.....Erm....It's still Raining!

Hello blog lovers.

What can I say? I wake up each morning looking forward to seeing blue skies, dry grounds with maybe a soupcon of a nippy chill in the air, after all it is winter!  Well that didn't happen this morning. The skies were grey with rain pouring out of it! Oh well, this is Britain, and if we only go out when it's sunny, then we will never go out and we will all be the size of houses!

I arrived at the rec and met up with the rest of the Thursday crew.  I.L. is recuperating from her sickness and I believe PinkladyJo is still hobbling with a sore foot.  Which means it is just me and Arvinder.  But he has decided to run with DiscoRich and his crew, understandable really, as he usually runs in group 4 I believe!

So of course there was just me!  Now I could go home and park my car outside my house and then do my usual 3.35 mile route,  I was planning to do a road route anyway.  After last weeks paddle through the woods and the change of direction, I decided that I would give it a miss this week, and try and get a good run in instead of a paddle! But then DiscoRich said "Why don't you come with us?" I though about this....for one second.....and said "No, that's fine, I shall only hold you all up" Which is not nice on this really wet horrid day!  "That's fine, we can loop back to you, we can still all keep warm" 

So in the end I started off with them.  DiscoRich was going to go through the woods, after the slight slating I gave him last week for hitting the pavements.  But the girls really didn't fancy the mud either today.  I think everyone was just a tad fed up of the wet weather now.  So a new route was quickly discussed, and when I heard, "Oh yes, we can go through Jubilee park and then over those little hills" and I am sure I heard Chislehurst mentioned!  Now to get from Jubilee Park to Chislehurst then the only 'little hills' that I knew about was of course Summer Hill! What have I just agreed to?

As we started running I already felt the divide happening, but I just ran that little bit harder to keep up with them.  Of course their 'warm up' first mile pace is a lot faster than my 'warm up' mile.  On cold legs, in the wet, and also feeling a little apprehensive made for a hard first mile.!  But the crew was as good as DiscoRich said, and looped back for me.  But by then, feeling guilty and puffed out, I decided to tell DiscoRich that he and his group carry on with the rest of their route, and I was going to turn left and head towards Southbourough Lane.  It will make for a good Thursday morning run, and I can wait for them at the rec, just so they know that I got back ok.

As I saw the last of the runners disappear from view I settled into my own pace, with my own thoughts for company.  And today, I really do have some lovely thoughts.  It made for a very emotional run down Southborough Lane today. I guess that is the one good thing about solo running in the rain!  I will tell you what my thoughts are, my thoughts are all about my first born baby.  My daughter, she is in Australia and she and her boyfriend are getting married today!  Or at least my today,  it's their Friday!

This is them, don't they make a beautiful couple!

The tears flowed, a smile spread across my face, as I thought of all that she had done in the 29 years she has been in my life.  Yes, it was an emotional run today, a mixture of happiness and sadness that I couldn't be with her today to watch her as she takes the next steps of another new adventure. That of being 'The Wife'

Just I kept up pace as I ran towards Pettswood. I walked a bit, I ran most of it, and I thought of my lovely family, and how I miss my little girl, even though these days I probably speak with her more than when she lived in the house!  All the while the rain came down, just relentlessly, when is it going to stop! At least my little girl will have a glorious sunny day down under in Australia.

When I got to the Newsshopper car park, I decided that I will head on to the left of me, and take the longer route back to the rec. Well, I'm wet, I'm out anyway, and besides I had to wait for DiscoRich to get back as well.

So that's what I did. By the time I clicked on the stop button of my Garmin I had covered 4 miles!  Well I am pleased with that! So Geeky stats for.

Club Runs - Pleasure and Pain(?)

Hello blog lovers.

Group zero to Hero!

Tuesdays is one of my favourite days of the week, it's club running day.  And now my group Zero2Hero is going really well.  We had the same people as last week, with just a couple of people who couldn't make it, but we also had one new person, a chap called Nick, that came and joined us as well.

