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.
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