This evening was the first run, for me anyway, leading for an evening run in the woods! And it was just magical! I love the woods! It feels like a totally different run when it's done in the evenings, I don't know why, maybe it's the ambiance, with the sun going down, different sounds, the leaves on the trees making the woods just that bit shadier than it is in the mornings when I'm with the gang. The air feels nicer, it deffo smells better in there than on the roads with smell of the traffic assaulting your nose! Well, I guess Dog Poo Ally does have it's own....charms! But breathing in the clean, tree filtered air, filling your lungs, as you run up the hills......undulations that are in the woods, is just what is needed after the most lovely holiday over indulgence!
As I picked up Tracy I had some brill music playing, well I think it's brill, just to get myself totally hyped up to get a good run going this evening. I am so into Delirious and playing on my CD when I picked up Tracy was The Sound of Silence! This must be my favourite song of all time! Seriously, I have fallen in love with this band just because of that song! Full blast on my way to get Tracy, then the next song came on Never Wrong, this one really got me hyped up! Yup, Never Wrong, I'm not taking crap, not from those hills, I was going to beat them, run up every one of them!!
We got to the rec, and I saw Steph, one of the physios from Kings, she said she was going to look at PWR when I saw her at the hospital, and he she was! She won't be joining us in group 1 though, she's a pretty fast runner, so I think she said she was going in group 10! I wasn't sure how many people were going to be joining us in our group, I had missed the first run after the Graduation last week, but I was hoped that those that came, did so again, or maybe they even moved up a group already! I was really pleased to see them there for their second time since the graduation parkrun!
So our gave route speech, "We're in the woods today!" I told them, I think they were all pleased! We went in through Dog Poo ally and then turned right to run up Birchwood hill, which is the right side path! I kept going, along with the faster runners right till we got to the top. I sent some of them around the little triangle, which only a couple of them did, before the sweepers got to us. Our sweepers for this run was Tracy and K, and I do think Auriol stepped into lend a hand too!
I think everyone did pretty good, after we got to the top of right path. It's a relatively flat ish run all the way to the top of the woods, just by the path that leads down to Dog Poo ally! On the way to that point we had to stop passed by the Sun Dial, a memorial to William Willet, I thought it a great place to get a picture, here this is us, its about half way through our run.
Up to this point I think everyone was doing well. I had run a tad harder in places, not intentionally, I just seemed to have warmed up and just enjoyed the running! I had to make sure kept a good eye on my Garmin. I slowed down just a bit to make sure that I kept the group together, had some stops to have catch-up moments for the sweepers, which by then was being shared between Auriol, Tracy, K and Carole, they were doing a wonderful job to make sure that no-one gets left behind.
We ran all the way down Botley Bay lane to the little stream. There we waited for the others, pretty daft really! Water, warm day, hot sweaty bodies.....flying midges! We were like a giant takeaway for the insects that night!
We got back to the rec, everyone looked really pleased with their run, going through the woods, will do that to anyone! So much better than pavement pounding!
Geeky stats.
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