Week 7

Tuesday

After having done  over two miles hiking in thick mud and wet grass and a several hours of bathroom and kitchen cleaning, I was already worn out when I got to the club for our run.  There was a light rain so we decided to do swap Thursday’s 3 mile run for tonight’s 5 miler.  Hazel and her friend Karen joined and for some reason they ended up taking the lead at a faster pace than me and Kath are used to.  It didn’t seem too bad running out towards Baddeley Green but it was very tough coming back.  None of us could really say that we’d enjoyed it but at least it got done.

 

Thursday

Oh boy, did we regret swapping the miles around on Tuesday.  The weather was very foggy, damp and cold and we were not happy to have to do 5 miles L.  We did the Keelings Road to Birches Head Road route but got slightly mixed up with the distance.  Apparently we should have gone to Lime Kiln instead of Cromer and then carried on Hanley Road so that we’d run up Bartholomew Road.  That would have been 5 miles but instead we ended up doing just over 3.  We decided not to worry as we could catch it up before the end of the week.

 

Saturday

Just 4 hours sleep but I was still just as excited about parkrun as usual.  It was a cold zero degree morning and I knew that I would have to run there and back to make up the 2 miles I’d lost so far but the difficulty would be to decide what to wear.  In the end I decided on a tee with a long sleeved running shirt and an ordinary cashmere jumper on top followed by a running jacket.  That combination seemed to work as I was cold but not unbearably so and I got hot towards the end of the parkrun but still managed to stay warm enough in the cafe; success.  74 runners joined us and Anne came for her second run and got her first pb.  Kath and I didn’t try to break any records and finished 54^th and 55^th but we thoroughly enjoyed it again.
 

Sunday

The snow that we’d been threatened with didn’t arrive but we woke up to a very frosty morning with bright sunshine.  It’s so rare to see the weather like this that when we do; it feels like a heavy weight has been lifted off.  Kath and I were in a very sprightly mood setting off for our first 10 mile run together.  The last (and first) time I ran 10 miles for Congleton half I ran with Sam as Kath was on holiday and I think that run put Sam off for many weeks.  Maybe I shouldn’t have included a run to Penkhull as part of the course?  Anyway, since it was very cold, we didn’t want to run too far away from the car in case we got soaked or got too cold, so we did two trips to Hanley which included a quick toilet stop at Tesco’s.  This time I was prepared and brought us some marshmallows to have after the 8^th mile and this made the run seem a lot easier.