HitchyJo and SingstarJo couldn't assist me today but the delightful Julia offered to come along and run with the faster runners, which was Nick and Julie.  My route for them today was just probably a tad over 2 miles, taking in the hill first. The hill is the one on Birchwood, it's a good hill to take in when you are first practising with the whole hill thing.  I remember when I used to look at this hill and think, "Never will I be able to run all the way to the top" I can now, but still very slowly!  I don't think I will ever actually 'beat' a hill.  You know, they way the elites just fly over them as if they are a minor inconvenience.  Any way, the group all managed to get up there,  Julia with Nick and Julie just seemed to fly to the top and beyond, and me with Michelle, Michelle and Lisa making sure that today, the hill didn't win! 

Everyone did really well!  The next part of the route is a nice and easy flat route to the roundabout and then turn left to enjoy the hill again, only going down! Although I started my garmin it didn't find us until we got to this part of the run, or at least from here it said that had ran for only a quarter of a mile! But I thought we had done more than that!

At the bottom of this road we turned right to go along the nice undulating road, the nicer way, with the longer hill being the down hill.  The two Michelle's and Lisa were doing really really well, they only had a couple of walking breaks for just a few minutes, and then just carried on running!  I think soon they will be ready to get back to group 1.  Once we start on the speed bits then there will be no stopping them!  We were lucky with the weather too, this run was quite a pleasant run!

Group 1

SingstarJo was leading today, thankfully she was back from Cambridge to be able to do this as I.L. is still under the weather.  Her route was her (Non flat)Flat route, which takes in cardiac hill, but going the running down it instead.  I was sweeper at the back, I am not feeling a hundred percent anyway, so I knew I would be at the back. 

This week at club we are having 'moving up' week, where we encourage people to move up to the next group, and the leaders will run at the slower end of their predicted pace.  I think SingstarJo did a remarkable job of persuading group 1 runners to move up as our group today was over half the size as last week,, either that of the weather has put people off from venturing out of the warm homes!  The rain had just started, just ever so slightly, but the weathermen has said that we are going to be for some rain!  Oh well, hopefully we will be back before it really gets started!

We head off towards Willet Way en route for Cardiac Hill. I am really looking forward to running down here.  Just to let the hill do all the work, and pick up the pace and not to feel it, is one of the highs of my running! I'm sure it is the only time time that anyone enjoys going down hill! 

I ran along after the group floundering at the back, really enjoying the little walking sessions that a couple of the other back markers were doing! Our next official stopping for a regroup was at the off license.  I just hoped I didn't keep them waiting to long before I came over the little bridge, the rain was coming down a little harder now. 

From here we were going to run to Tudor way and then turn into the Fairway and run along to Townsend road and then up there, turn right and back into crossways! Simples.  When we went under the railbridge I noticed that the rain was really coming down quite hard.  I must have been really concentrating about keep up with everyone that I really didn't noticed the rain at all.  My glasses was steaming up, and my legs were feeling very cold and very heavy!  I was looking forward to the end of this run, to get home and showered up and a nice bowl of homemade soup and bread!  so as the title suggests, this was the 'painful' part of my running today, although really I enjoyed it!

It was a good run and it was a good route too!

Here is geeky stats for group 1 run. and it isn't 5 miles as the Garmin shows, my hands were so cold and wet and my glasses steamed up, that when I pressed the stop button on my garmin, I head the beep to tell me it had stopped.   But when I got home I realised that I must have heard SingstarJo's Garmin being turned off instead!  Anyway, the route was about 3.5 miles long.  Nice and easy does it!

 

A Tale of Two Feet!

Hello blog lovers

It's Thursday which means it's mudfest day through the woods, with me leading! I do enjoy these sessions as I get to run through my favourite place, the woods.  I have ran through here alone, by myself, but those times have been when its dry and warm and sunny,  not as sticky and wet and slippery as it has been of late. 

I decided to leave my running jacket at home, try not be too wrapped up, usually I am wrapped up like an onion, but today......well today I felt more like a right plum! Because as I was walking through the gates of the rec I felt the rain just starting to come down. "Darn it, the only day I don't bring a jacket and it rains" I said out loud!

