So, Lets do Mud! And Then Track.... With SLGR!

Hello blog lovers.

This morning was a gorgeous spring morning! Who would not want to run on a day like this!  I was in two minds whether to take the group through the woods or play it safe and do the parks again.  Although its good running through the parks, I don't want the ladies to get bored!  The roads around Petts Wood are ok, but then there is the traffic, fumes in your lungs, which is why I try to stick with running through the parks and paths.

But today, with the blue sky, the sun shining, and really feeling  like a perfect running day, the woods beckoned me.  I wasn't really thinking if the mud had dried out or not, I was just hoping that it wasn't that bad!

Richard was also taking his group through the woods as well, so it's kismit!  We just had to follow suit.  The ladies coming with me didn't seem to mind too much, they just love running.  I chose my route very carefully, trying to think of the driest route possible.  You'd think if you go running up and up, towards the top, away from the river, then surely it should be drier the higher you go, right? Right!

As we ran up the middle path of the woods I was smiling, it felt so good to be back in my beloved woods.  I was going to take them to the top and then left to run along to Botany Bay Lane.  Then there will be a bit of road work, to bash the mud off , if there was any of course.

Well, let me tell you.....there was mud, plenty of it.  It wasn't quite dry but it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be! When we got to nearly the top of the woods, just up ahead in front of us, we could see group 2!  We had nearly caught up with them!  We must have been running as fast as them, surely! You can just see group 2 in this picture .  We could do some quality running on most of the paths, and the woods smelled so good, the sun light shining down through the trees, it was just superb!  The dog walkers were enjoying being in the woods, and all the dogs looked like they will NOT be allowed into the house until they have seen the hose pipe.

Can you see group 2?

Most of the paths were passable with just a few very sticky bits that you either had to go through or pick you way around!  I chose to just plough my way through!  I had a change of shoes in my car (just in case!)  When we got to Botany Bay lane we had a little break as we waited for Viv to get to us.  She was busy ducking and diving between the bridle path and the pedestrian path.  But look at this..... You can see why we were waiting for her.  It seems that Viv is not that keen on mud, and has somehow managed to hover over all the wet bits.

The Bridle path and
pedestrian path!

Viv gliding through the woods.

The road part was probably a welcome relief to Viv! And it gave us a chance to pick up the pace a bit. But we were soon back into the woods as we touched on edge of  Scadbury Park.  Again somehow Viv managed to avoid getting mud on her, me Michelle and Wendimoo all had the same colour shoes........brown!

Can you tell which shoe belongs to Viv?

I had one last chance to get Viv's shoes looking like they had just done a 10k in nothing but mud!  I led them back into the woods to run down to Dog poo ally, and then run all the back to the rec.

A great run session, but Viv's shoes never got any muddier!  I should let her see this picture below, just to show her that it's all washable!

Once clean shore, one dirty shoe!

Track Session

Its that time of the month when the SLGR crew come and join us for one of our track sessions.  It makes for a massive turnout, which means massive encouragement from all and for all!  I have missed the last couple of sessions, due to rain and feeling yucky! (i.e. lazyitus) But after this mornings glorious spring like run I was feeling quite positive!

I drove down to Normans Park Track and met up with the PWR's and the SLGR's.  Our session was to run two 1600 m with 90 sec rest between and then two 800 m with 90 sec rest. Doesn't it look simple written down!  I looked at it on the Facebook page, and ...in my Old Girl brain....I saw it as 'Only 4 things to do'  Seriously that is how I saw it.  two long runs first then two short ones! "Easy peasy" I was thinking!

Of course when you are down there, and then realise what 1600m is (four times around the track non stop!) then the easy peasy turns into "Eh....What?"  Now, being an old girl, I still use 'Old money' when it comes to distances.  400m is once around the track, I get that (finally), it took a while for me to realise, but whenever PhysioMike said that we will be running 800m I always visualise running around 4 times!  I know! Maths is not my strong point.

So it was really helpful when PhysioMike converted the 1600m into 'old money'.....just about 1 mile!  Now that I can do that. I can visualise that, I can see that......and I can keep an eye on my Garmin which I have set up in miles!  So much easier for me.  I can run a mile, I know I can, I have done it countless of times.  Even on my long runs, its run a mile and then walk a minute!  In fact just what we were doing tonight for the first two miles, except we will have an extra 30 seconds rest!

We all started off together, there will be no way I will be finishing with everyone else,  that's for sure.  They all took off running really really fast and of course I took off with the, it's hard not too. I tried to keep up with them, I checked my Garmin to see how fast I was running and realised  I deffo had to slow down!  There was no way I could keep up that sort of speed!  I am old you know!

When P.M. called out my 'park run' time I was totally surprised.  30:30 or there abouts!  I don't think I have ever run that fast a Parkrun.  But if I could have kept that up for the whole session then I would be on for a PB parkrun time!

It was a great session, everyone had a great time, everyone encourages and chats to everyone.  I am useless with names, but people remember my name, and they say "Hi Old Girl, hows you doing" And that sets my brain cell going, digging in the depths of my mind for the names that I know are buried deep inside my head!  But one name I have remembered is Vicky!  When we had done our two 1600m sections we started off our 800m together.

She is obviously a lot younger than me as before we even reached the first corner she was pulling away from me pretty quickly, and she chatting was over her shoulder to me!  It was great to see some familiar faces as well from SLGR, Inky and OnePaceKat, complete with her union jack taping to her ankle!  And to see Kevin as well from Orpington Road Runners!  This is what I love about running and running clubs!  Everybody trains to together, you don't get that so much in the others sports, football for instance.  Can you image Millwall training with Arsenal, or Liverpool with Chelsea!

I was pleased that I had managed to complete all that was planned for today.  The faster runners however, while they were waiting for us slower runners to finish was taken to the 200 meters mark and then they had to sprint as fast as they could back to the start!  Wow, sometimes there is a good reason to be slow!

Here is some pictures from the track tonight, only the warm down stretches, as I really wanted to concentrate on running as fast as I could!

The 'gangs'

Hels leading the warm down stretches.

Geeky stats. You will notice the Garmin  had aHissy Fit!  It lost satelites for a short while!