Day 53

Week 8, Thursday 6th of September

Today's run should be 4 Miles and I was hoping that it might be a little easier to find someone to run with and it was.  I was hoping that I would be OK running with Liz S, Jo and Bobby, although they are all faster than me, Liz had told me she hasn't been running much. OMG, was I wrong.

We set off on a slight incline at a pace of about 10.05 minutes to the mile, which I could just about keep up with.  Then we turned right at Milton crossroads and begun climbing a massive hill, it just went on and on, all up hill.  Bobby and Jo were well ahead of me and Liz and just as we thought we got to the top, we turned left and climbed yet another hill.  By now, I was seriously struggling and Liz caught up with me.  I wasn't even interested in enjoying the spectacular view from up here.  All I could think of is the wonderful downhill that must inevitably follow all these banks.

Eventually, we started going downhill but it didn't really get any easier as now the speed had gone up again.  We got on to the canal, which was flat of course but, challenging from the nettles, cyclists, dog poo and insects, so no easy run down there either. 

After a slight detour up Leek New Road and down Millrise road, we got back on the canal and I was disorientated.  I could not remember for the life of me what the bridge at Birches Head looked like and thought every bridge we got to was the last one.  I even got up to look at one, totally convinced that it was the right one, but still was not.  I knew I had gone past the 4 Mile mark and wondered if I should walk.  The thought of being left on the canal on my own soon got rid of that thought and I plodded on with the others.

When we eventually got back to the correct bridge, it turned out that we had done 5 miles.  Now that I was back, I was glad that I'd done it as I wasn't going to be able to do park run this week.