At the rec was DiscoRich with his lovely ladies and David waiting eagely to be told where their route is, but Illustrious Leader and PinkLadyJo from my group was no where to be seen!  I could either trot along trying desperately to keep up with DiscoRich's group or.......go home.....oh and do my own route around the pavements near my home..... of course!  But there was one other person that showed up today, someone who hasn't been running for a while and wanted to have a nice gentle run with his fellow PWR's "No, you don't have to go home" Says DiscoRich "Arvinder here can run with you, as he hasn't been running for a while" 

Now, Arvinder ,when he was running before, he was running in group 3 or 4!  But he did say that he didn't want to do the 5 miles that DiscoRich and his gang do each week, and was quite happy to accompany me on my route.  So there is no 'get out' for this Old Girl, just because it's raining, just because I don't have a jacket, doesn't mean I can be slack and go home, to a nice warm house, making a cup of lovely hot tea, have some breakfast, curl up under my blanket on my chair........and be totally cheesed off that I didn't go running!

DiscoRich is the first one to bail out of going through the woods, (sorry, it's not a competition of who is chicken, it is not a competition of who is chicken, it is not a competition of who is chicken!)  Ok, sorry, I mustn't gloat that I/we  are still  going to brave the woods!  DiscoRich was planning on a road and paths route, even though one of his runners had come prepared,  with a pair of spanking brand new, beautiful purple colour trail shoes! "I've had enough of slipping about in the mud, I've got these" she said as we all admired her lovely clean trail shoes. But alas, that still didn't deter DiscoRich from heading out to the paths and roads!

I, however, was planning on doing one our usual routes, through 'Dog Poo' ally and turn left to run along beside the rail way line.  But a lady walking, or should I say paddling along the very, very wet muddy path advised against that way, as a bit further on it was even worse that what we was looking at already!  And let me tell you, what we was looking at was a quagmire! So a change of plan, but still sticking to the woods, I headed on up through the middle so that we could run along the top of the woods down Goss hill.  The mileage is the same, more or less, so really its not an issue.  You would think that being as its the top of the woods, with the water running down, it just has to be better!

You would have thought so, wouldn't you.  But it wasn't. We had to pick our way carefully along the route, finding the less muddy bits to place our feet, running on the little gravel streams that look as if its the veins of the woods cascading down hill. feeding the stream at the bottom.  Avinder is doing a great job of finding the less muddy puddles. and managing to go splashing through the puddles.  But there is still......dun dun duuuun.......The Path At The Back of The School!  (pause for dramatic affect)

This path has been split in two, one side for walkers/joggers and the other side for all other woods traffic, i.e. horses and bicycles.  It's hard to decided which side is the most 'runnable' as both are really well used, so they are well churned up!  I opted for the walking side first, and was running side to side with the muddiest bit in the middle,  straddling along the path until this became to muddy, so I had to limbo under the wire fence and run on the bridle path.  I look behind me and noticed that Arvinder had decided to opt for the bridle path a little further back than I did. We had to limbo under the wire fence again further along here before we eventually got to Botoney Bay Lane.

As we just walked down a bit chatting I had noticed that Avinders shoes looked remarkable clean! How on earth has he managed to do that! Was he hovering, could it be, and dare I say this, could it be that he is lighter than me, and just don't sink into the mud,  could it be that my Christmas indulgences are still with me, pushing me deeper in the mud?  There is not much muddy bits to go now, I shall have to work on getting Avinders shoes the mud that they deserve!

Going down Goss hill was a bit scary. The path was very wet and slippery, and there is that stupid barbed wire fence on our right!  Again, my nightmare scenario comes to mind as I look at those sharp little points as I'm slipping through the mud.  Of course we made it, safe and sound. With his shoes still looking as if they just came out of the box!  There is no chance now of getting any sort of mud on those today.  There is only the road and through Jubilee Park to go now.

