Day 57

Week 9, Monday 10th of September

I post-poned yesterday's 11 mile run until today. Kath is back of holiday and I was very pleased to run with her. I knew she will have a lot to talk about, so what better way to do it but a long run.

The route I had mapped was a challenging one and I hoped it wasn't too challenging. We started off in Burslem, as usual, but instead of running down hill as we normally do, we went up hill on Moorland Road to Smallthorne. We went virtually in a backward order to how we have done in the past and ended up running down Lime Kiln Bank to Leek Road and then to Stoke.

I had forgotten about the road works on Glebe Street but luckily the road was still passable to pedestrians. It was slightly unnerving coming across a big bunch of lads on bikes and some of them followed us for a while and shouted stuff that I couldn't hear, but probably wouldn't want to anyway. To avoid them, we ran in the middle of the road since the road was closed, that gave the impression we were in a race and I think subconciously I must have picked up speed because later I found out that from that point to the end of next mile, we did our fastest lap in just over 11 minutes.

We continued along Kingsway, Church Street, London Road to Penkhull New Road. I made two mistakes, first of all I did the cardinal sin of looking at the bank and secondly I continued at the fast pace up the bank. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long before I ran out of breath and had to resourt to walking. I was immensly disappointed because having ran up Milton Road, I thought Penkhull New Road as well would be doable. I didn't realise at the time that we had attempted to run it far too fast because I still have no concept of speed and this is something that will worry me for half-marathon running.

We walked up to the top of the bank and continued with the plan by running down Honeywall to Shelton New Road and then on to North Street. Half-way along there, the daylight disappeared and then the heavens opened. It absolutely bucketed down on us and we were soaked through within a couple of minutes. Never has running been as tough as this before. Our shoes were so wet that it felt like each one of them weighed an extra pound on top of their normal weight. My 'showerproof' jacke was soaked and sticking to my skin. So much for it protecting us from rain - ha.

We ran upbank along Shelton old Road to Etruria Vale Road. By now it was as dark as it could be but at least it had stopped raining. I guess the powers at be thought it was pointless to rain now as we couldn't possibly get any wetter. It would be more fun to wait until we dried somewhat and soak us again later.

We got through to Festival park and ran in front of the shops towards Greyhound way. Neither of us had ever tried to run up there but we both said we fancied trying it to see if we could. Now was our perfect chance at 9 and a half miles to see what it was to run a relatively massive bank even though it didn't quite have a category 5 steepness.

I really can't say that we 'flew' up the bank, but I was pleased that we managed it with comparative ease after the disaster at Penkhull. Later it turned out that this lap was the slowest one we did, but who cares, at least we got up it and were still running. I wasn't even bothered that it started raining again, not as heavy as before but still plenty wet enough.

It was quite obvious that we were tired when we ran the last bit to Burslem. We were both very quiet. I was thinking about the Congleton half and wondered how I would cope with it if the weather turned out to be like it had been tonight. I guess, I would just have to get on with it and get it done as I would never forgive myself, if I didn't make it.

Finally, we heard Endomondo say the most beautiful thing she ever has before. Eleven miles in whatever time it was, neither of us cared. We walked up the last bit up Hamil Road and decided beforehand that we were doing the stretches at home, because all either of us could think of was that wonderful, hot shower and warm, fluffy towels. Stuff the stretches!