It's Thursday, which means its our PWR Morning run. A slight mis-communication meant that Illustrious Leader wasn't with us today. But everything worked out ok as we had two groups, and I wasn't on my own. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make all the way round my planned route but with no I.L. here I had no choice but to get around! But the weather is not quite what we had yesterday! Its grey and overcast, with just a couple of drops of rain almost annoyingly threatening to bring drops others along to ruin the day!
PinkladyJo is back with us, her broken toe has healed she is ready to get back to running. We also had Caroline and......oh..... darn this grey matter of mine, names just seem to leak out of it! But we had Carolines friend as well, she arrived just as we was about to set off!
DiscoRich had four members of his group, and one turned just showed up to say that she couldn't run today as she had done something horrible to her fingers! And of course the big PWR spirit was there as we said "You don't run with your fingers, you could have run with group 1 today" A caring hardcore bunch of runners we are at PWR!
All set we headed off out of the rec running towards the cinder path today. The woods will most certainly be swamped and un passable by trainer clad runners, so sticking to the paths seems to be the sensible thing to do. But at least we will get some sort of satisfaction of feeling as if we are in the woods.
We went through the gate that takes us to the cinder path and we started to run towards it. When we got there we were greated with stipey tape and a notice saying that the patch was closed! Oh man! But then the workman said it was only close for a short section, the rest of the path was just fine.
So a slight change of plan, we shall do the route in the opposite direction and then come down the cinder path and pop through the last turn off before we get to the roped off section. So that's what we did. Me and PinkladyJo were both out of sorts, but the two other ladies were doing well, when we were near to the top of the road I sent them on ahead to keep running, then said to loop back if they wanted to. Me and PinkladyJo had just a short stroll to the end.
It fell good to get to the top of this road. It's up hill all the way, just a slight incline, but you can really tell. So the next bit of our run is going to be perfect. Running down and also running through the trees on the tarmacked path! But before we took the path to add just a little bit more mileage for the two fitter runners I sent them on the little loop around the road while me and PinkladyJo had a stop. But then it was ready to set off down the path, how I love this bit. The trees, the lack of cars, people walking, its just perfect.
We all was running at the same pace, just sticking together have a fab time. Then we spied the closed off section. We had just past the last exit from the cinder path, but then another thought came to me, that maybe we could exit the path via the park! At least that way we can still be running through the clean air plus have a bit of cross country to boot! I asked the ladies this and the were all up for it. So that was that.
Of course the path was a bit sticky, we found a few bits that were a bit firmer. But as we moved further into the woods it was becoming impossible to find any firm ground! Of Course I was in my element, but I was concerned about the two ladies that haven't been on one of my woody runs before. PLJ was up for continuing through to the park, "It's not that far now" she assured to two ladies, so they decided to carry on. I was just splashing through ankle deep into the puddles and mud, all those lovely memories of mum saying "Keep you shoes clean, don't get the dirty" came flooding back. One memory in particular came to mind when we were supposed to be kept clean for a wedding, I found a muddy puddle! Nice cute white dress with....muddy spots!
The puddles turned into little ponds which then turned into bigger ponds! We were having to find paths around them. But the park was soon visible and the tarmac was a welcome site for the two new cross country runners!
Our run was soon all over and done with, the sun evening managed to shine on us at the end. And I managed to run the whole of the route, well when I say run, I mean run/walk but at least I didn't take any shortcuts or quit! Just as well really as I was leading! Oh and talk about leading, I had a very lovely surprise when after I got home and was in the middle of my planks, and situps etc etc, a letter from the UKA and inside was this
I am officially a LiRF, it says so right there on my card. Happy, happy happy.
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