Next time Avinder, we shall christen those shoes!  Or maybe by then he could even buy some trail shoes.  Which reminds me, I must start looking for some for myself!

Here is a picture of mine and Avinder's shoes, seriously, do you think he could have hovered!!

Even with the 'soft focus'
there is no disguising the mud!

Geeky stats.

Club Runs

Hello blog lovers.

Group Zero2Hero

It's Tuesday which means club runs.  I am having my second week of Group Zero2Hero today, with a few more people.  In fact, there were six members to my group today,  plus also joining to assist me was HitchyJo and SingstarJo. It couldn't have worked out more perfect if had I planned it!

The four new members to the group are Michelle (now I did have a nick name for her, but do you think I can remember what it was?) And Michelle is a PWR who has been out of the loop for a while and is now getting back to her running. Also we have two totally new members to Pettswood runners and who are also fairly new to running is Lisa and Michelle,  they came along last week to the group 1 run. They did really well to keep with the main group but they felt that a couple of weeks in Group Zero2Hero would help them to get up to speed.

Also we had Julie who came last week, Tracy who is also a PWR and is getting back to speed, and a completly new person who turned up an hour early for the usual group runs but wanted to come along and that was Nora.  So that meant the leaders had 2 runners each to help lead through a 2 and half mile (ish) route. 

Again, this week,  it is all about the running, just to see where they are all, see how far the can run and at what pace. So no hill training, and no interval running.  Because I want them to get straight into the running, I did a warm up session, to get our muscles loosened up, and our heart rates going.  Also its a good way to look at the style of running they all do, and to offer any advice if needed.  HitchyJo took the faster to group, I took the middle group and SingstarJo brought on the last group.  Setting out of the rec we turned left and then left again, heading towards Pettswood, with those little hills on the way to get our hearts working just a little harder.

The group soon started to split into the three sections, I was so pleased that the two Jo's were with me today.  I couldn't have managed running between each of the runners!   We all settled into a good pace, steady, each pair going at their own pace with the leaders encouraging them all the way.

Our first stop, just to catch our breaths after the hills, was at the memorial hall.  Then it was through the High Street, under the bridge and the back down the road we just ran up!  But at least it is the nicer way of running this road, as the longer hills are the down hills and the shorter ones are the up hills.

We arrived back at the rec all very pleased with what they had done having enjoyed their run today, I know I did!  HitchyJo led them through the warm down to stretch out all those muscles that we had been using so that our muscles don't come scream at us later on!

I am loving this new group,  I love this encouraging runners to get back to running, or encouraging new runners to do their very best, just love it!  Who wouldn't! Fantastic.

Geeky stats for Group Zero

Group 1

Todays run leader is Illustrious Leader.  "Today it's going to be a flat route" she says in her briefing!  Well, unless she has a coach, (one with wheels and engine, not a smile and heartbeat) to take us to the flat lands, then I know there is going to be a hill in this evenings run somewhere.  It's all a matter of degrees or is it percent or steepness?  Anyway, somewhere along the line there will be a hill!  But I was still buzzing from having the enjoyable second session with my group, so I was like "Yeah, bring it on"  Well, I was sweeping so I could take it easy at the back!

The route is one of my favourite routes actually, as I never quite know where I am until we get to a certain road and then I think," oh yes, its this way".  I love those types of routes, as you never know how far you have to go.  Also the hill, which indeed is in this run, is quite a steepish one and it zigs and zags up, but it's not a very long one, thank goodness!  After that it is quite flat, all the way back to the rec.

I was running along with Julia who had been a beginner last year, encouraging her to keep on running,  especially on those hills.  But even I had trouble running up every bit of them!  But those little down hills, well we took advantage of those and just squooshed down them!

Group 1 was quite a large group now, and we had split into 2 distinct groups.  So, on one of the catchup stops we had a 'confession' time, about who could move up to group 2 if we have a move up week.  There were a few tentative hands that went up.  It's always scary moving up to a fast group, as you don't want to be the one that holds everyone back, but actually having a move up week, the leaders of each group will run on the slower side of their predicted pace, for instance group 1 runs at 11:30 to 12:00 min/mil, so if it had been us we would run at 12:00 mi/mi.

