next to Orpington road. We came out of the woods by the bridge, as it was quite dim in the woods, I wanted to just run along the road passing Birchwood and then down the next road which comes out opposite the entrance to the park. I sent the faster runners on and I was there in middle. It was then that we had a faller! She came down with quite thump! It's always most horrible when we have falls, especially on the tarmac and pavements! We sat with her for a while until she was ready to sit up. We were at the top of the road, we could see the rec from this road, she said that she would walk the rest of the way. With her was Auriol and Selena and Tracy. They said they would see her back to the rec. In the end Selena drove her home and made sure some one was with her. I don't like people falling, but if it happens we have the bestest club that will rally around and make sure everyone is just fine.
So we ran for 3.25 miles, most pleasant, well apart from the fall. I love my club! I am glad SmartyPants put my name down for the 10k back in 2010!
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