And also when there is a few people ready to move up then you can all stick together at the back anyway!  It's a great way to improve your speed. (something I haven't done so far!)

But todays run with my running club buddies was, again, a brilliant run! Love this running stuff! Love these running buddies!

Geeky stats (oh and ignore the last bit of my geeky stats, the route today was 3.55 miles long! I seem to have started my Garmin again while I was in the car!)

Solo Sun Day Sunday Run!

Hello blog lovers.

When I woke up this morning, I looked outside, I just felt that it was going to be such a lovely morning!  I knew that today I had  to go for a run at some point. Not only that but I was going to go Garmin free!  I had decided that much yesterday as I thought all the running that I have done! No pressure of sticking to a timed pace, no idea of how far I shall run, nothing but being out! Just getting out there and enjoying it! Now that's what I'm talking about!

So after church, and after a bit of shopping, and preparing Sunday dinner, I put on my running gear, and left the house.  There was no hanging about with my arm up in the air waiting for the satellites to find me, which was most refreshing (and not so daft looking).  My music going on in my ears and I was there, running along,  just out for fun.

Now, where shall I go?!  There is not many directions that I can take from my home, running, not driving I mean, that is not going to take me more that and hour or so to get back, ( I guess there is one pressure then, I don't want to cremate my chicken dinner!)  So I had a general direction in mind that I can take.  It's pavement pounding, but towards the end there is always Jubilee park!  If it wasn't so wet and sticky in the woods I might have thought about taking in some miles in there.  But today I just want to run for as much as I can.  I will betaking some walking breaks, I know I will be but I'm ok with that.  This is a fun time run, just out to have a great time.

So it was straight up southborough Lane to Bromley Common, and turn right.  Going this way I can add miles or take miles off depending how I'm feeling.  If I went left it would mean running up the A21, and only the A21, nothing but the A21!  Right on until Locksbottom! It's a good run if I was training to do something like a half marathon or a 10 miler, but I'm not, and I need to be able to change my route, go this way or that way when I feel like it. Turning right has loads of options to to go for.

I felt very relaxed as I ran along, the 'no agenda' run suiting me well.  Well, the only agenda is to run for about an hour or so.  Maybe next week I will make it a little more, who knows, but I am loving this Garmin free run.  As I turned the corner by the Dripping Tap I knew the hill at the end of this road was waiting for me.  But I just smiled. It's only a small hill really, but usually by the time I get there I am normally cream krackered!!  Getting up it in one go, jogging, is usually a struggle!

But right at that second, as I was heading towards the small hill,  I felt as if it wasn't even a slight incline, let alone a hill.  I felt as if I was running towards a down hill stretch of the road!  I have never felt this confident about getting up a hill! Yes, it's a small one, and yes, it normally gets to my psche first and I start to panic. But right now I started smiling, something I have done a lot of on this run so far, as I headed for the little lump.  I could see the railway bridge, and just on the other side is where it starts to rise. I ran towards it, I felt as strong as anything, squooshing past pedestrians on the narrow pavement as I started run up.  It felt like ........like......running along a flat part, I really couldn't feel this incline at all! How comes this little hill used to have me puffing out of my ass?!..... yet now here I was running right to the very top of it!  But then I had to stop! If I could have ran on I would have but I needed to let the traffic stop before I crossed the road!

After that very small conquest I ran on homeward bound still smiling.  I made my mind up I was definitely going to go through Jubilee park.  I felt as if I went any further then would be pushing it and spoil my great fun time run but going the shorter way through the play park that is near my home would leave me disappointed with myself that I didn't go further.  I really had a great run.  I must have been smiling as I was thinking about which way I was going because an old man waved and smiled over at me and I nodded in acknowledgement. Yup, I was feeling good.

Going through the  Jubilee park, with the sun just at its best, there were people walking their dogs, arm in arm with each other, they were out with their kids on the Christmas bikes and scooters!  We have all had enough of the rain, we have had enough of water and flooding of staring out of our windows wondering if it will ever stop raining.  We need to get out, I need to get out and breathe in and just enjoy being alive!

Estimated run 4 to 5 miles, estimated time, ooo, about 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes, put it this way, when I got back my spuds had only just gone in the oven, Big Son had remembered my instructions, and the chicken was smelling gorgeous!

Silence Is........Not needed here!

Hello blog lovers.

Well today I had no plans, apart from making sure Big Son gets out on time with everything he needed and drop off to the station.  Then I can go for my run.  Ok, I could have got up early, I could have enjoyed the short bright spell we had this morning, but my bed was just hugging me too much!

So after I dropped Son of, I came back, hoping and hoping that the rain will have eased off a bit.  But it didn't! In fact it got even heavy.  So I stared out of the window, listened to some music, sang some songs, tidied up, sang some songs. Then there was a break! As I was already to just leave the house (I left my jacket and hat on!) I made for the door, went out and made sure it was shut! 

It was still just slightly raining, just a few drops could be seen but that is something I can tolerate.  I can even tolerate the rain when begins after I have left the house.  But starting in the rain, coming from a nice warm house, with goodies in the fridge, to the grey, wet and cold of the outside was something I don't like to do.

I had my music in my ears. This run is going to start off with my  running to music style' And that means what ever starts playing then that is what I run too.  It could be blues, it could rock it could be easy listening or it could even be classical!  I am just going to run along to the beat of which ever fills my ears.

For the first half of my run I managed to keep that going, I had some good tunes blaring away that kept a nice steady pace for me.  I was a bit cold to start with, (I should have done some warm ups!) but once in my stride I was feeling pretty good.  The rain came down a tiny bit more now, but it was still nothing like it was, and besides, I am half way round. 

I was beginning to feel a bit tired, and I knew that further along this route I am going to use the 'lamppost' method again, no matter what music was playing, but it might help decide just how fast I run on the 'run faster' lampposts!  I was enjoying my run, I was enjoying my music, I always enjoy my running.  But the thoughts that were going through my mind just as I was running up Magpiehall Lane were "Old Girl, its blooming winter time, you should have stayed in and read a book" I was just over half way of the run today, and I have noticed that I always think things like this when there is just as much to do as I have already done!  I am sure there is a name for this 'Half way blues' if not, then I've just invented it! (or at least named it)

The music playing was taking my mind off the rain, mainly because I was thinking "I wonder if my IPod is water proof?" and the lampposts were coming up fast and furious! At least it seemed that way when I had the walking sections!  But it was nearly all over with, just the last road to do, non stop jogging along, no lamppost to worry about, the music was just there in the background as thoughts about getting in and dried off kept me running.

I got back home, stopped the Garmin and then took a walk around the green!  Yup, that's right, a walk in the rain before I walked into my nice warm home!

Geeky stats.

Muddy Pathfinder Day

Hello blog lovers.

Thursday morning and the day is bright! It's still remarkably mild for this time of the year. In fact it is so mild that I went back home to change out of my warmer top and into a short sleeved top!  I was looking forward to the run through the woods.  I am determined to find the path that I took the first time when I looked at the route for my first Thursday led run.

Illustrious Leader and PinkladyJo was with me today, and they were both ready for the traipse though the woods, and also to assist in a path finding, because who knows, there are lots of paths through the woods that we could take, and we may just run on a few! This is going to be one of the fun day runs where we are not sure where we will end up.

So first of all, we tackle the hill. Unfortunately for me, yet others just love, love, love, I still not a fan of hills.  All of my mantras, my evil thoughts and tricks and tips and wisecracks to get to even like hills, has still to work.  I am not going to say that it will never happen!  And as the delightful Illustrious Leader said as we headed up "This looks like a hill Old Girl"  "Yes it does" I replied to her "Unfortunately there is only hills in this part of the woods" 

I think during the summer months I will run from the rec, to the woods near me, and see if I can work out a nice Group 1 distance route that can take them with the time that we have on a Tuesday, or even for a Thursday session.  Sparrow woods are a bit flatter than Pettswood, Hawkwood and the others! 

Anyway, back to today.  The paths were still pretty sticky.  I was hoping that they had dried out a bit, like the paths and fields that we ran over on our Sunday Train Run.  Last year it was pretty wet and muddy, just like the paths in our woods today.  Oh well, onwards and upwards! As I thought, I really did warm up.  I had forgotten to put my hat on and little streams of....glowing ran into my eyes!  I miss my hat!  It was lucky I had a hanky with me!

Running along the top of the  woods now, parallel with the road,  I concentrated hard on paths.  I didn't want to pop out to early onto to the road, otherwise we will have to run on the pavement.  I saw a path that led to the road, but I had a feeling that it was too early to cross the road and we headed of take a slightly left deviation along a wider path. 

This bought us to the memorial! I didn't want to continue with the left path, and said that we should turn back and head for the smaller path that was just at the back of us. But the PinkLadyJo pointed at another path and suggested that one.  As I had said in the beginning, this is a 'fun path finding' day. An adventure, expedition through the woods! So we ran off on that path.

It was really quite nice, and I believe it was actually the very first path that I did by myself back in September! So I was very happy to have come across it again.  It bought us to the road, opposite the entrance to the path on the other side!  So now we can continue our run in the woods, and leave tarmac for a little later on.  And it was a very little later on.  We only ran through he for about 3 or 4 minutes and then we had to cross back over.  I was going to run down the road, and then down Botney Bay Lane but then Illustrious Leader reminded us of the path that goes through this lovely estate, with some beautiful buildings! 

I have not been down here before, it's always nice to head off on different paths.  It's not as if we are going to get totally lost.  After all, we have a main road on one side of the woods and the railway on another!  I guess we could end up running round and round of course! Now wouldn't that make for an interesting Garmin geeky stats map!

The path through the lovely houses bought us to a place I knew, and to where I was heading for anyway!  We had taken a short cut to get here!  It's good to know where these paths go, because we can build them into other routes!  Now that I know were we are, I continued to run the 'original skeleton' route before we 'fleshed it out with the new paths (or in this case cutting off a limb).

 Down towards the railway line now.  With maybe just a mile or less to go I suggested that we may have to run around the block before going into the ground, which both ladies were fine with.  It will give us a chance to bash the mud off our shoes!  And boy, did we need to do that.  A lady dog walker was walking towards us, and gave us a warning "You're doomed, doomed, if you go that way, its like a swamp down there, doomed doomed I tell you" Ok, so she wasn't that dramatic, but she did warn us that it was very swampy down that!

 I feel sure that the lady was right! This next bit of woods has to be the most stickiest yet!  Huge muddy holes with very little places to even tiptoe through.  We did as best as we could, having to walk through this bit.  I.L. had found a slightly firmer path and me and PLJ followed her behind.  I.L. has this super trail shoes that helps her to stop slipping as much! (My next pair of shoes, very soon) but then she was just following the muddy path around to the left, and I had in mind to go straight down. 

After the correction, and the warning of the lady dog walker going through my mind, we started back down the path.  It was then that I decided that this particular bit of path was the stickiest yet!  It was so sticky and muddy that I suggest taking a path to our left, one I feel sure that I haven't been on, (but probably have at some point, I am no good at orienteering) and just seeing where that brings us out.  P.L.J. has been on here before, as she regularly takes her dog for a walk here, so we was all in favour. And besides, the railway is just there, on our right, we can hear the trains!

I was quite surprised where it bought us to, as the path itself kind of snaked left and right, and when I saw 'Dog poo Ally' I knew that I had actually been on the path running before!  See, you can never get lost in our woods! It's impossible!  But we were still a quarter of a mile short of at least 5k, so the longer route to the park to finish up our muddy but very enjoyable run.

It was enjoyable ladies, wasn't it?

Geeky stats for you.